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Death of the Alliance of American Football


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11 hours ago, Sykotyk said:

Yeah. The Thursday and Monday games have been brutal the past couple of years. And there's no way to flex them to something better. And the players really hate the Thursday games and I wouldn't be surprised if that rights fee NFL gets for them might wind up going straight to the players as a pay off.

 

 $500 million is only $16 million per team. And if the players put their foot down, will the NFL scrap Thursdays or will they agree to a higher cap for the players because of it?  And, another thing players might argue is guaranteed contracts. The time has come, I think, that the players realize the money is there that there's no reason to risk life and limb for a contract that can be scrapped at any time and leave them from well-paid star to washed-up free agent with no guarantee of income.  And, honestly, I think fans are starting to side with the players and agreeing that the owners are the greedy ones (TNF, London, etc proving they're out to squeeze every penny from the golden goose they can).

 

 

It directly factors into the cap, so they're already being paid more because of it, even if it doesn't necessarily kick in this exact season.

 

As long as there's the potential to make that much money, people will be willing to put their bodies, brains, and futures on the line.  

 

I don't know how to measure this, but IMO your average American couldn't care less about the players and just wants to see football.  I don't think the protests matter much, despite what a few vocal heehaws, an [fake MOD EDIT: NO POLITICS!!1!] and Papa John says.  Honestly, anyone that it bothers is the problem.

 

As long as there is fantasy football, legal and illegal gambling on games, bars where people gather, etc., the NFL will always be in great shape, even if it's absolute pinnacle is behind it.

 

EDIT: despite quoting your post, only the first line is in response to it.  The rest is general comments regarding other stuff posted in the thread.

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12 hours ago, jmac11281 said:

The game is a shell of what it used to be. I think that started before all of the rules changes for safety reasons. With that being said, @BringBackTheVet is correct. The NFL is not going anywhere anytime soon. 

 

Would be good to have something to rival it or at the very least be a good second division league.

Logano wins BOWL before Chargers.

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5 hours ago, tigers said:

Would be good to have something to rival it or at the very least be a good second division league.

 

We already have that - it’s called “college”.

 

I think between the two, with the combined 160 teams, we’re actually at football saturation. 

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1 hour ago, Gothamite said:

 

We already have that - it’s called “college”.

 

I think between the two, with the combined 160 teams, we’re actually at football saturation. 

 

I understand that, but what about the players we miss out on that just quite up to the NFL and are no good at School?

Even if it was 12 to 18 team league in locations that don't currently have a NFL side and played in the summer.

Logano wins BOWL before Chargers.

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3 hours ago, tigers said:

 

I understand that, but what about the players we miss out on that just quite up to the NFL and are no good at School?

Even if it was 12 to 18 team league in locations that don't currently have a NFL side and played in the summer.

And that is how many players? 2 or 3?

Eric Swann, Ray Seals, and beer truck driver Michael Lewis aside, you are not "missing" anybody of any note and surely not 22.

 

Those who make the 53 or practice squad be w/o playing college football (NCAA or NAIA) were either athletes internationally or were on other collegiate teams and made a transition, like Antonio Gates.

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3 hours ago, tigers said:

 

I understand that, but what about the players we miss out on that just quite up to the NFL and are no good at School?

Even if it was 12 to 18 team league in locations that don't currently have a NFL side and played in the summer.

The biggest hole that WLAF and NFL Europe filled were reps that players didn't get because they were too far down the depth charts. Since the NFL controlled those leagues they got a little more respect than they would have had were they separate entities like the USFL, UFL, SPFL and others that tried to capitalize on a lack of sports options in early/late spring and summer. 

5 hours ago, Gothamite said:

 

We already have that - it’s called “college”.

 

I think between the two, with the combined 160 teams, we’re actually at football saturation. 

To a point I agree with this, but with players moving on to the NFL and getting less time in pads than when they are in college, a spring league that can give them more time to learn concepts based on their pro team's playbook can go a long way to getting them ready for the fall. 

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3 hours ago, MJWalker45 said:

To a point I agree with this, but with players moving on to the NFL and getting less time in pads than when they are in college, a spring league that can give them more time to learn concepts based on their pro team's playbook can go a long way to getting them ready for the fall. 

 

You're talking about taxi squads, not a professional league.

