“Certainly there's ways where you can be a little bit more, you know, innovative.” - Former XFL 2020 Team President on XFL 2023’s Kickoff Timeline and Marketing Approach

By Reid Johnson

On the October 14th episode of The Markcast®, former XFL 2020 team president Brian Michael Cooper was kind enough to sit down for a lengthy interview to compare and contrast the XFL 2020's kickoff timeline and marketing efforts to those coming from the new XFL 3.0 regime.

Brian Michael Cooper was the team president for the XFL's Houston Roughnecks franchise, and he as well as the other team owners utilized a mix of guerilla marketing efforts as well as league-directed national campaigns to help build up local fan interest in the 8 XFL 2020 cities before its kickoff in February of 2020.

“I think it's a combination of both. We had a fantastic marketing group at the league level as well. It's knowing the league and them knowing the market, right? I think that having people with boots on ground in the market and making sure you're getting out to those various events. It’s just those touch points that are just critical to making sure, you know, to make out to making sales. It all adds up down the road.”

While the USFL utilized a central hub for its 2021 “inaugural” season, the XFL has shifted its focus to a more “modified hub”, basing a majority of league operations in Arlington, Texas with a mix of local employees working remotely in its 8 2023 cities.

“I’m hoping that, you know, at some point the teams will obviously be in markets. I know that they're just a stair-step process on building out, so I get that. That's just logistics and it makes a lot of sense for them to, they need, you know, to get this started the way they're doing. I think it's some point old ultimately, and I think they're gonna get there, we’re ultimately they will have a greater presence in the market. I think that having, you know, being in the community is critical. I'm not saying anything that's not understood by anyone who's who's been in this space is that you've gotta be there. But certainly look there's ways where you can be a little bit more, you know, innovative on how you're, how you're managing that. But I ultimately expect him to be in the markets in the full-time basis. I mean, I would be surprised that they aren't, it may not happen a year one, but I assume in subsequent years that they will.”

When asked about current management’s timeline and approach combined with the monumental task of building a new professional football league from scratch, Brian Michael Cooper admitted it’s no easy feat.

“It just takes a very long time to do I think, in a perfect world, right? I think when people are mapping out new leagues, new teams, whatnot, you know, you really are looking at an 18 to 24-month timetable where you are in market, and then you're slowly building up the events and then you're adding more to that, you're staffing up. We staffed up from zero to almost 30 staffers in roughly 11 months, I mean, that's a, that's a breakneck pace and so even just a sheer administrative task of just building out your team is gonna take time. So I think that they're, they're doing it.”

Brian admits he understands the frustrations of XFL 2020 fans who have been patiently awaiting major news from XFL 3.0’s ownership over the past 26 months in which they’ve owned the alt-football league.

“I think that people wanna see the product up there, there's no doubt about that. I think that that's like in, you know, part of it's communication as well, right? Making sure that there's, you know, that there, ‘Hey this is what's happening, and here's the plan,’ that also helps the fan base as well, I think. But I think like there's passionate fans out there and that's good, in fact, the fans wanna see, you know, I think what concerns us all in the sports business would be if there's no discussion, right? There's discussion, and when the discussion stops, that's when you should get concerned.”

“I don't wanna make short shift of the idea that people haven't been patient on finding out things, but I think ultimately hopefully there's gonna be that connection between whatever prep work that's being done and meeting the meeting the need and fans and that expectation.”

Be sure to check out my full interview with former XFL 2020 Houston Roughnecks team president Brian Michael Cooper in episode 114 of The Markcast®!