Preview
  • Long Bomb

  • How the XFL Became TV's Biggest Fiasco
  • By: Brett Forrest
  • Narrated by: Brett Forrest
  • Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins
  • 5.0 out of 5 stars (1 rating)

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Long Bomb

By: Brett Forrest
Narrated by: Brett Forrest
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Publisher's summary

There is no failure like televised failure. It is the most public failure. The most humbling failure. So it was odd when the two men who had assembled the biggest bomb in TV history began high-fiving on the sidelines of the XFL’s final game.

Not everyone was celebrating. Dick Butkus bristled. Jesse Ventura just wanted it all to end. And the general public couldn’t wait to watch something else.

Brett Forrest’s Long Bomb is the story of what really happened in the XFL, the renegade football league dreamed up by NBC and the World Wrestling Federation. Reporting on the XFL from its first training camp to the championship game, Forrest takes us inside the limousines and locker rooms to deliver the dope that NBC’s all-access cameras only promised. When NBC lost TV rights to the NFL, sports chief Dick Ebersol was prepared to do anything to get football back under his wing. Vince McMahon, at the apex of his powers with the WWF, wanted to prove that he was more than a wrestling promoter. By combining football, wrestling, and reality TV, the two men planned to reinvent the way America watched sports.

The XFL promised as much to its players as it did to its viewers. Set in Las Vegas, the audiobook follows the Outlaws and the league’s biggest star, Rod Smart. His nickname, He Hate Me, was the one thing that worked in the XFL.

Forrest deconstructs this moment-in-time experiment. A combination of desperation and hubris, the XFL reflected a confused media landscape, where the cost of airing big games ran too high in a wilderness of splintered audiences and expanding choices.The XFL was supposed to be greater, bigger, better—more, more, more. If it worked, competing networks would have fallen over each other copying the formula. If it didn’t work, man, what a train wreck.

©2002 Brett Forrest (P)2023 Brett Forrest
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Great storytelling, meticulous research

"Simply fantastic" is my immediate reaction after finishing this entertaining audiobook. The author describes how the XFL was born, after pro football slipped away from NBC, and Vince McMahon being shunned by the NFL's owners for his interest in purchasing a team. Despite the initial ratings success, the XFL was ridiculed by the media over the overt sexual innuendos (including the Cheerleader Cam gimmick) and the poor quality of play on the field. Forrest tells the stories of the XFL's Rod Smart, and the origin of his "He Hate Me" nickname, and quarterback Ryan Clement's disappointing football career after leaving the University of Miami. I enjoyed Forrest's humor in describing XFL's one-and-done season on network television, and his narration is spot on!

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