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Alliance of American Football (AAF) |OT|

AntiMacro

AntiMacro

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,138
Alberta
Jazzman said:
If Manziel did purposely invalidate his CFL contract so he could jump ship to the AAF, this is just such sweet comeuppance.

I do feel bad for all the players that are out jobs now though, I imagine they were loving the opportunity to play.
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I feel bad for everyone involved except for Manziel, who just continues to make terrible decisions and ride them into the ground.
 
RecRoulette

RecRoulette

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
26,044
Heard the news today and what the fuck? Even the XFL managed to survive an entire season.

Hell, this shit is probably going to give Vince even more confidence rather than push him away
 
Himynameischris

Himynameischris

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,614
bdfb69864d43f97719d2fb0c724a8adb.jpg

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Captain of Outer Space

Captain of Outer Space

Come Sale Away With Me
Member
Oct 28, 2017
11,349
Dundon seems to be a bigger piece of shit than Roger Goodell, which is a hell of an accomplishment in eight weeks. At least Orlando went out on top.

Do we have archives of the games on Youtube?

Edit: Fuck Dundon for this shit:

 
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Violence Jack

Violence Jack

Drive-in Mutant
Member
Oct 25, 2017
41,754
Reading some of these tweets from players just makes my blood boil. I hope there is a way the league comes back, and sues Dundon for all he's worth. All those millions of dollars, and they couldn't even pay for these people to get home.
 
perfectchaos007

perfectchaos007

It's Happening
Member
Oct 25, 2017
12,244
Texas
Wow, they actually closed the league. It seemed to have a decent enough following to stay afloat. If Minor league baseball teams and GLeague basketball teams can survive with little fanfare and limited exposure there's no reason why a minor league football league can't.
 
OfficerRob

OfficerRob

Member
Oct 25, 2017
26,101
Ron Paul said:
Wow, they actually closed the league. It seemed to have a decent enough following to stay afloat. If Minor league baseball teams and GLeague basketball teams can survive with little fanfare and limited exposure there's no reason why a minor league football league can't.
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Minor league baseball is an entirely different beast. Player contracts are handled by MLB club affiliates, and minor league baseball is a valuable system for development. It's extremely rare for a player to get drafted and skip the minor leagues. This is just simply not a comparable to football

As for the G league, their rosters are small (especially in comparison to what it takes to field a football team), and player salaries are small (35k for the season).

Football is expensive. Paying all those players (70k each this season) and coaches (head coach's made 500k) is expensive. All that equipment is expensive. Paying rent to play in massive stadiums (a mistake the XFL is making) is expensive. Unlike the NFL where all these expenses are divided among each individual team, all these are paid by the league in the AAF (and by Vince McMahon in the XFL).

Unless you have a lucrative TV deal and/or a billionaire willing to lose a ton of money for a long time, a secondary league is dead before it starts.
 
Captain of Outer Space

Captain of Outer Space

Come Sale Away With Me
Member
Oct 28, 2017
11,349
Ron Paul said:
Wow, they actually closed the league. It seemed to have a decent enough following to stay afloat. If Minor league baseball teams and GLeague basketball teams can survive with little fanfare and limited exposure there's no reason why a minor league football league can't.
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It helps when the primary funder of the league decides to try to hold the league hostage to get the NFL to make a deal with them.
 
Sweeney Swift

Sweeney Swift

User Requested Ban
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
14,743
#IStandWithTaylor
SI said:
It's not clear, however, whether Dundon's investment in AAF contemplates AAF technologies. As reported by Ad Age last September, MGM Resorts International entered into a contract with AAF to develop sports betting technologies. The contract would indicate whether MGM Resorts owns the intellectual property and licenses it to AAF, or vice-versa. If MGM Resorts owns the related intellectual property, Dundon might not own the AAF app or its data.

Even if we assume that Dundon became the owner of the AAF gambling app, he may be barred from shutting down the league simply because he obtained the app and doesn't want the league. For one, he owes fiduciary duties to other investors in AAF. Those duties include a duty to act in good faith, a duty of care and a duty of loyalty. Other investors could potentially sue him for breaching those duties. They would need to find evidence that Dundon looked out for his own interests at their—and the AAF's—expense.

Similarly, if Dundon agreed to certain obligations and duties in his contract to purchase part of the AAF, other investors could contend that Dundon breached those obligations and duties. They could also argue that he unjustly enriched himself and willfully mispresented his intentions to the point of committing commercial fraud.
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CommandThrower

CommandThrower

Member
Oct 26, 2017
5,136
I hope Dundon really gets put to task for this. If he really just wanted the app technology all along, and just tossed aside hundreds of employees without any regard, then he needs to be held responsible.

The whole situation is fucked up.
 
