Last week a news story broke via The Athletic‘s Daniel Kaplan surrounding Vince McMahon possibly buying back the bankrupt XFL league and re-launching it for a third time. For those who missed it, the XFL’s returning 2020 season was shut down after five weeks due to the coroanvirus pandemic and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy back in md-April. However between XFL president Jeffrey Pollack contacting stadium owners in Seattle and St. Louis about lease agreements and Alpha Entertainment’s proposal to pay back $3.5 million in season ticket refunds, a group of XFL creditors were convinced McMahon was going to bid to buy back the league’s assets from a a Delaware bankruptcy court at a cheaper price.
“This is an unnecessary expenditure designed to buttress the Debtor’s argument that an abbreviated sales process is required and is being sought to further the efforts of the debtor’s controlling equity holder/secured lender, Vincent McMahon (“McMahon”), to acquire the debtor at a fire-sale price,” the creditors wrote. “The debtor cannot possibly know at this time whether issuing refunds to season ticket holders will preserve the value of the debtor estate’s or benefit any creditor, other than possibly McMahon.”
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However on Tuesday McMahon directly denied those accusations in a new filing, saying in a deposition, “I’m not going to be a bidder.”
In a filing today in bankruptcy court, Vince McMahon said he will not be a bidder for the XFL. The unsecured creditors committee had previously objected to the proceedings, saying McMahon was trying to rig the process to buy back the league without fully paying back debtors.
— Kevin Seifert (@SeifertESPN) May 26, 2020
On top of the league shuttering, McMahon is also dealing with a wrongful termination lawsuit from XFL commissioner Oliver Luck.
Should the XFL attempt another season, it would likely have to reconstruct the league from the ground up. Several players have already signed new deals to play in the NFL’s upcoming 2020-21 season, including Houston Roughnecks quarterback P.J. Walker (now with the Carolina Panthers), St. Louis Battlehawks quarterback Jordan Ta’amu (Kansas City Chiefs), Roughnecks defensive back Deatrick Nichols (New Orleans Saints) and New York Guardians defensive back Dravon Askew-Henry (New York Giants).
Meanwhile in McMahon’s other business venture, the WWE has two pay-per-views on its schedule for June — NXT TakeOver: In Your House on June 7 and Backlash on June 14. Both shows will take place inside the WWE Performance Center in Orlando.
