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Dwayne Johnson, aka "The Rock", and Roger Goodell have a common achievement in their portfolio today. That itself is noteworthy since the former is a wrestler and a film star, whereas the latter is steeped in the business of football. But both of them are currently responsible for running a football league.
In the case of The Rock, he is co-owner of the XFL. Roger Goodell, of course, is the NFL comissioner. With two different leagues offering the same sport, one would imagine that there would be professional clashes between the two.
Dwayne Johnson recently confessed, he actually went to the NFL commissioner in launching the latest iteration of the XFL. Speaking to the Pivot podcast, he said that he and business partner Dany Garcia went to New York to meet with NFL executives before beginning this league. The Rock said:
"It was just the opportunity to create opportunities yeah for dudes like me, who just didn't get drafted. And I felt like and Dany felt like this too. If we can take our time, let's not try and put it on its feet too quick, let's go to New York and sit with Roger Goodell, Troy Vincent, hand in hand, respectfully, here's what we'd like to do."
Roger Goodell was on board for the XFL idea from the first meeting itself, confirms Dwayne Johnson
To get Roger Goodell on board with the XFL idea, the XFL co-owners ruled out any conflict with the bigger league.
The Rock added:
"And we did that by the way. So, we flew up to New York after we made the acquisition, sat with Roger and Troy and some of their other executives and said here's what we'd like to do. There is no competition with the NFL: that's the gold standard I said."
Dwayne Johnson outlined his thinking and said that he wanted to build the league block by block and not go too fast and insteaed be a partner in growing the game of football.
"But what we'd love to do is try and grow the game of football out of respect. Is there a way that we could find a partnership and Roger looked right at me and said ‘yes’. Looked right at all of us and said yes, so that's the first step and then the next part was, well, let's take our time let's do it right let's build the league."
The NFL comissioner was fully supportive of the idea and in these conditions they relaunched the XFL for its third iteration this season.
