By MIKE ULMER -- Toronto Sun
  TAMPA -- You should know that National Football League commissioner Paul Tagliabue mentioned the XFL this week.

 You should also know that he used the same reverent tone a homeowner would invoke upon discovering termites.

 "Frankly," Tagliabue said, "it's been a minor aspect of what we worry about. In many cases, it's just a complete non-issue."

 That non-issue is expected to fly a plane and banner over Raymond James Stadium tonight in case anyone missed news of the league's Feb. 3 kickoff. Think of it as challenging the biggest kid on your block to fight while his mom calls him in to dinner.

 When the ball is downed for the final time tonight at Super Bowl XXXV, the bar gets lowered with it. Then it's Vince McMahon's turn.

 No no one expects the XFL to challenge the NFL's hold on America's passions. But the XFL will change the way the public sees the National Football League and, get this, it will alter that perception for the better.

 The XFL, with its tasteless story lines of jocks and overly impressed cheerleaders, is about to bleach the NFL's spotty public image. In the year of Rae Carruth, Ray Lewis and now, Mark Chmura, this is no easy feat.

 Until now, the NFL was the reigning sporting entity in the United States because it boasted the industry's best formula for distilling sex and violence.

 Time to move over. None of the XFL's opening ad salvos have mentioned the calibre of play. Sex and violence, no fair catches and stretched Spandex, have been the theme and they will be further appropriated from the NFL in due time.

 The XFL is to the NFL what a table dancer is to Gypsy Rose Lee. You are dealing in the same commodity, but there is a huge disparity in presentation.

 Next to the hot babes of the XFL, the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders will look like the Sisters of St.Mary's.

 Vendettas, brazen sexual innuendo, choreographed and provocative celebrations, all these things are about to become story lines in the XFL.

 And this will be no temporary wave. The XFL may be a sporting version of a peep show, but it has moved into the neighbourhood for good.

 Unlike the World Football League and the United States Football League, the XFL can't lose money, not with a top player salary of $50,000 and a league that owns every team. August financial publications have pegged the league's start-up cost at $35-$38 million US, half of which will be shouldered by co-founders and broadcaster NBC. The same analysts project revenues of about $85 million.

 And while companies like Coca-Cola and AT&T have proven squeamish about the parent World Wrestling Federation's blend of sexism, racism and over-the-top hype, the XFL's target group of young males will attract advertising while delivering plenty of buzz.

 The NFL emphatically has shown that most people watch sports because they want an event. Does anyone doubt the WWF can hold its own in the realm of spectacles?

 The damage to the NFL will be minimal. The XFL won't hurt the NFL at the gate. Yes, with 10 XFL regular season weeks, plus playoffs, the window for professional football is now nine months long.

 But America's lust for football is impossible to satisfy.

  There are no scheduling or contractual conflicts and, just in case, an NFL presence is already available in every XFL market, save for minor-league outposts Birmingham, Ala., and Las Vegas.

 Paul Tagliabue publicly may be looking at the XFL as something stuck to the bottom of his shoe, but I think he is secretly pleased the league has set up shop. It's not often a competitor makes you look better.

 An era ends tonight and the thug issue, showcased so evocatively by Ray Lewis, is about to be washed away in the tide. Today, football prosecutes villains. Tomorrow, it promotes them.

 Fitting, I guess, that the old era dies with the firing of a gun.