It was promoted as having fewer rules to encourage rougher play than other major leagues, while its telecasts featured sports entertainment elements inspired by professional wrestling (and in particular, the WWF's then-current "Attitude Era"), including heat and kayfabe, and suggestively-dressed cheerleaders.

Commentary crews also featured WWF commentators (such as Jesse Ventura, Jim Ross, and Jerry Lawler) joined by sportscasters and veteran football players.

As WWF was, at the time, in the midst of its "Attitude Era" (which marked a shift in a mature and provocative direction for its content), the XFL's presentation likewise would reflect that approach toward football.

Instead of a pre-game coin toss, XFL officials put the ball on the ground and let a player from each team scramble for it to determine who received the kickoff option.

The practice was dubbed "The Human Coin Toss" by commentators, and one player (Orlando Rage defensive back Hassan Shamsid-Deen) famously separated his shoulder on the first scramble, missing the rest of the season.

The XFL chose unusual names for its teams, most of which either referenced images of uncontrolled insanity (Maniax, Rage, Xtreme, Demons) or criminal activity (Enforcers, Hitmen, Outlaws, and the Birmingham Blast).

In the East, New York and Chicago both were hampered by slow starts and ineffective starters before making personnel changes that improved their play, while Orlando, under quarterback Jeff Brohm, who owned the league's highest QB rating at 99.9 during the 2001 XFL season, soared to first place, winning its first six games before Brohm suffered a career-ending injury and the team regressed (the team went 2–2 in his absence).

Birmingham started the season 2–1 before a rash of injuries (and tougher competition, as its two wins were against New York and Chicago) led to the team losing the last seven games.

During the telecast, NBC switched over to the game between the Orlando Rage and the Chicago Enforcers, which was a closer contest than the blowout taking place in Las Vegas.

In an appearance on Late Night with Conan O'Brien in February 2001, after the league's second week of play, Costas joked: "It has to be at least a decade since I first mused out loud, 'Why doesn't somebody combine mediocre high school football with a tawdry strip club?'

The all-grass field stipulation caused the league to skip over several of the country's largest markets, including Houston and Philadelphia, since they lacked a large grass stadium in 2001.

At the time, "next generation" artificial surfaces (which much more closely mimicked grass in appearance, feel and player safety) were slowly being introduced in professional football.

Replacing the coin toss at the beginning of each game was an event in which one player from each team fought to recover a football 20 yards away in order to determine possession.

The XFL's first injury infamously resulted from the opening scramble; Orlando free safety Hassan Shamsid-Deen suffered a separated shoulder prior to the Rage's 33–29 season-opening win over the Chicago Enforcers at Florida Citrus Bowl Stadium on February 3.

Following the fourth week of the season, bump and run was restricted to the first five yards from the line of scrimmage (similar to NFL and CFL) in an effort to increase offensive production.

For the rest of the season the XFL modified it to allow one player closest to each sideline downfield ahead of the kick, the same modification the NFL adopted to their change just before their 1974 exhibition games started.

The XFL allowed its players to wear a nickname on the back of their jersey, as opposed to the legal last name most professional sports leagues have required since the 1960s.

"[29][30] Although the XFL was not the first football league to feature the "sky cam",[31] which enables TV viewers to see behind the offensive unit, it helped to popularize its unique capabilities.

Super Dave Osborne was a sideline reporter for Los Angeles Xtreme broadcasts on KLSX; WMVP carried Chicago Enforcers games.

The XFL also, at McMahon's request, followed a somewhat different format than traditional professional football telecasts: The announcers more closely followed the model of professional wrestling where the color commentator had a villain-like role, while the sideline reporters (who were predominantly male, a rare example of the XFL being more conservative than the NFL at the time, which was incorporating attractive female sideline reporters) were former players and experienced sportscasters who were relied upon for more expert analysis than usual.

The reason was the reaction of Lorne Michaels, creator and executive producer of Saturday Night Live, to the length of the Los Angeles Xtreme versus Chicago Enforcers game that went into double overtime.

[36] The New York Daily News reported that the scene would likely be the "[last] salacious WWF-style stunt for the rest of the season", citing internal sources indicating that NBC wished to pivot the telecasts back towards a football-oriented product, including hiring NFL alumni as analysts, and reinstating Vasgersian as the lead commentator.

[37][38][39] It was believed that the willingness of Las Vegas bookmakers to take bets on XFL games established their legitimacy, dispelling concerns that the league was using predetermined storylines as in professional wrestling.

[43][44] Facing stiff competition from the NCAA basketball tournament, the NBC telecast of the Chicago/New York-New Jersey game on March 31 received a 1.5 rating, at that time the lowest ever for any major network primetime weekend first-run sports television broadcast in the United States.

[49] Many stories recapping the history of the XFL show photos of the crash of its promotional blimp in Oakland, California, portraying it retrospectively as an ill-omen for the league.

Receiver Yo Murphy also achieved this as a member of the St. Louis Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI, along with winning the 95th Grey Cup with the Saskatchewan Roughriders in 2007.

Lastly, Las Vegas Outlaws DB Kelly Herndon played in Super Bowl XL with the Seattle Seahawks in 2005, where he is remembered for intercepting a pass and returning it a then-record 76 yards.

2001 All League Team[62] The 2001 XFL games are now part of the WWE Video Library, the rights to which have been held by NBC's streaming service Peacock since March 2021.

[65] Noted wrestling journalist Dave Meltzer speculated that McMahon was starting a shell corporation with his own money to protect WWE shareholders on a potential XFL revival.

[66] A revival of the XFL would air either on traditional TV or the WWE Network, and would be toned down compared to its original incarnation due to CTE concerns in football that surfaced in the early 2010s.