Sweeney Swift

Sweeney Swift

User Requested Ban
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
14,743
#IStandWithTaylor
https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2019/4/4/18294528/american-alliance-football-aaf-collapse-suspend-xfl

The Ringer said:
The AAF Failed Because All Minor League Football Does
The American Alliance of Football had more than most upstart leagues do: TV deals and a plan to become a developmental feeder for the NFL. It still suspended all football operations this week
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The AAF offered a twist to the well-trodden story of the failed football league. Most leagues fold having made far fewer inroads, with far worse strategies for long-term success, and with far less money. Most leagues fold because they cannot find a man with money in the bank. The AAF seems to be folding because they found one.
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The idea that the AAF needed help from the NFL was absolutely right, but everything about Dundon's statement was strange. For starters, it was phrased like an ultimatum, preemptively blaming the NFLPA's refusal to share players for the AAF's demise. In the squeegee scenario, Dundon was now shouting "IF YOU DON'T GIVE ME SOAP, I WON'T SQUEEGEE YOUR CAR" to a driver who never asked for their car to be squeegeed in the first place. Secondly, while the AAF would eventually need the NFL's help, Dundon seemed oddly fixated on one specific form of help—literally sharing players with the NFL. That wouldn't necessarily be a requirement for a developmental league. But most importantly, Dundon made the matter of getting NFL players seem urgent, while it clearly wasn't. The AAF obviously could have finished its season without the 88th player on the Cincinnati Bengals' roster signing up—and without completing its first season, it seems unlikely the AAF will ever convince the NFL or the NFLPA that it is worth partnering with.

Nobody is still 100 percent sure why Dundon immediately began fixing to kill the league he just invested $70 million in. The best explanation offered thus far stems from a report by Sports Illustrated's Albert Breer, who posits that Dundon actually bought the league not for, you know, the league, but for the proprietary technology the league had worked on, such as its app and gambling tech. Early on, Ebersol billed the league as "a tech company that owns a football league"; Dundon apparently took that literally. This is possibly illegal, and who knows whether the technology is worth $70 million, and it seems likely he doesn't have the rights anyway. But, like, why else would Dundon so quickly give up?
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Ebersol and Polian might have had the best plan of any minor football league ever because they were pragmatic enough to realize that eventually they'd need the NFL's help. That said, "the best plan of any minor football league ever" was still not a particularly good plan.
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As for Dundon, his public explanation for closing the league asks us to believe that he spent $70 million on a wildly unprofitable league in February and realized in April that his league was wildly unprofitable. The seven weeks between his purchase of the league and its closure seem both too long—how did he buy the league in February and take until April to realize how much money it lost every week?—and too short—how did he buy the league in February and expect everything to be fixed by April? It's disheartening that he seemingly had no interest in keeping the league alive long enough to follow through on the promise of becoming a true developmental league. I half-heartedly buy the conclusion that he bought the league primarily for its technology, which makes him seem like a bad person (for shuttering a league with hundreds of employees for his attempted personal gain) and a worse businessman (for spending $70 million on a football league so he could close it within two months).
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The AAF had different plans from every other league but met the same end. It will not be the last of its type. Next year will see the planned launch of a second XFL (again owned by the WWE's Vince McMahon) as well as a league called the Freedom Football League founded by former NFL players Ricky Williams and Terrell Owens. I suspect the new XFL will fail for the same reason the first one did—McMahon has no interest in partnering with the NFL because he seems to genuinely believe he can build a football league that will serve as the NFL's equal. But time and time again, that has proved to be an unrealistic goal for all the NFL's would-be competitors. The FFL also doesn't seem to have any interest in partnering with the NFL—the league's main premise is rebelling against the NFL's big-money ownership as one of its primary goals. Both seem to think of the NFL as a rival rather than a lifeline.
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Himynameischris

Himynameischris

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,614
NinjaScooter said:
Wait they weren't before? Like these guys wouldn't/couldn't have left their teams for a shot at the NFL??
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I mean the season runs during the off season so it's not like teams were going to scoop them up during the AAF season anyways, but since they were under contract even after the league got suspended, the NFL didn't want to get involved with any illegal tampering, so the AAF made it official that they can sign with NFL teams now. It's mostly a formality.
 
Dega

Dega

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,331
Himynameischris said:
I mean the season runs during the off season so it's not like teams were going to scoop them up during the AAF season anyways, but since they were under contract even after the league got suspended, the NFL didn't want to get involved with any illegal tampering, so the AAF made it official that they can sign with NFL teams now. It's mostly a formality.
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You did this. Dundon saw that anime and figured he was ruining America further so he had to stop it.


Maybe it is for the best?
 
linkboy

linkboy

Member
Oct 26, 2017
13,690
Reno
NinjaScooter said:
I don't think he had any intention of continuing the season.
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Exactly.

It's freaking expensive to startup a league (see MLS for the first few seasons of it's existence). That's ultimately why all of these leagues fail. You need to find someone who's willing to lose a shit-ton of money in the first few years to ride out that initial financial loss in the hope that they'll make it back at some point.

There's not a lot of people willing to take that investment on.
 

Bangai O

Member
Oct 28, 2017
398
NinjaScooter said:
There will never be a way to do it "right" so long as the NFL and NCAA exist in the way they do now. We have decades and millions of wasted dollars worth of evidence that the general public simply doesn't want professional minor league football.
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You're probably right, but I want more football. I really don't like any other sports and it sucks to have to wait for such a long time after the Superbowl for football to come back.
 
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