Finally, The Rock... HAS COME BACK... to football!
With my trail blazing partner @DanyGarciaCo & Red Bird Capital, we have acquired the XFL.
— Dwayne Johnson (@TheRock) August 3, 2020
With gratitude & passion I’ve built a career with my own two hands and will apply these callouses to our @xfl2020 brand.
Excited to create something special for the fans! #XFL #fullcircle pic.twitter.com/LprJ6HjglD
The XFL is changing hands, but apparently might not be going too far outside of Vince McMahon’s circle of notable friends! Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and business partner Dany Garcia have purchased the football league hours before it was scheduled to go up for bankruptcy auction, according to Sportico.
The league got off to a solid start this past spring, but the Covid-19 pandemic resulted in McMahon electing to fold the league. He’s in the process of sorting through the many complications that come from that, including a lawsuit filed by his former league commissioner, Oliver Luck.
Dwayne Johnson, the son of legendary wrestler Rocky Johnson was once known as “the most electrifying man in sports entertainment.” He has since retired from the WWE to make movies your kids love or the box office does, but before that he was part of the 1991 national championship Miami Hurricanes as a defensive lineman, and has since put his name on the locker room of the football facility in Coral Gables.
The XFL had teams in eight cities, some with solid attendance for a nascent league and decent television ratings as well. If not for Covid-19 the season likely would have been completed and some middling-to-solid football would be played. It was on track to be a marginal success in Year 1 before the world exploded.
Adding a football league to Johnson’s portfolio, alongside his bonafides in the sport and marketing power, could make this the best chance to be in the spring football space. Or it could be the third straight spring a pro football league fails to finish a season alongside the Alliance of American Football in 2019, and the XFL in 2020. But for a man worth well into nine figures, it just might be a wise investment with the right partners.
Sportico is reporting Johnson is working with Gerry Cardinale’s RedBird Capital to make the $15 million purchase.