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Guest Wizza

I kinda always wanted to see football in BIrmingham other than the Blazers but folks here shat on that. I also was homesick and depressed that time. Thats beside the point but looks like the AAF is way stretched out and not regional like indoor football leagues so travel is gonna be a big expense plus looks like they're putting a team in California iirc  where no indoor league dares to touch due to the labor laws. Plus maintaining multiple full 53 man rosters and staff, this thing is gonna be hella expensive and IDK if the people behind this has that dough (signs point to they don't) to make the AAF go. The Spring League and the various indoor football leagues are your best bet for spring football action these days. 

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25 minutes ago, Wizza said:

I kinda always wanted to see football in BIrmingham other than the Blazers but folks here shat on that. I also was homesick and depressed that time. Thats beside the point but looks like the AAF is way stretched out and not regional like indoor football leagues so travel is gonna be a big expense plus looks like they're putting a team in California iirc  where no indoor league dares to touch due to the labor laws. Plus maintaining multiple full 53 man rosters and staff, this thing is gonna be hella expensive and IDK if the people behind this has that dough (signs point to they don't) to make the AAF go. The Spring League and the various indoor football leagues are your best bet for spring football action these days. 

The "it's too expensive in California" line came from the broke a$$ A11FL in 2014. The LA KISS started their time in Anaheim that same year, so don't believe the comment because the A11FL, said it on Facebook and Twitter.

The Spring League isn't competition, it's been three separate weeks of scrimmages and Brian Woods has yet to complete all the games/scrimmages he promises to hold back to his FXFL.

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9 minutes ago, dfwabel said:

 

The "it's too expensive in California" line came from the broke a$$ A11FL in 2014. The LA KISS started their time in Anaheim that same year, so don't believe the comment because the A11FL, said it on Facebook and Twitter.

The Spring League isn't competition, it's been three separate weeks of scrimmages and Brian Woods has yet to complete all the games/scrimmages he promises to hold back to his FXFL.

I said nothing about the spring league being competition so idk where that came from. Kiss is a pretty bad example as they had money behind them as did the Sabercats. Since then, no team hav been popped up there and that is due to the labor laws. Going even further back was the Avengers but the league was in a different financial state then. 

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On 3/31/2018 at 8:22 PM, Gothamite said:

People have been predicting its death long enough that I’ll believe it only when I see it.

 

Allow me to retort...

 

When's the last time you listened to AM radio?  

 

Unless you're of a certain age demographic, odds are, it's been a while.  I predicted AM's demise in 1985, while sitting behind the microphone at a station that touted itself as one of the pioneers of broadcast radio - a station so old as to have a three-letter call sign, and one so revered that when I said it, I spent the bulk of my four-hour show that day explaining to people that I didn't see it happening right away, but over the course of the next half century.  I actually had to hit the "dump" button on our 7-second delay because one caller said I was, and I quote, "out of my ****ing mind" by thinking that AM radio would someday be on its deathbed.

 

That radio station was KQV in Pittsburgh, which at the time was the only true all news/talk station in the city, which had been among the top five in Arbitron ratings for as long as they'd been keeping them, and whose calls were spoken in those reverential, hushed tones you only heard for similarly aged stations like WLW, WGN, KDKA, WBZ and the like.  At the time I made that statement, my show's ratings were poor by KQV's standards (airing overnight on Saturdays-Sundays will tend to do that, not to mention give you an array of fun, really ****faced callers to deal with on air), but I knew my words were reaching at least 100,000 or so pairs of ears - because that's the kind of audience power KQV had.  KQV was quite literally a multi-million dollar business, with absolutely staggering :30 ad rates and a sales staff of 50 people, working full-time, when I made that prediction.

 

KQV signed off the air on December 31, 2017.  When it did, it barely and rarely appeared in local ratings.  The demographic that had made the station a staple of Pittsburgh broadcasting from the day it signed on the air well into the 1970's, had died off.  Bought by 'affinity' owners who thought they could keep the station alive as a tax write-off, or who thought they could somehow salvage something of what was once so mighty, eventually came to the realization that there was nothing left to be salvaged.  They then tried to sell the station to someone, anyone who could keep it on the air.  Failing that, they finally gave up and signed off.  A month later a sale of sorts was consummated, in which KQV will return to the air (in some form, at some location to be determined based on FCC approval) between now and the end of 2018; the station, and all its assets, sold for $55,000.

 

KQV's failure wasn't a product of bad management or decision-making, key personnel leaving or weird financial circumstance.  Hundreds of AM radio stations nationwide in 2010-17 have done something absolutely unthinkable back in 1985:  they turned in their licenses to the FCC, giving up what was in some cases seen as a prized commodity worth millions of dollars... because times change.  Far more AM license holders have resorted to acquiring what are known as "translators" - small, 250 watt FM transmitters, so they can "simulcast their AM signal and revitalize the AM band."  Well, that's what the FCC claims is happening, anyway.  In truth, it's putting a Band-Aid on a bullet wound; a feeble attempt at avoiding recognition of what I predicted nearly 35 years ago - that AM radio, as a medium, as dead.

