Death of the Alliance of American Football

[dfwabel]

55 minutes ago, Red Comet said:

 

Thanks for the info. Trying to listen to those Neanderthals was a chore and a half. Yes, thanks for telling me Mormons are weird. I'm sure that's very relevant to why this league failed.

 

Anyway, its clear that despite what they said about not being a major league, they acted like (and apparently spent) they were. And yet they didn't even bother advertising at all.

I tried to warn y'all on the hosts.  But even as a former DFW resident, those two fellas were hard to listen to as they failed to keep things on track.  They wanted to be BaD Radio or their knockoff GBag Nation, yet they seem to have no producer, thus the hard listen and the constant LDS Church mocking. The guest could barely talk.  She couldn't tell her story about the AAF at all.

 

 

[dfwabel]

 

Yes, MLFB, the league which were held the tryouts, hired the coaches and had a draft, and had a time buy contract with Sinclair's American Sports Network (now d/b/a Staduim digitally) only to be evicted and have their equipment held by the landlord since 2016

 

Well, last week, in a SEC filing, the MLFB, or basically Frank Murtha, said that they have received a total of $206,200 in private funding through promissory notes due a year from now at 10 and 12% interest each.  They used part of that money to actually pay the balance on what was owed to their landlord and get their equipment back.  In their last Quarterly filing, they had just over $200,000 in assets and over $3.3M in debt and unpaid salaries and taxes.

[Gothamite]

So basically if MLF gets the equipment, then the XFL will just have to wait until they go belly-up and buy it from that bankruptcy auction. 

[The_Admiral]

On 6/5/2019 at 12:11 AM, Red Comet said:

Yes, thanks for telling me Mormons are weird. I'm sure that's very relevant to why this league failed.

 

What, did they blow all their money on their wives' MLM schemes or something?

[dfwabel]

8 minutes ago, Gothamite said:

So basically if MLF gets the equipment, then the XFL will just have to wait until they go belly-up and buy it from that bankruptcy auction. 

XFL put down a deposit of $37,500 or 10% of their bid.

 

MLFB doesn't have $375,000.01 period if they want to TPIR bidding tool. 

[GDAWG]

So when does MLF announce teams in the "Alternative Football League Quartet of Fail Cities" known as Birmingham, Memphis, Orlando and San Antonio?

[Matthew24]

8 minutes ago, GDAWG said:

So when does MLF announce teams in the "Alternative Football League Quartet of Fail Cities" known as Birmingham, Memphis, Orlando and San Antonio?

Dude... Bad call..

 

Also, how the h*** is the MLFB still exist? I thought that league was dead.

[Gothamite]

They convinced somebody to give them a couple hundred thousand dollars. 

 

If they can find somebody to follow that up with a couple million more dollars, they’ll be back to zero.

[dfwabel]

9 minutes ago, Gothamite said:

They convinced somebody to give them a couple hundred thousand dollars. 

 

If they can find somebody to follow that up with a couple million more dollars, they’ll be back to zero.

The last note of last wek's 8-K filing had this nugget (bolded by me):

 

Quote

On May 31, 2019, the Registrant executed an addendum to a Master Business Agreement (“Master Agreement”) with a third-party consulting firm to provide the following services: (1) marketing and communications, (2) sponsorship development and sales, (3) distribution and broadcasts and (4) production and show creation. The Master Agreement is contingent on the Registrant obtaining a minimum $3,000,000 of investor funding and, the addendum extended the date for such funding to June 30, 2019.

Like they are every going to get another 300K, yet alone 3 million in the next three weeks.  They had a similar agreement with the same "BDB Entertainment Group" for the same services last year also for a $35,000 deposit, 

[Red Comet]

2 hours ago, the admiral said:

 

What, did they blow all their money on their wives' MLM schemes or something?

 

That might explain where the advertising budget for the Stallions went. At least it would if they had any. /s

[dfwabel]

Seth Wickersham and Michael Rothstein have written ESPN's long-form story on the demise of the AAF.  They interviewed Dundon, Ebersol, Polian and 40 other team executives, coaches, and others affiliated. Authors admit, the key players couldn't say everything because of litigation.

Inside the short, unhappy life of The Alliance of American Football

 

Excerpt:

Quote

IN OCTOBER 2018, Ebersol flew to Bristol, Connecticut, to visit Polian, who was juggling ESPN and AAF duties. They met at their usual spot: the DoubleTree hotel, near the network's sprawling headquarters.

 

"We gotta get this thing moving or we won't make it," Ebersol told Polian.

