SmashMouth

The Alliance of American Football pulled the plug just two months after debuting to solid TV ratings. The XFL is promising it won’t pull the plug so quickly next year — in part because it plans to have a better TV deal in place.

The AAF started on CBS, an over-the-air channel that everyone knows how to find. But after that, AAF games moved around, with CBS Sports Network, TNT, NFL Network and the streaming BR Live app all showing live games. CBS was supposed to get back into the mix late in the season and in the postseason, but the AAF didn’t make it that far.

So it’s noteworthy that the XFL, in releasing a statement after the AAF collapsed, made a specific point of saying that XFL games will be on TV channels that are easy for fans to find.

“The XFL is well-funded, we have time before kick-off to execute our business plan, and we will soon announce a national broadcast and cable TV schedule that makes it easy for fans to find our games consistently every weekend when we launch next February,” the XFL’s statement said.

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