Remember those guys from the movie, Harold and Kumar? The "extreme" guys...for those who have never seen it, they are basically just a group of guys who claim to be "EXTREME" and terrorizing everyone and everything in their way. The audience later finds out that they were nothing but a bunch of phonies and were not "extreme" in any way. That's the problem with trying to be too extreme and over the top, if you don't live up to the hype than you've already lost.
There definitely is a target audience of extreme adrenaline junkies out there, just look at companies like "Red Bull" and "Go Pro". These companies were smart about how they went about it though. They took the advertising route of relating extreme to living life to the fullest. To traveling, and to adventure. By breaking barriers and records like this record for the longest free fall:
Not only does Red Bull claim to be extreme, but with stunts like this and many others, they more than back it up. Unfortunately, not everyone has figured out exactly how to play to this extreme audience...just ask Vince McMahon.
In 2001, owner and CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, Vincent Kennedy McMahon, teamed up with NBC and tried out their own football league, the XFL. The XFL was marketed as a league with less rules and barriers on the players. Teams were usually associated with names and/or images of insanity or lawless acts(i.e. The Hitmen, the Demons, the Maxniax, and one even name Xtreme). Players were able to choose what name they wore, and stars such as "HE HATE ME" and "YO Murphy" were born. It was never confirmed what the "X" stood for but it was obvious they wanted to be known as the eXtreme Football League, but by replacing coin tosses with 20 yard sprints to the ball and getting rid of fair catches, it was obvious they wanted to be extreme(in fact, in 1999 that was the original idea but the name was taken) The problem was that they failed their own extreme test. Kick returners were still granted their "5 yard halo" and those 20 yard dash rarely(if ever) turned into the scuffles and tussles that they promised us. They even has believing that their cheerleaders would somehow be more scandalous or better than regular NFL cheerleaders with some of their commercials, but sadly they were no more extreme than your average cheerleader. I went to the San Francisco Demons homeopener, and even as a 15 year old boy, I was able to realize that there really was nothing extreme about the XFL, and once all those bells and whistles were gone, it was just a less talented/athletic NFL, or some even related it to the CFL(Canadian Football League) but with a lot of money backing. Well unfortunately for Vince McMahon and the rest of the investors, the fans caught on to this quick and after the opening weekend, the numbers and viewer ratings plummeted dramatically.
Some could argue the XFL had a good game plan and was just poorly executed, and some would argue that it was a terrible idea for the get go. Personally, I think they could have made something out of the XFL if it was marketed different. I actually had season tickets with three of my other friends and the games were "extremely" fun to attend, but than again we were 15 year old boys, who I might add, loved WWE television! And this is where I think they messed up. They tried to connect to wrestling and wrestling fans too much:
People in the 21st century already make fun of wrestling for being "phony" and pre determined(you can thank Vince K McMahon for that too, but that's a different rant for a different day), so now you take one of the nation's biggest money making sports that people love, support and watch religiously; and in fan's eyes, you make a mockery of it. They tried to get NFL fans to switch over but saying that the NFL=the NO FUN LEAGUE, as well as get wrestling fans to watch football, by being a type of EXTREME!
The problem, they didn't commit to one audience, and instead ended up with this phony "extreme" mentality trying to play to both audiences. It was soon after opening weekend that wresting fans realized it was too similar to the NFL, and most wrestling fans watched Monday Night Raw over Monday Night Football for a reason. And on the opposite side of the spectrum, it was to similar to the NFL(but with lesser elite athletes) to get NFL fans to switch over to the XFL. This was the bigger hit for the XFL in my opinion because not only did they fail at getting NFL fans to be XFL fans, but they also failed at getting these NFL fans to become WWE(Vince's true money making baby) fans as well. Not only did the league help reiterate these people's thoughts that wrestling was phony and "cheesy" but now they believed the XFL to be phony, cheesy and some even believed it to be pre-determined.
The XFL failed because rather than concentrate on a new target audience and play to this audience's consumer behavior, they tried to play to the consumer behavior of wrestling fans, who the whole time(for the majority) never cared about football. They would rather see chair shots, ladder matches, and the Rock verbally lashing his opponent and when none of that was delivered, they quickly turned off the XFL.
It was a good attempt by Mr. McMahon, but poorly executed. Next time you try to make a more "extreme" football league, make sure you know your audience and what they want.
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