2001 was the one and only season for the XFL. League founder Vince McMahon had plans to expand the league after the 2001 season, but as is the case with most rival Pro Football leagues, severe fanancial difficulties prevented that from happening, and the league was forced to fold. Many people thought that "XFL" meant "Extreme Football Leauge", but it actually did not mean anything. It simply was the name of the league. On the field, the league was very competitive, with only three of the teams having losing records. The two teams that stood above the rest were the Orlando Rage at 8-2, and the Los Angeles Xtreme at 7-3. The Rage would win the Eastern Division by three games over the second-place Chicago Enforcers (5-5), while the Xtreme would win the Western Division by two games over the second place San
Francisco Demons (5-5) and Memphis Maniax (5-5). In the playoffs, the Xtreme would take care of the Enforcers 33-16, while the Demons would squeak by the Rage 26-25, setting up the Million Dollar Game between Los Angeles and San Francisco. The Million Dollar Game was the XFL's championship game at the end of the season. At first it had no special name, then was going to be called "The Big Game at the End", but eventually received the name it ended up with because a pot of one million dollars was to be split among the players of the winning team (with each team having 38 players, each player would receive approximately $26,316 for winning). The game was played on Saturday April 21, 2001 at the LA Memorial Coliseum. The Xtreme, led by regular-season Most Valuable Player Tommy Maddox, won the
Million Dollar Game 38–6. The Xtreme would use a stingy defense to shut down the Demons. With four field goals, the game's MVP was Xtreme kicker Jose Cortez, which was ironic considering the reduced role a kicker had in the XFL, which did not have a point after touchdown (extra point) kick in its rules and also paid kickers the least per game on its salary scale.