In Miami, Barry Jackson cites TV sources as saying that
the WWF "took away" Miami's XFL team "because of concerns
about attendance" (MIAMI HERALD, 7/14). In N.Y., Phil
Mushnick notes that the "obscene marriage" of NBC Sports to
XFL Chair Vince McMahon reached the "commercial stage" with
ad promos running on NBC's broadcast of MLB's All-Star Game
on Tuesday (see THE DAILY, 7/12). In one, McMahon states
that XFL QB's "won't be wearing panties," which Mushnick
calls "terribly sexist" and "referring to the perceived
softness of NFL QBs, fellows who weekly suffer concussions
to the point where they're forced to retire." Mushnick:
"But that's McMahon. His sense of sports entertainment --
and now NBC's -- lies not in people watching football, but
in the hope of people, especially kids, watching someone get
brutalized" (N.Y. POST, 7/14). FSN's Jim Rome noted the XFL
promos and stated, "You know what scares me most about this?
You know it's going to work, if Vinny Mac can package and
sell a bunch of sunlamp-using, roided-up freaks in tights
and masks, he won't have any trouble getting his sheep to
buy into this. This guy may be the devil walking on the
earth, but this garbage will hit, just like all his other
garbage" ("Last Word," FSN, 7/13).