 

I tell this tale for simple reason:  just because someone makes a prediction doesn't necessarily mean they're wrong.  It just may not happen on a fast enough scale for you to really notice it.  AM radio broadcasting.  Rotary telephones.  Fax machines.  Rolodexes.  Typewriters.  Each one of these things were once revolutionary; now, they're at minimum antiquated if not obsolete entirely.  The death of television isn't imminent.  You nor I may live to see its ultimate demise.  But it is coming.

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8 hours ago, Gothamite said:

 

You're talking about taxi squads, not a professional league.

I think these leagues have to try to get players from other leagues by showing that the 4th WR from Montreal or the 3rd RB from Chicago will get a greater benefit playing 8 games in San Jose vs a couple of mini-camps with the parent club. The leagues win't have problems finding bodies, just how well those bodies can play will be the question. 

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11 hours ago, Mac the Knife said:

I tell this tale for simple reason:  just because someone makes a prediction doesn't necessarily mean they're wrong.  It just may not happen on a fast enough scale for you to really notice it.  AM radio broadcasting.  Rotary telephones.  Fax machines.  Rolodexes.  Typewriters.  Each one of these things were once revolutionary; now, they're at minimum antiquated if not obsolete entirely.  The death of television isn't imminent.  You nor I may live to see its ultimate demise.  But it is coming.

 

I was actually talking about the death of the NFL. I should have been more specific.

 

But yes, nothing is permanent.  Huge industries die out.  Either they run out of steam, are surpassed, or are regulated out of existence.  Standard oil, anyone?

 

But as to television, I don't doubt that broadcast rights will someday be less important than they are now.  But considering we're talking about a league that's trying to get started up in the next couple weeks, broadcast rights are still pretty damned important. 

 

It doesn't matter to the AAF if television collapses in twenty years, because the league will itself be eighteen years dead by that point.

 

(And FWIW, I listen to WNYC 820 AM every day.  ;) )

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I listened to AM radio yesterday.

 

My chief issue with this league is starting a football league in this day and age seems like a risky venture unto itself. Add on all the other obstacles they'll have to overcome and it feels doomed to fail. I could see the NFL going the way of boxing if they don't correct the inherent dangers of the sport and if the NFL has a shelf-life so would any other leagues playing the sport. 

 

I think the only chance for a hypothetical minor league to survive would be to become a viable alternative as a developmental league for younger players to the NCAA, but the NCAA's slave labor and decades of history with fanbases it feels like that's an even tougher hill to climb than taking on the NFL. 

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3 hours ago, Gothamite said:

(And FWIW, I listen to WNYC 820 AM every day.  ;) )

 

Just curious: why the AM feed rather than the FM feed (93.9 FM)? I haven't listened to the AM feed in years since the audio quality on FM is so much better.

 

(I'm always jarred whenever switching over to an AM station, since I listen pretty much only to FM and satellite radio only. Was driving down to South Jersey on Sunday while listening to the Yankees game on WFAN, and lost 101.9 somewhere past New Brunswick. Was floored how muffled the audio of the same exact broadcast was on 660 when I switched over to AM. Audio quality, more than anything, is what's killed AM radio.)

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9 minutes ago, kroywen said:

Makes sense - forgot it wasn't just a straight simulcast of the FM feed.

 

They start out that way in the morning but then diverge.  And I can't :censored: ing stand "The Takeaway", so I switch around to whichever station it's not on.  Although might have to check it out again, now that Hockenberry's gone.

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28 minutes ago, kroywen said:
4 hours ago, Gothamite said:

(And FWIW, I listen to WNYC 820 AM every day.  ;) )

 

Just curious: why the AM feed rather than the FM feed (93.9 FM)? I haven't listened to the AM feed in years since the audio quality on FM is so much better.

 

When I was still in the habit of listening to over-the-air radio, I would listen to WNYC on AM 820 rather than on FM 93.9, for purely aesthetic reasons.  I know that the FM side sounds "better"; but the AM side sounded right for Morning Edition.

But I don't do that anymore. I listen to plenty of radio content, including shows produced by NPR and its stations.  But none of it by means of over-the-air radio.  In the age of the podcast, I fear that over-the-air radio is moribund, with AM on the leading edge of, um, moribunditude.

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