After eight weeks of games and less than one season into its existence, the Alliance of American Football is suspending operations Tuesday, a source told ESPN on Tuesday, confirming multiple reports.
The league had been struggling from the outset. After the first week of the season, Carolina Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon pledged a $250 million investment into the league and essentially became the league's owner.
At the time, the league shot down reports that it needed the money to stay afloat. Instead, sources told ESPN at the time there was an issue with a change in the payroll company they were using. Co-founder Charlie Ebersol told ESPN in January they had structured the league around a "sober business plan," because he believed he learned lessons from his father, Dick Ebersol, who helped run the first version of the XFL.
It was the first in a litany of issues that popped up surrounding the nascent league trying to be a complement to the NFL. Due to insurance issues, the Orlando Apollos had to move their practices three hours away to Kingsland, Georgia.
The league and Ebersol was sued by Robert Vanech, with Vanech claiming Ebersol cut him out of the idea for the league and then denied him credit. As part of the civil suit, Vanech released a document that appeared to be a business plan for the league -- including wanting to try and approach Vince McMahon for usage of the XFL name.
Instead, McMahon decided to start his own league, which is scheduled to launch next year.
The league last month also moved its title game from Las Vegas to Frisco, Texas. UNLV, which owns Sam Boyd Stadium, told ESPN after a public records request, "there was no signed agreement between UNLV and the Alliance of American Football/Legendary Field Exhibitions, LLC." The game was expected to be played there, though, as Sam Boyd Stadium had been selling tickets on its website as late as the day it was announced the game would be moving.
Even back in training camp, the league wouldn't allow independent reporters to view their preseason games in San Antonio.
Despite all this, ratings had remained fairly consistent for the league, with between 400,000 and 500,000 viewers often tuning in for games, according to ratings reports. And the league got a bump in attention after Johnny Manziel signed last month and was allocated to Memphis.
Manziel offered some advice to AAF players on Twitter with Tuesday's news.
If you're an AAF player and the league does dissolve. The last check you got will be the last one that you get. No lawsuit or anything else will get you your bread. Save your money and keep your head up. It's the only choice at this point unless something drastic happens.
— Johnny Manziel (@JManziel2) April 2, 2019
Just the reality of this unfortunate situation.. great concept, good football on the field and fun for fans to watch. Just not enough money to go around which has been the main problem with "other" leagues for a long time.
— Johnny Manziel (@JManziel2) April 2, 2019
The league signed all players to three-year, non-guaranteed contracts worth $70,000 in the first year, $80,000 in the second year and $100,000 in the third year. The hope, co-founder Polian said, was that the league would become a complement and that they could send players to the NFL.
"We see our mission is to augment the NFL. We are not competitive with the NFL," Polian said. "We're not competitive with college football. Our job is to augment, hopefully both, but certainly the NFL. So to the extent we do things that the NFL may say, 'Hey, that's pretty good, great.'"
The AAF also had intriguing rules changes, including a mic'd-up replay official and eliminating kickoffs and extra points. To solve the onside kick problem, they created a fourth-and-12 scenario, where if a team converted, they would keep the ball. A variation of it was proposed during last week's NFL's league meetings but did not pass.
Over the last two weeks, though, reports surfaced of the league trying to work with the NFLPA on allowing practice squad players and futures squad players to play in the AAF. Dundon had told USA Today last week if the league was unable to work out an agreement with the NFLPA to try and share players, options then would include "discontinuing the league."
Apparently, an agreement never came to fruition because Dundon decided to suspend league operations instead.
ProFootballTalk was first to report that the league would suspend operations.
One of the more attractive things about the league was the technology it developed with its app. It allowed for faster real-time technology to reach consumers and also tracked multiple biometric data points. The hope was other leagues would see the technology and express interest in using it as well.
"I think what we're building on the tech side will change sports," Ebersol said in January toward the end of training camp. "If this company has a chance to survive, if the football is good enough that this has a runway where people are engaged, it will change sports."
At the time, Ebersol said he viewed his business as "a tech company that owns a football league."
And the football side -- perhaps temporarily, perhaps permanently -- is gone.
http://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/26423928/source-aaf-immediately-suspend-operations
2019-04-02 17:58:52Z
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