Sorry to Other Sports, But I Want the XFL Back Most of All

It is rare that life affords us the privilege of knowing when we’re doing something for the last time. I couldn’t tell you anything about the last ball I threw for my dead dog, Texas Ranger (RIP buddy), or sweated my ass off for the final time on the ratty seats of my first car. And if you’d come up to me as I held my big beer in the nosebleeds of my very first XFL game and said, “Enjoy this, sucker, because you’ll never do it again,” I would’ve burped in your face to the tune of, “Yeah, right!!!! ” But that was nearly three weeks ago—basically a different lifetime, as things have been going—and this is now.

The XFL, like almost every other sport, suspended the rest of its season amid the coronavirus pandemic. It was absolutely the right call, perhaps no group of people were less equipped to social distance than my fellow XFL fans, but is also an unparalleled bummer. I’ve seen all the regular versions of football—high school, college, NFL—and so can say with at least some authority that the XFL is by far the best one. While almost all pro sports now have been statistics-ed and metrics-ed and analytics-ed to death, the XFL bears none of that weight because it’s too new, so chaos can, nay, must reign.

I was raised to believe that sports are meant to be fun and cool, which the XFL seems to have kept in mind. At my game, I watched players throw t-shirts into the crowd and dance openly and with abandon on the field. Fans playfully beefed about loyalty to Walmart vs. Target, and the XFL commissioner allegedly contributed his own beer cup to a 50+ foot snake of cups being constructed in the endzone opposite me.

Each time I look back on this game, further removed from it and any sport, the memory sweetens; it was perfect, because the XFL is perfect. If the pandemic brings us to a The Giver situation where we have to pick only one kind of football to keep, it should absolutely be the XFL. For your viewing pleasure, please, look at these videos demonstrating gameplay: If you need further convincing, I’ve put together a thoughtful review of all the reasons why the XFL is the best, broken down into categories I’ve deemed important. I’ve thought a lot about it, and would describe watching an XFL game live like this: College football-ish level skill, with the technology and sideline staff of a high school program.