 

The league was behind schedule, with oversights at almost every turn. The Orlando Apollos would be forced to practice for 36 days in Georgia, qualifying players for workers' compensation benefits there because the AAF had been unable to secure leaguewide insurance for players. The Salt Lake Stallions would move into their offices only after executives briefly worked out of a McDonald's and the conference room of the team's ticket broker. Team presidents found getting any piece of information, especially on budgets, needlessly difficult. Some stadium leases came together slowly, and stadium authorities exploited the AAF's February start to overcharge by hundreds of thousands of dollars. Even the AAF's fundamental promise -- to feed into the NFL -- was in jeopardy. An AAF executive discovered that the NFL's collective bargaining agreement prohibited players from being under contract with another league. If an AAF player went to the NFL but didn't make the team, he would be free to sign with the XFL. It was a disaster; one of the primary reasons to launch a year before McMahon was to corner the market on marginal NFL players. As a workaround, AAF executives drew up a hodgepodge of four different contracts each player would have to sign.

 

Meanwhile, the Alliance wasn't acting much like one, with football operations blaming business operations and business blaming football. It all came to a head at the DoubleTree. "You need to give me authority," Polian told Ebersol.

 

Polian was deeply frustrated -- and wondering whether the AAF was worth his time. His title was co-founder, but he was technically a part-time consultant, with no power to hire or make decisions. For instance, Polian felt the player wellness program -- termed The Gymnasium and led by former Pittsburgh Steelers safety Troy Polamalu -- was well-intentioned but too expensive for a startup. It included individual and couples counseling, and three massages a week for players. Ebersol refused to cut back on his pledge to treat players well.

 

[dfwabel]

After reading this, I might have to give Bill Polian an apology for some of the blame I placed on him with the "co-founder" title.  That or writers are just trying to cover for him and protect his legacy.

 

Quote

Polian struggled to retain optimism as well. Training camp in San Antonio was due to start in two weeks, and AAF corporate wouldn't allow teams to book travel. Now Polian knew why.

"Look, Charlie," Polian said. "There's no dishonor in saying that we can't make this work. We gave it an honest shot."

Even after saying that, he still acted as if he was spending money like he was at Clemson or the Bengals on the NFL level.t

 

But this story seems more of "Charlie Ebersol's side as told by ESPN".

Seth Wickersham did appear on OTL this afternoon too.

Podcast link. AAF segment starts around 14:00

[Red Comet]

30 minutes ago, dfwabel said:

After reading this, I might have to give Bill Polian an apology for some of the blame I placed on him with the "co-founder" title.  That or writers are just trying to cover for him and protect his legacy.

 

Even after saying that, he still acted as if he was spending money like he was at Clemson or the Bengals on the NFL level

 

Guy was a former analyst on ESPN so it wouldn't shock me if its the latter.

[VDizzle12]

2 hours ago, Red Comet said:

Guy was a former analyst on ESPN so it wouldn't shock me if its the latter.

 

ESPN didn't seem to give the AAF any attention until things went south. I definitely don't think I ever saw any highlights on Sportscenter. Now they seem to really be pouring it on that the league failed. Maybe it's on purpose because they have XFL rights?

 

This really was the Fyre Festival of football leagues and I guess Bill Polian was Andy King just trying to get some water bottles.

[dfwabel]

7 hours ago, VDizzle12 said:

 

ESPN didn't seem to give the AAF any attention until things went south. I definitely don't think I ever saw any highlights on Sportscenter. Now they seem to really be pouring it on that the league failed. Maybe it's on purpose because they have XFL rights?

 

This really was the Fyre Festival of football leagues and I guess Bill Polian was Andy King just trying to get some water bottles.

In April, I compared it to Theranos over Fyre and am sticking with it.  At least Fyre was selling tickets and folks really wanted to go.

 

AAF seemed to spend $10 for every $1 in revenue.  The Memphis seat fee gave us a truer look into how many people actually bought tickets. 

[Gothamite]

8 hours ago, VDizzle12 said:

ESPN didn't seem to give the AAF any attention until things went south. I definitely don't think I ever saw any highlights on Sportscenter. Now they seem to really be pouring it on that the league failed.

 

It was a minor-league.  How many Columbus Clippers or Milwaukee Admirals or Tacoma Rainiers highlights do you see on an average episode of Sportscenter?

 

From their perspective, the most noteworthy thing this league did was implode. 

[dfwabel]

How much "coverage" do start up leagues or leagues which they do not have rights to deserve to have? 

 

If there were highlights to air, they would air them, but they can only air a certain only air a certain amount of highlights per day.  Typically, non-rights holders are restricted to three minutes in a 24 hour period.  They sure as heck didn't need an embedded reporter, plus it's not their responsibility to be stewards for them. They gave Bill Polian ample time to tout his side hustle on NFL Live every day he was on.

