Nearly two decades after it faded away, the XFL—Vince McMahon’s competitor to the NFL—is coming back. The football league will begin games in 2020 with the official announcement coming later Thursday, according to CBS Sports.
The original XFL was a joint venture between the WWE and NBC with former NBC executive Dick Ebersol heading the operation. It attempted to be an edgier version of the NFL and introduced several features (such as the sky cam) that the NFL has since adopted. Its failure was tied to NBC’s discomfort with what the league was trying to do (and the network’s subsequent decision to stop airing games), technical issues, and failing to think through certain factors that today seem obvious (like over-sexualizing cheerleaders and not adequately training announcers).