Mark L. Ford wrote:and, like most of these leagues, will kickoff two years from now. Of course, most of these ventures end up postponing their kickoff date another year, so they're always in the future. This one is supposed to have a $100,000,000 outlay of capital before it starts...
Way different from "most of these ventures". Those are the ones that the have the same group of people going forum to forum to hype them up while everyone else knows there's a 0% chance of the league playing a game. While those leagues, exactly as you said, generally postpone year after year until fading away for good. Or they do the always classic start by releasing logos/uniform concepts before they even have a finance plan and the league dies before it starts. Or probably the worst ones, that don't really have a legitimate plan but they have a draft and take money from all the players coming to tryouts then immediately disappear.
I wouldn't put the XFL in that category. It'll be more surprising if they don't start in 2020 than if they do. How long it'll last is a different conversation but on the front end, actually getting to kickoff, Vince and the XFL are in a totally different category from the ones you're talking about.
I do wonder if the NFL would counter it though, with bringing back the developmental spring league (would never be NFL Europe again but similar concept). That's probably the best chance of the XFL NOT happening.
I watched the announcement live at Noon today. He said it'll start in Jan/Feb, so similar to the first run where the season was over in April.