XFL 3.0: can Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson make spring football work?

H e’s starred in updates of Baywatch and Get Smart, so the Rock has some experience of questionable reboots. Now we’re about to discover whether he can score a box-office hit with the third version of the XFL.

The actor, aka Dwayne Johnson, is a co-owner of the spring American football league, which kicks off on Saturday when the Dallas-area Arlington Renegades host the Vegas Vipers in Choctaw Stadium, the former home of the Texas Rangers baseball team.

The original XFL, a partnership between NBC and what is now World Wrestling Entertainment, imploded after a single season in 2001 as headlines pilloried “sex, booze and sleaze” and television viewers decided that a league promising cameras in cheerleaders’ locker-rooms and Jesse ‘The Body’ Ventura as a pundit was not a serious proposition.

Another spring start-up aiming to capitalize on the growing market for live betting – the Alliance of American Football, backed by a Texas-based pickleball mogul – crumbled after only eight weeks in 2019 and filed for bankruptcy.

Still, the wrestling tycoon Vince McMahon tried again in 2020: resurrecting the XFL, dropping the gimmicks, pledging a competition free from anthem kneelers and criminals and reportedly spending $200m, only for the reborn league to shut after five weeks because of the coronavirus pandemic. It promptly filed for bankruptcy.

Enter Johnson, the former pro wrestler, who as a student hoped in vain to be drafted into the NFL then had a brief stint with the Calgary Stampeders of the Canadian Football League. He bought the XFL rights for $15m, partnering with his ex-wife, Dany Garcia, and RedBird Capital, a New York-based investment firm that owns AC Milan and Toulouse FC and has partnerships with the New York