Long Bomb: How the Xfl Became TV's Biggest Fiasco

The XFL went under a little over a year ago, but seems like a far more distant memory. Long Bomb is Brett Forrest's take on why the league failed so dramatically-and the people who made it possible. Forrest followed the Las Vegas Outlaws for the season, and we learn about how players got ... into the league, how quickly the network head honchos lost faith after ratings dropped, and how Vince McMahon went down fighting till the end. He shines a light on how many people worked their ... off for the league, almost making you feel sorry for McMahon and his cohorts. With the XFL gone, football won't be as easy to make fun of anymore-well, at least there's still the Cincinnati Bengals. I love it, as Forrest is a very good writer who moves you along and doesn't miss a single detail.

I cannot say enough good things about this book. Mr. Forrest is a talented and unique writer who has found a rich vein to explore. Long Bomb is as good or better than the classic North Dallas 40. And Mr. Forrest is a true talent, like a modern day H.L Mencken he skewers our media culture with a razor sharp wit. If you read one book this year read this book. Full of sex, drugs, intrigue and violence, it will have you captivated from cover to cover.

Truly fascinating. Forrest pieced together a hilarious account of what has to be one of the worst ideas in the history of television since "Cop Rock." (And even that got better ratings than the XFL.)Starting off with a bang, thanks to unprecedented hype, the XFL very quickly plummeted to unprecedented lows. Literally the lowest rated prime time show in the history of the ratings system. A show about me writing this review could get higher ratings than that.The characters are amazing. The story of the play by play announcer who continuously and publicly berates a coach in the hopes he'll snap, hit somebody and bring up the sagging ratings is astonishing. Especially when you factor in the he is also the Governor of Minnesota.The story of Ryan Clement's addiction to football is as inspiring as it pathetic.And McMahon and Ebersol. That Brett Forrest could fit both of these ego's into only 350 pages is an accomplishment in itself.Read this book. And do it soon, because it's gonna become an HBO movie any minute and as good as it'll be, the book will still be better.

I?m a graduate student at New York University and I just picked up Mr. Forrest?s book for the sole purpose of researching a few pages related to Ted Turner. After reading the pages on Turner, I thought I might just check out the first few pages of Long Bomb...five hours later, I can?t say I?ve made much progress on my thesis, but I can say that I?ve been taken on a fascinating and informative tour of the hubris-filled shell that was the XFL.

I'll be honest with you. My first thought here was "who wants to read a book about the xfl?" But the story of this big car wreck is so entertaining, and the underlying insights about the American sports/media machine are so dead on, that I think anyone with any interst at all in books about sports or TV should own this book.Forrest is funny without being obnoxious and the material he has to work with is fantastic--Ventura, Butkus, McMahon, Ebersol. He also got lucky. Who knew that the local runningback he was paling around with would turn out to be HE HATE ME, the one thing in the league that worked?Anyway, buy this book. You won't be dissappointed.