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Death of the Alliance of American Football


LAWeaver

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40 minutes ago, dfwabel said:

 

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?

You don't have to have people at the game to cover highlights though. Some of the talk shows mentioned the AAF but the only thing they seemed to show was that quarterback getting blown up. CBS Sports Network has limited access since its usually placed in the sports programming tier that contains all of the FSN channels and the Pac-12 Network. I'm also pretty sure if ESPN asked for access, Charlie Ebersol would've hand delivered it to them. 

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1 hour 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.

 

Thats irrelevant.  It was still minor league football.  And minor leagues don’t get the same kind of national coverage.

 

Which major league should ESPN have shunted to the side to make room for highlights from this new minor league football?  Should they have booted MLS, MLB, the NHL or the NBA?

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On 6/13/2019 at 12:36 PM, 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?

 

EXACTLY! This is what I have been saying all along! We could't even get on the bottom ticker with out scores. 

 

My problem with ESPN, in the last few years, is that they don't care for the entirety of a sport, just a small portion of it. Case in point: they created a f***ing SEC Network, yet if you turn on ESPN and ESPN2 on Saturdays, what do I see? Alabama, LSU, Florida, etc. I thought the point of having the SEC Network was to move the SEC games there and free up the "main" channels for MAC, C-USA, Sun Belt, MAC, American, and FCS games. But nope, ESPN circle jerks the SEC so much that they needed to dedicate another channel to the SEC. Pretty much you can watch all 14 SEC teams every Saturday, but God help you if you want to watch Fresno State.

 

Ok point is that ESPN was only interested in the NFL and not any other form of football. They were more interested in reporting what was wrong with the league, rather than what was good about the league. A a couple of highlights on sports center didn't count. Where was the AAF Live show?

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2 hours ago, Gothamite said:

 

Thats irrelevant.  It was still minor league football.  And minor leagues don’t get the same kind of national coverage.

 

Which major league should ESPN have shunted to the side to make room for highlights from this new minor league football?  Should they have booted MLS, MLB, the NHL or the NBA?

 

For the final time, the AAF was a PROFESSIONAL football league that played on a NATIONAL level! ESPN coverage should have been a given.

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3 hours ago, MJWalker45 said:
4 hours ago, dfwabel said:

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?

 

You don't have to have people at the game to cover highlights though. Some of the talk shows mentioned the AAF but the only thing they seemed to show was that quarterback getting blown up.

 

Right. ESPN didn't need their own interviews with players and coaches. They could have just shown the broadcast footage of a pivotal play in most (not even all) of the AAF's games.

 

 

2 hours ago, Gothamite said:

Which major league should ESPN have shunted to the side to make room for highlights from this new minor league football?  Should they have booted MLS, MLB, the NHL or the NBA?

 

No shunting to the side would be necessary; but shaving a little off of all of them would have been appropriate.

 

Imagine five-second clips from two or three of the league's four games, with another few seconds for a full-screen graphic showing the final scores and the standings. These could have come at the expense of footage of the catch of a routine fly ball, or of the sinking of a mid-game basket ("...this put the Warriors up by ten..."), one day out of the week. (Let us note that ESPN will do precisely this sort of adjustment next year when it works out a way to include XFL highlights in its news shows.)

 

Call the AAF minor-league football if you wish. I won't disagree, as that is just a definitional thing (minor league = not the NFL), not an indictment of the quality of play or of the entertainment value. And it certainly is not an assessment of newsworthiness; the AAF may have been minor-league football, but it was major-league news.

 

And likewise will be the XFL. Of course, that league will get its highlights shown, not on account of the inevitable fan interest on levels at least as high as the interest in the AAF, but thanks merely to the fact that ESPN will be broadcasting the games.

 

I don't have a blanket objection to SportsCenter promoting ESPN programming. But it is not too much to ask that a sports news show not let acting as the network's promo arm entirely take precedence over covering the sports news on merit.

 

 

14 minutes ago, CrimsonBull9584 said:

For the final time, the AAF was a PROFESSIONAL football league that played on a NATIONAL level! ESPN coverage should have been a given.

 

Exactly right.

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23 minutes ago, CrimsonBull9584 said:

For the final time, the AAF was a PROFESSIONAL football league that played on a NATIONAL level! ESPN coverage should have been a given.

