Airing XFL was (W)right decision

NBC chairman Robert Wright has defended the network’s decision to invest in the XFL and devote its Saturday-night schedule last season to the football league’s games. In an interview with Sunday’s Los Angeles Times, Wright said, “The XFL was not a bad idea at all. The ratings were very acceptable for sports. They were approximately the same as baseball, exceeded the NHL and exceeded the U.S. Open and the French Open. But for Saturday night network programming, they were low.” Wright, however, did acknowledge that the XFL telecasts “probably should have started on cable before we brought it to NBC. But it was very expensive programming, so you needed the NBC network advertising to break even. If you started it out on cable, it would have taken too long to make money.”