Vince McMahon reportedly plans to spend $500 million on XFL over its first three years

Good thing his shares of WWE keep going up in value. Because it turns out the $100 million investment Vince McMahon was making to relaunch the XFL is probably only the tip of the iceburg.

ESPN’s Darren Rovell has a story out today (June 29) with the slightly misleading headline of “Vince McMahon expects to spend $500 million on XFL”. In it, the commissioner and CEO McMahon hired to run his second stab at a football brand, Oliver Luck, is quoted as saying, “People were focused on the $100 million, but the truth is that doesn’t even get us to the 20-yard line”.

Rovell’s $500 million figure is what Vince is reportedly telling people he plans to spend over the new XFL’s first three years. Which still averages out to more than $150 million per season, but isn’t an all-at-once sum the way it initially sounds. It is a lot of freaking money, though.

On paper, and based on what McMahon has said, WWE and Alpha Entertainment, the entity McMahon formed to control the XFL, are completely separate. In practice, we’ll see if getting his league off the ground and competing with Charlie Ebersol’s Alliance of American Football will impact how the sports entertainment business will be run.

The XFL is scheduled to kickoff operations in early 2020, shortly after SmackDown starts airing on NFL partner Fox.

Interesting times.