And for that schemer, the guy who figures he has diligently crunched all the numbers and studied all the demographics and just knows he has arrived at a brilliant formula to bring the NFL to its knees, we offer this cautionary nugget: Don't do it.

If Vince McMahon couldn't create a league to compete with the NFL, then who can?(Allsport)

The demise of the XFL after just one season has added another oblong tombstone to the alphabet-soup graveyard of leagues that tried and failed to at least siphon off a portion of the NFL's power and popularity. While they debuted with grandiose plans and marketing models, all of the leagues, at least since the old AFL forced a merger three decades ago, eventually wound up in the football mausoleum with one common three-letter legacy stenciled onto the casket.

R.I.P.

Oh, yeah, there were industrial-sized barrels of red ink as well for the XFL -- ask Dick Ebersol of NBC and the WWF's Vince McMahon, who combined for what will amount to about $70 million in losses -- and that financial bloodbath alone should give any sports mogul pause.

Whether it will remains to be seen.

There are at least two men we know, one on each coast, who are planning to launch new professional football leagues -- within the next couple years, they insist. Both have requested anonymity, and if they are smart, most sports experts suggest, they should remain nameless and league-less, lest they become penniless, too.

In fact, experts contend, the raucous XFL should have served as a noisy death knell for NFL challengers, a reminder that even the best made plans typically go awry when battling the most successful sports entity in history.

"To paraphrase slightly, 'The king isn't dead, long live the king,'" said Los Angeles-based media consultant Robert Dennison. "No one is going to knock the NFL off its throne, nor is there going to be a league that can even pretend to co-exist with it. In the 30 or so years since the AFL forced the merger, the XFL was the one entity that had the important parts in place, the TV component being the most significant, of course, and it didn't matter. I think the really smart people are going to look at the XFL and realize you're wasting your time and money.

"Some things are impenetrable, and the NFL fortress is one of them. I really think we've seen the last of the challengers now. At least I hope so."

Surprisingly, in a national conference call that followed the XFL's announcement it was folding after one season, Ebersol said there "could be under right circumstances" a football league that might survive despite the NFL's preeminent position. But pressed to identify the elements such a league would require, merely to get off the ground much less survive for any appreciable tenure, Ebersol seemed at a loss.

Its quick exit aside, the XFL actually was the best designed of the challengers. It had the centerpiece -- its partnership with NBC -- and an allegedly built-in market with youngsters gleaned from a wrestling audience McMahon had worked hard to nurture. But even with that giant leg up, and with a model that capped player costs and theoretically made every game important by offering bonuses to the winners, the XFL was forced to pull the plug after weeks of life support.

The original image of the new league, the "He Hate Me" jersey of Las Vegas tailback Rod Smart, morphed into "They Ignore Us" as television ratings dwindled and the XFL established dubious records for least-watched prime time product ever.

At the annual league meeting two months ago, NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue referred to the XFL as "a non-factor" and allowed the upstart loop could "write its own post-mortems." Even a week after the rival's demise, NFL owners, perhaps still wary of potential litigation from another failed competitor, are mute when it comes to assessments for attribution.

Several owners we spoke with were not gloating over the XFL's demise but seemed more relieved another pretender had disappeared from the radar screen. One from an AFC team acknowledged that the NFL's biggest challenge anymore comes from itself.

"The only ones who can kill the golden goose," said the owner, "is us. You take (stuff) like this Al Davis lawsuit, some of the off-field problems our players have had, things like that. Those are the challenges we face. The XFL, some of us felt, had some pretty good things going for it, and poof, it's gone.

"You never want to say never, but I can't see another league trying to challenge us now. We just have to keep our own house in order, that's all. But if McMahon and Ebersol couldn't pull it off, who's even got the (guts) to try it next?"

Good question.

