While Vince McMahon has said several times that the XFL is its own entity and has nothing to do with WWE, two WWE employees hosted the pre-game show yesterday in what seems to be the same green screen studio where WWE panels are held when they are not inside the arena.
Jonathan Coachman, who anchors the pay-per-view Kickoff shows and Alyse Ashton, the Smackdown backstage correspondent, were tasked with doing the in-studio pre-game show yesterday prior to the first match. The XFL started yesterday with two games, one which aired on ABC and one which aired on FOX. All games will air on either ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, FOX, FS1, or FS2.
Apart from an off-camera appearance by Shane McMahon and Executive Vice President of Television Production Kevin Dunn at the Audi Field in Washington, DC, both broadcasts were pretty much WWE-free.
The launch of the XFL had a lot of mainstream publicity and did well in trending on socials and Google. The bigger job is now keeping momentum until the final game in late April.
Vince McMahon is solely funding this venture under his Alpha Entertainment LLC company using money he cashed out by selling thousands of WWE stocks worth over $100 million.
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