XFL Should Take Hint Literally: Pay Your Dues

The big game’s over, the booze is gone and all your betting slips are shredded.

The Super Bowl writers have writer’s cramp.

Another professional football season has ended.

Anyone ready for another one?

A fledgling spring league, the XFL, brought to you by the World Wrestling Federation, the folks who made “pile driver” a household phrase, opens play this weekend.

Proving?

Proving men are doomed to repeat the mistakes of history.

They say this XFL has a chance because it is backed by Vince McMahon, the WWF whiz who made a phony sport more popular than all the real ones, and NBC, which packages product better than box boys package produce.

Once again, we love the premise: Tap into America’s insatiable appetite for gridiron with an alternative, but not carnivorous, anti-NFL league.

Throw out everything that’s wrong about the NFL--we’ll pause here so you can draw up your own list--and start from scratch.

Embrace spring, the Ides of March. Be fresh, innovative. Use a black-and-red ball. Make fair catches illegal. Think small, have a plan, know your demographic.

Doesn’t the business paradigm always sound brilliant?

Inevitably, of course, hell breaks loose.

I know. I stood on a hill once and watched the United States Football League burn.

The USFL started off with modest goals in 1983, seeking to carve a spring niche with no intention of ever, ever trying to compete with the NFL.

Yeah, right.

Three years later, bloated with arrogance, the USFL announced plans to compete against the NFL in the fall. It filed a $1.69-billion antitrust suit against the league and hired Roy Cohn as lead attorney.

The court decision came down in July 1986. Jurors ruled in favor of the USFL, but awarded the league $1 in damages, trebled by law to $3.

The league that tried . . . died.

Our local entry, the Los Angeles Express, left $1 million in debts to mom-and-pop shops all over the Southland.

The moral is never underestimate the egos of rich men, and McMahon is a rich man.

The XFL, on paper at least, is taking precautions to avert a USFL disaster.

First, all eight XFL franchises are owned by the league, eliminating pernicious bidding wars such as the one between New Jersey General owner Donald Trump and the L.A. Express’ William “Mr. Dynamite” Oldenburg.

Driven by greed and money it turns out he did not have, Oldenburg signed players to million-dollar contracts on cocktail napkins.

Before “Mr. Dynamite” went “ka-boom” financially, he went combustible in a Los Angeles airport hotel room, hurling a plate of food at Express Coach John Hadl.

“He threw some hors d’oeuvres at me,” Hadl recalled. “He missed me, then I hit him with another plate.”

Classy stuff.

The XFL promises to keep costs down by paying players a standard $45,000 salary, with added perks based on team performance (with starters earning an extra $500 for each win).

Thirty-eight players will split $1 million for winning the title.

The XFL hopes to turn a profit by the third season.

How prudent.

How fiscally realistic.

And?

I’ll believe it when I see it.

As a public service to our L.A. Xtreme, which opens the season Sunday at the San Francisco Demons, we offer words of advice:

1) Pay your bills.

In the Express’ last days, water at team headquarters was turned off because of nonpayment on a bill for $139.84.

One day, a carpenter threatened to kill the team’s receptionist unless he got paid for services rendered. Had the Express advanced to the 1984 Western Conference championship game--thank goodness it lost--a moving van was waiting to confiscate the team’s uniforms.

2) Don’t fire the cheerleaders.

The Express saw it as a cost-cutting measure--get your pompoms and take a hike!

The team invested the saved money in daytime fireworks.

3) Take care of your players.

The USFL took over the Express’ payroll in 1985, but refused to replace injured players or provide money for adhesive tape or ice. It got so bad the team paid a truck driver $100 a game to play left tackle to block for quarterback Steve Young.

4) Don’t get discouraged by small crowds.

The Coliseum is a cavern, it will take time to build a fan base. An Express game against the Denver Gold in 1985 drew an “announced” crowd of 3,059. I counted every person in attendance and determined the number was grossly inflated.

5) Never, ever, ever take on the NFL. Don’t raid its talent, or make jokes that rhyme with Tagliabue.

The NFL pays lawyers to get coffee for lawyers.

“It’s a minor aspect of what we worry about,” NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue said this week of the XFL.

Believe him.

Vince, don’t take on Paul’s “Tag” team.

Be content to walk with a spring in your step.

“You’ll never again see a pro franchise like this one, and God help the world if we do,” an Express official said after the team went belly-up.

Let this cautionary quote be the L.A. Xtreme’s mantra.

It probably was not a good omen when, on Jan. 9, a blimp carrying signage for the XFL crashed into Oakland’s Jack London Square.

No one was seriously hurt.

Wish we could say the same about the last spring league.