Tag: AAF Finances

The AAF is Once Again in Danger of Going Out of Business

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Update: They finally did go out of business. 

 

ESPN – The majority owner of the Alliance of American Football told USA Today Sports that league is in danger of folding without help from the National Football League Players Association. Tom Dundon, who became the AAF’s chairman last month, told USA Today Sports in a recent interview that the NFLPA is not cooperating with the AAF by refusing to allow the first-year league to use young NFL players.

“If the players union is not going to give us young players, we can’t be a development league,” Dundon told USA Today Sports. “We are looking at our options, one of which is discontinuing the league.”

Dundon said he expects to make a decision about the league’s future over the next two days…The eight-team AAF, billed as a development league, kicked off the weekend following the Super Bowl. The league is seven games into its 10-game regular season.

What kind of business model pumps its own tires as much as the AAF did prior to launching only to make it barely 2 months before nearly going out of business TWICE? In case you forgot, they almost couldn’t make payroll in Week 2 of the first season. Who is running these leagues? Obviously we’ve seen football leagues come and go over the past 20 years as the NFL has maintained its stranglehold on consumers’ attention without even lifting a finger. Most of these leagues fail because its just morons running the business side of things it would seem.

In marketing they say the average person needs to see an ad or a brand message seven times before it sticks. Now apply that to the AAF. How many AAF games do you think the average sports fan has watched? One? Maybe two? The AAF *had* to be prepared for slow adoption, otherwise it was a stupid business venture.

First off, if the AAF’s thinly veiled expectation was for the NFL to welcome them with open arms and create yet another item on their budget sheet then they were sorely mistaken. Sure the NFL needs a minor league system….but they already have one.

It’s college College Football.

Does College Football’s love of wishbone offenses, pistol offenses, air raid offenses, shotgun only offenses, and run pass option offenses prepare players for the NFL? Well five years ago I would have said no, but now…um yea it kind of does. So many coaches are taking College Football offensive plays, concepts, and entire schemes and running them as is in the NFL now. Belichick does it, so does Andy Reid, Matt Nagy, Doug Pederson and Sean Payton.

So if the AAF was hoping to be a way of preparing young players for the standard operating procedure in the NFL, well then they’re fucked because the market has shifted.

To just expect this league full of no name players would be a mega hit from Day 1 is so shortsighted it’s almost funny. Did anyone in that league go to business school? Isn’t Bill Polian supposed to be one of the smartest football execs ever? Yet somehow they don’t have a plan to make it through even one full season without fears of going out of business?

I was texting back and forth with Mattes about this story and he summarized his opinion succinctly, if not spitefully, after getting roasted by AAF Reddit for somehow not believing in this league:

“As Dashboard Confessional once said: I AM VINDICATED.” – Mattes

Real talk though, this is not a good turn of events for my guy Johnny Manziel. After flaming out in two different football leagues, it would be some shit luck for the third one to just straight go out of business. Looks like it’s XFL or bust baby.

 

The AAF Apparently Needed a $250M Investment Just to Make Payroll in Week TWO

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Yahoo – For all the good publicity the Alliance of American Football received early on, it’s still a startup business. Like plenty of other startup businesses, the AAF might have been underfunded to start. The Athletic’s David Glenn, citing multiple sources, reported that the league was in danger of not making payroll last week, just the second week of the league’s existence.

The crisis was averted. Glenn wrote that Carolina Hurricanes majority owner Tom Dundon will be introduced as the AAF’s new chairman after investing $250 million to the AAF. The NHL owner’s investment allowed the league to meet its financial obligations...

“Without a new, nine-figure investor, nobody is sure what would have happened,” one source told Glenn at The Athletic. “You can always tell people their checks are going to be a little late, but how many are going to show up on the weekend for games when they don’t see anything hit their bank accounts on Friday?”

Isn’t this the first thing they teach you in business school? How to fund your business and keep the doors open? Thats like Day 1 stuff.

Look I am all for capitalism and people trying to make money and I really want the AAF to succeed, but without any big names like Tim Tebow playing, the only chance this league ever has of making it is if the NFL acquires it. The NFL would have to decide after over a decade of having no minor leagues (RIP NFL Europe) that they want to buy the AAF as a talent pipeline.

But I also find it hilarious that they’re almost going out of business in Week TWO after the peacocking about beating a regular season NBA game in the ratings on a random Saturday night and after Mattes faced the wrath of AAF Reddit (yes its a thing) for saying he wasn’t watching.

 

It’s a decent concept, but not exactly anything groundbreaking. I’d be curious to see the market specific TV ratings as it compares to competitors’ programming in the same time slots. Because not to sound like a complete arrogant dickhead, but we watch the New England Patriots up here. They have the greatest quarterback and the greatest coach of all time. So I’m not exactly fighting over the remote to watch Christian Hackenberg throwing ducks for 2 hours.

My point being, the smartest thing the AAF did was put these teams in cities where there isn’t established NFL competition. I know they’ve said they’re not competing with the NFL; they’re complimenting it. But even if they’re not competing with the NFL directly, they’re still competing for the attention of the NFL fan, which is why I’d be curious to see the TV ratings in those non-traditional football markets. Markets that are starved for the sport. It’d be like putting a Big 3 League residency in Seattle. There’s an appetite for it.

So while I wish the AAF all the best, aside from watching a few minutes of a game at the bar, this whole story doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. Not to mention they got Vince McMahon licking his chops with the XFL closer to kicking off every single day.