Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

So would you consider the AAF to be an even bigger flop than the original XFL was. While the XFL was at least still able to make it through an entire season I would still consider that league to be more of a disappointment than the AAF turned out to be. The XFL was truly a joke of a league. The AAF was a respectable league (even though the talent was lacking) but it just ran into a situation where there really was no market for an additional pro football league.

No, the XFL was a much bigger disaster because it had a prime time television package with NBC and endless promotion via Vince McMahon and WWE promoting the league ahead of time and it was and still is (if memory serves) the lowest-rated program in the history of the big three TV networks, which says something. McMahon thought he was creating something that was going to be as large as the NFL, and he fell flat on his face. I would think with the failure of the AAF that Vince McMahon must be rethinking his decision to move forward with bringing back the XFL.

The AAF, on the other did not have those lofty expectations, it wanted to fill a hole in the sports schedule between the end of the football season and the NFL Draft, and wanted to play at a level between college and pro. I think they succeeded on this point, but the problem was that there with the internet and NFL Network running 23/7/365, the question of "How much is too much?" with regard to pro football was finally answered with the demise of the AAF.

Rupert Patrick wrote:The question of "How much is too much?" with regard to pro football was finally answered with the demise of the AAF.

I'd like to know "How much [of what?] is too much and for whom?" If the AAF did manage to get the NFL and NFLPA to agree to use it as a developmental league (and I understand why the NFLPA didn't go along with it), would that have made a difference to fans in the long-term? And was it a lack of fan interest that sunk the league? It's not clear. It sounds like it was simply poorly managed from a business standpoint. I enjoyed what I saw on the field. My son fell in love with the Apollos out of the gate, while I liked the Iron because the players seemed to adopt the black-hat, bad-guy attitude that their uniforms portrayed.

RyanChristiansen wrote:

Rupert Patrick wrote:The question of "How much is too much?" with regard to pro football was finally answered with the demise of the AAF.

I'd like to know "How much [of what?] is too much and for whom?" If the AAF did manage to get the NFL and NFLPA to agree to use it as a developmental league (and I understand why the NFLPA didn't go along with it), would that have made a difference to fans in the long-term? And was it a lack of fan interest that sunk the league? It's not clear. It sounds like it was simply poorly managed from a business standpoint. I enjoyed what I saw on the field. My son fell in love with the Apollos out of the gate, while I liked the Iron because the players seemed to adopt the black-hat, bad-guy attitude that their uniforms portrayed.

The NFL doesn't seem to want a developmental league, as it already has the NCAA and Arena football and other minor leagues which cost them nothing. They dabbled in developmental leagues in the past like the WLAF and they failed. I am going thru the attendance figures at wikipedia, and San Antonio had the strongest fan base, with about 27,000 fans per game, while San Diego and Oralando were 19-20K per game, Birmingham and Memphis were 13-14K, and the other three were 9-10K per game. The attendance wasn't bad, but there were stories that the books were being cooked on the attendance figures.

The problem was the AAF was on shaky financial ground from day one, and would have collapsed after week 3 had it not been for the 250 million dollar cash infusion from Tom Dundon, the owner of the NHL Carolina Hurricanes. To start a new football league in America, your ownership group has to consist of a group of billionaires who each own their own teams and work hard to see them succeed instead of a central ownership system, and they have to be willing to lose money for a few years until the fans get used to the players and develop favorites. Owning your own team is very important instead of co-owning a league because of the prestige of standing on the podium hoisting the trophy at the end of the season, along with the coach and quarterback. The feeling must be intoxicating, and it drives owners in sports to spend ungodly amounts of money to win the trophy at any costs.

One major problem the AAF had going against it was that where there are no established stars; this wasn't the WFL or USFL where it was a new league that was bringing in a number of known entities from the NFL who fans were already familiar with. The AAF was a league of unknowns that fans had to get used to and learn who their favorites were.Another problem with this concept is that whenever the AAF develops a superstar, or a really good player, he'll be on an NFL roster the following season, and they'll be back to having another unknown to fill his shoes.

As for how much is too much, I don't think the fans as a whole were ready to support another league (read: ratings), as ratings equal advertising dollars. As some of the teams did well at the gate, fans as a whole didn't buy into it enough to justify the cost of the league. It was mismanaged, the owners should have owned their own teams instead of owning the league as a whole. Also, the owners should have stuck with the league a minimum three years to give fans time to get used to the players and develop loyalties to players.