[dfwabel]

ESPN piece co-author Mike Rothstein talked with Salt Lake sport radio this afternoon.  Rothstein was at the last week of training camp in San Antonio and covered week one game of Orlando/Atlanta.

 

https://espn700sports.com/podcasts/

 

 

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

On 6/13/2019 at 9:48 PM, dfwabel said:

How much "coverage" do start up leagues or leagues which they do not have rights to deserve to have? 

 

Whether ESPN has rights to the league should be irrelevant to the question of showing highlights on their news shows. The news shows on that channel showed Major League Baseball highlights and NFL highlights before the channel ever had broadcast rights to those leagues.

 

Of course, I would be entirely unsurprised if the rights question did play a role in the channel's decision not to show the league's highlights. But that would be an example of a lack of integrity, not something that should be cited as a legitimate operating procedure.

 

 

On 6/13/2019 at 9:48 PM, dfwabel said:

If there were highlights to air, they would air them, but they can only air a certain only air a certain amount of highlights per day. 

 

"If" there were highlights? Every game necessarily has some highlights. And some games have spectacular plays.

 

 

On 6/13/2019 at 9:48 PM, dfwabel said:

Typically, non-rights holders are restricted to three minutes in a 24 hour period. 

 

Again, a lack of integrity. This is a kind of normalised corruption.

 

 

On 6/13/2019 at 9:48 PM, dfwabel said:

They sure as heck didn't need an embedded reporter, plus it's not their responsibility to be stewards for them.

 

This take is exactly backwards. Showing AAF highlights would not have amounted to "stewardship"; rather, this is the baseline responsibility of a news organisation. The decisions on highlights deserve to be made solely on the basis of newsworthiness and public interest. By those measures, it is clear that ESPN had a responsibility to show AAF highlights 

 

 

On 6/13/2019 at 9:10 PM, Gothamite said:

It was a minor-league.  How many Columbus Clippers or Milwaukee Admirals or Tacoma Rainiers highlights do you see on an average episode of Sportscenter?

 

That is a flawed comparison, because  the minor league baseball season takes place at the same time as the season for Major League Baseball. By contrast, the AAF was the only football going on during that period.

 

The main point is that ESPN should not be burying newsworthy highlights simply because it doesn't have broadcast rights to the league. Surely the sports reports on NBC or on Fox, or on local stations affiliated with those networks, show highlights of all NFL games, not only highlights of those games that were broadcast by their network.

 

Anyway, ESPN would not be the first news organisation to let commercial interests dictate its coverage policy. But independent observers certainly should not be engaged in making excuses for this form of corruption, and ought instead to call it out and denounce it.

[dfwabel]

10 minutes ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

 

Whether ESPN has rights to the league should be irrelevant to the question of showing highlights on their news shows. The news shows on that channel showed Major League Baseball highlights and NFL highlights before the channel ever had broadcast rights to those leagues.

 

Of course, I would be entirely unsurprised if the rights question did play a role in the channel's decision not to show the league's highlights. But that would be an example of a lack of integrity, not something that should be cited as a legitimate operating procedure.

 

"If" there were highlights? Every game necessarily has some highlights. And some games have spectacular plays.

 

Again, a lack of integrity. This is a kind of normalised corruption.

 

This take is exactly backwards. Showing AAF highlights would not have amounted to "stewardship"; rather, this is the baseline responsibility of a news organisation. The decisions on highlights deserve to be made solely on the basis of newsworthiness and public interest. By those measures, it is clear that ESPN had a responsibility to show AAF highlights

 

10 minutes ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

 

 

That is a flawed comparison, because  the minor league baseball season takes place at the same time as the season for Major League Baseball. By contrast, the AAF was the only football going on during that period.

 

The main point is that ESPN should not be burying newsworthy highlights simply because it doesn't have broadcast rights to the league. Surely the sports reports on NBC or on Fox, or on local stations affiliated with those networks, show highlights of all NFL games, not only highlights of those games that were broadcast by their network.

 

Anyway, ESPN would not be the first news organisation to let commercial interests dictate its coverage policy. But independent observers certainly should not be engaged in making excuses for this form of corruption, and ought instead to call it out and denounce it.

Well you've never seen or worked with a contract before have you? They should just record everything and air it because...SPORTS! GTFO.

 

One of the bigger reasons why they dropped NASCAR folks wasn't because they list interest in it, it was because the physically and contractualy lost access at the tracks and could only talk to drivers going to/from the regional airports which their Gulfstream were landing.

 

Homeboy did cover their training camp or tried to but the AAF didn't permit media at their preseason games, where was FS1 or partner CBSSN?