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When the reports began about a year ago that Vince McMahon was working on bringing back the XFL, the defunct league that he once called a colossal failure, I was confused.

When the league’s re-creation was officially announced last January, confusion was still the overriding sentiment. McMahon, sounding like he had just smoked a carton of cigarettes and then chewed some nails, explained that this new version of the XFL would be nothing like the old one, that it would be “football reimagined,” and that they would soon be doing all that reimagining and would let us know what comes of it.

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And now, 10 months after that, with the XFL on Wednesday announcing its inaugural eight cities and stadiums, here is my update: still pretty confused.

While the league is now filling out some of the details on its plans and schedules, the great unanswered question remains: is there really much of a desire for any of this? And while Wednesday’s announcements included repeated references to the strong demand for football in the United States, the XFL has been beaten to the starting gate by the Alliance of American Football, another upstart spring league that will begin play this coming February, a year ahead of the reanimated corpse of the XFL. Is this alleged unsatisfied demand for off-season pro football strong enough to support two nascent leagues?