OK, I'll admit it. I was wrong about the XFL.
I figured it would fail, but I thought it would take at least two or three seasons to go belly up. It croaked in one.
And I thought its demise would have more to do with the fact that fans and viewers would be somewhat suspicious of the league because of its close ties with the WWF — that there would be more questions about whether the league was legitimate.
That didn't really happen. What did happen was that the XFL was legitimately mediocre football that couldn't deliver on its promises and couldn't attract viewers. 'Nuff said.
Although watching it fail so spectacularly after NBC's Dick Ebersol was so confident and the WWF's Vince McMahon was so arrogant was, admittedly, a lot of fun.
JESSE STILL DOESN'T GET IT: Minnesota governor and ex-XFL analyst Jesse Ventura is still living in his own parallel dimension or something — the truth is in front of him but he refuses to see it. He actually blamed the media for the league's demise.
On his radio show, the governor said, "For 12 weeks you had to dig around to try and find a score. It was irrelevant. It didn't matter. It was substandard football. And then, lo and behold, the league folds. It's now a lead story on the nightly news and front page of both our newspapers. Tell me that's not media bias."
Apparently, Jesse was sleeping through the huge hype that accompanied the launch of the league.He certainly wasn't busy preparing for the broadcasts, given that he was so completely unprepared on the air.
ESPN BUYS BOWL: It's too early to know exactly what the fact that ESPN just bought the Las Vegas Bowl means to TV and college football, but my gut reaction is that it isn't good. And not just because TV already has too much control of college sports in general and bowl games in particular.
The great hope hanging out there that someday we'd be rid of the unfair, often corrupt bowl system and see it replaced with some sort of a real playoff has been that there is so much TV money that could be dropped on colleges if they make the change that, eventually, it would happen. Now if TV networks start buying bowl games, they'd have an interest in keeping that unfair, corrupt system going.
And that wouldn't be good, either for college football or the fans.
OLBERMANN OUT: The departure of Keith Olbermann from Fox Sports Net marks the third time in four years he's left a cable network under less-than-entirely-amicable conditions. He had a particularly nasty breakup with ESPN in 1997 and a rather acrimonious split with MSNBC in 1999.
This one is officially being called a "mutual decision," but Fox is reportedly unhappy that Olbermann didn't want to work more than he was.
Gee, can't this guy get along with anybody?
E-mail: pierce@desnews.com