XFL attendance: How does Dwayne Johnson’s league compare to WWE magnate Vince McMahon’s Week 1 iteration?

The XFL has kicked off with a lot of fanfare, and now it remains to be seen whether Dwayne Johnson can succeed where Vince McMahon failed. After all, this is the third iteration of the XFL. Beginning at the turn of the millennium, the XFL began in 2001 under McMahon before rebooting in 2020 before the COVID-19 pandemic put paid to that, and the league owners declared bankruptcy.

So, to understand how much better or worse the current XFL is doing, we need to check the attendance figures of the respective leagues to see if Dwayne Johnson's star is outshining McMahon's. Attendance figures for the four games over the weekend are given below:

#XFL week one attendance numbers.

Week 1 - LV @ ARL — 12,047

Week 1 - ORL @ HOU — 12,784

Week 1 - STL @ SA — 24,245

Week 1 - SEA @ DC — 12,438

Compared to the 2020 XFL season, the numbers are down. The total above is 61,514, whereas last season, it was 69,818.

If we ignore the game in San Antonio, each game individually is much lower than before by around 30%. This is a significant drop. The breakup of attendance of the 2020 XFL season's week 1 is given below:

Date and time	Away team	Result		Home team	Stadium	Attendance
February 8, 2:00 p.m. ET	Seattle Dragons	19	31	DC Defenders	Audi Field	17,163
February 8, 5:00 p.m. ET	Los Angeles Wildcats	17	37	Houston Roughnecks	TDECU Stadium	17,815
February 9, 2:00 p.m. ET	Tampa Bay Vipers	3	23	New York Guardians	MetLife Stadium	17,634
February 9, 5:00 p.m. ET	St. Louis BattleHawks	15	9	Dallas Renegades	Globe Life Park in Arlington	17,206

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Dwayne Johnson failing more than Vince McMahon with XFL at the moment

When Dwayne Johnson rescued the XFL from bankruptcy, he would have seen a product that could attract more viewers than ever before. Instead, they are bringing in far less attendance through the gates.

More than just the raw attendance figures, the trend lines are disturbing. As mentioned before, this is the third iteration of the league, and we have seen a steady drop in attendances across that time.

In 2001, the average attendance per week was 23,410, and nearly a million fans attended the league. From there, it dropped to around 17,000 in XFL 2020. Now, ignoring the highest figure above 24,000, the average figure has dropped to nearly 12,000.

In effect, the total weekly attendance has nearly halved across the three iterations, and the one exception that attracted the most was near the average of the first season. This is a very worrying trend for Dwayne Johnson. Despite his star power and mass appeal that far outstrips McMahon's, he's primarily an entertainer as opposed to the WWE mogul, who is a businessman.

There will need to be some drastic changes for the XFL to rebound even around to its 2020 figures, never mind those of 2001. Given that the season has already begun, fixes must be immediately implemented. Failing that, this version of the XFL will probably perish the same way its forerunners did.