Part of what makes the NFL this country's most popular professional sport in every recent survey is that is has cemented its place in the tapestry of this land with its timing, its players, the coaches, its marketing reach. The league's spin doctors disagree publicly, but there's little doubt the overall quality of play has diminished in the era of free agency and the salary cap. But that doesn't seem to matter to the television networks or the fans.

"Not even the other major-league sports can challenge the NFL (in popularity)," said Neil Pilson, the former CBS president and now a media consultant. "How is a minor-league operation going to be able to do it?"

If anything, some feel, the failure of the XFL likely will discourage players, administrators and coaches -- not to mention network executives and advertisers -- from trying again.

For the most part, the XFL players earned more ($45,000-$50,000 in salaries) from their brief fling in the league than they might have in real-world jobs. But most who signed on with the XFL did so hoping the league would serve as a springboard into an NFL training camp. The cold reality: The experience was more like a belly-flop off the 10-meter platform. So far, about 45 former XFL veterans have signed contracts with NFL teams, but that still leaves a significant portion of the players seeking work.

Early on, XFL vice president of football operations Mike Keller suggested players should view the new league as an opportunity to "build new identity." In corporate-speak, McMahon called it "brand building." But most of the players, whose contracts are now voided, have no identity, and no one is beating down their doors to sign them.

The league's most valuable player, Los Angeles quarterback Tommy Maddox, is struggling to find a job because his past NFL experience means a team would have to sign him for a minimum contract of $477,000. Few NFL teams want to invest that much in a guy who failed three times in the league, especially when they can sign an undrafted free agent for $209,000 and let him serve as a hired arm for training camp.

Said player agent Angelo Wright: "I'm never going to criticize a league for putting $50,000 into the pocket of a client who otherwise would have been unemployed. But I'm sure some guys feel they were teased by the XFL. Spoken or unspoken, there was this feeling that the XFL provided a forum for getting back to the NFL.

"Guys bought into that, and they've got no one to blame but themselves. But the ones who did buy into it feel the rug was yanked out from under them now. I guess if you were to start a new league, you can always find players, but guys who think they were burned by the XFL might not be jumping at that next chance out there."

The same is true for the scouts who left secure NFL jobs to become personnel directors in the XFL. And while the XFL's head coaches signed two-year contracts, and will be paid for a season that will never be played, some might have made dubious career decisions.

Memphis coach Kippy Brown, a onetime Miami Dolphins offensive coordinator, might not have been on the fast track to a head coaching job as running backs aide for the Green Bay Packers. But Brown, as well as San Francisco coach Jim Skipper, were respected NFL assistants who might not work this year because there are no openings for them. Al Luginbill, who led Los Angeles to the one and only XFL title, was one of three head coaches who left their positions with the NFL Europe League for McMahon's promises. One has to wonder if the paycheck was worth it.

Ron Meyer, the former New England and Indianapolis head coach, hoped the XFL might lead to another shot in the NFL after his years of serving as a CNN studio analyst. Meyer might have turned in the XFL's best coaching performance, leading the talent-challenged Chicago Enforcers into the playoffs as a wild-card team. But his games were so sparsely scouted by NFL franchises that few owners will realize the job he did.

"It was a good time," Meyer said. "Unfortunately, it wasn't a long time."

Despite the quiet planning under way by the dreamers who are confident they have the right stuff to take on the NFL, it might indeed be a long time before anyone actually does.

Part of the appeal of the NFL is its niche in this country's sports calendar. The same fans who might not mind bundling up to watch a January playoff game in Chicago (assuming there ever is another one) aren't apt to brave an infamous "lake effect" snowstorm in March to view the latest minor-league franchise at Soldier Field. Yet for any league to challenge the NFL in the fall and winter would be economic suicide.

"What happened with the XFL," said Francine Adams, media buyer for an Atlanta-based firm, "was the ultimate caveat emptor as far as football goes. I don't see another viable upstart league anytime soon, if ever. The NFL rules, OK? That's the way it is and the way it will be."