Apparently, The Rock was cooking up a deal to buy the XFL from his former boss.
As first reported by Sportico, the league owned by the WWE’s Vince McMahon that went bankrupt was sold to Dwayne Johnson who “teamed up with Gerry Cardinale’s RedBird Capital to buy the league just hours before a planned auction was scheduled to begin.”
The cost? Just $15 million. And if Johnson and RedBird can take what was a lot of promise in Year 1 of the league and make something more out of it? That’s huge.
If it sounds like something right out of the HBO show Ballers — starring Johnson as a former NFLer who’s a financial manager for players — that’s exactly what a bunch of people on Twitter thought.
Here’s a sampling:
Ballers is real life now.
The Rock bought the XFL.
— RJ Young (@RJ_Young) August 3, 2020
Ballers Spin Off? https://t.co/Ugn1PO0nOU
— JP 🤞🏽 (@lastnamepenn) August 3, 2020
This season of Ballers is already off the rails https://t.co/KbvXeTOaC8
— Blake Murphy (@BlakeMurphyODC) August 3, 2020
What in the blue hell?
The Rock decided to live an actual episode of Ballers. https://t.co/Armta1IPfq
— Will Mahoney (@HeelWillMahoney) August 3, 2020
A real life episode of “Ballers.” Cool. https://t.co/8i2jI10dnP
— Troy Renck (@TroyRenck) August 3, 2020
Ballers season 6 @TheRock ??? pic.twitter.com/mWO84yr28Z
— BOTA Sports (@BOTAsports) August 3, 2020
So… “Ballers” was actually a documentary? @TheRock @JayGlazer https://t.co/geGSjIbnOO
— Greg Tompsett (@GregTompsett) August 3, 2020
Gotta be able to weave this into his Ballers script. https://t.co/y6Qu9VXdJv
— Vic Lombardiᴰʳ (@VicLombardi) August 3, 2020
What’s amazing about this is Johnson cut promos for the original XFL:
[jwplayer AFUUcqVf-q2aasYxh]