 

Are you under the impression that minor leagues are not professional leagues?  They are.  One has nothing to do with the other. 

 

The AAF was a minor league with moderate support.  That much is not in question. ESPN was under no greater obligation to prop it up than they were the UFL or any other of the fly-by-night leagues that have come and gone before and will continue to come and go. 

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16 minutes ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

Call the AAF minor-league football if you wish. I won't disagree, as that is just a definitional thing (minor league = not the NFL), not an indictment of the quality of play or of the entertainment value. And it certainly is not an assessment of newsworthiness; the AAF may have been minor-league football, but it was major-league news.

 

Not until it imploded, it wasn’t.  That was newsworthy. 

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40 minutes ago, Gothamite said:
57 minutes ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

the AAF may have been minor-league football, but it was major-league news.

 

Not until it imploded, it wasn’t.

 

Nonsense. The games were compelling. Equally important, the stories were compelling: Trent Richardson, Garrett Gilbert, Steve Spurrier, Luis Perez, the return of Manziel, the embrace of the Commanders by San Antonio, the participation by several former NFL coaches, the rule changes, etc.

 

ESPN's act of ignoring the AAF's games might have made sense from the perspective of corporate interests. But from the sports journalism standpoint, this represented a dereliction of duty.

 

Frankly, we probably cannot expect any better from corporate media. But an honest observer ought to be able to recognise this impropriety.

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1 hour ago, CrimsonBull9584 said:

 

EXACTLY! This is what I have been saying all along! We could't even get on the bottom ticker with out scores.

 

 

You also weren't on the CBS Sports website's main page score ticker despite the fact that they were airing games. Sounds like ESPN made the right choice to not waste their time.

 

1 hour ago, CrimsonBull9584 said:

My problem with ESPN, in the last few years, is that they don't care for the entirety of a sport, just a small portion of it. Case in point: they created a f***ing SEC Network, yet if you turn on ESPN and ESPN2 on Saturdays, what do I see? Alabama, LSU, Florida, etc. I thought the point of having the SEC Network was to move the SEC games there and free up the "main" channels for MAC, C-USA, Sun Belt, MAC, American, and FCS games. But nope, ESPN circle jerks the SEC so much that they needed to dedicate another channel to the SEC. Pretty much you can watch all 14 SEC teams every Saturday, but God help you if you want to watch Fresno State.

 

I don't know why you would think the games that bring the highest ratings would be thrown to a niche network. The SEC Network is there for like a Vanderbilt-Ole Miss game or something, not Alabama-LSU.

 

1 hour ago, CrimsonBull9584 said:

Ok point is that ESPN was only interested in the NFL and not any other form of football. They were more interested in reporting what was wrong with the league, rather than what was good about the league. A a couple of highlights on sports center didn't count. Where was the AAF Live show?

 

Sounds like the general public wasn't that interested in non-NFL pro football either.

 

1 hour ago, CrimsonBull9584 said:

 

For the final time, the AAF was a PROFESSIONAL football league that played on a NATIONAL level! ESPN coverage should have been a given.

 

1 hour ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

Exactly right.

 

This is the weirdest argument. Being professional doesn't mean you're not minor league. USL is minor league soccer where players get paid. G-League is minor league basketball where players get paid. Every single AAF employee outside of CrimsonBull here was very public about saying that the AAF was in fact minor league. I watched the league's first game and every person that appeared on TV basically made sure to say, "We're minor league football, and that's okay!"

 

I do like the idea that I could claim that the Arkansas Travelers are actually totally a major league team. It would be cool to be 15 minutes away from the closest major league team instead of living in the real world where it's more like five hours.

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2 hours ago, CrimsonBull9584 said:

 

For the final time, the AAF was a PROFESSIONAL football league that played on a NATIONAL level! ESPN coverage should have been a given.

 

 

See @Red Wolf's post for why ESPN really didn't owe the AAF anything. It was simply one in a long line of alternative football leagues, one that had the benefit of being around at the same time as prevalent social media and the early phases of a revival for a previously-defunct alternative football league. I know that you want to defend your former employer, but ESPN saw that alternative football wouldn't bring in the numbers compared to the NFL offseason or NBA/NHL/MLB news/highlights. 

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10 hours ago, CrimsonBull9584 said:

 

EXACTLY! This is what I have been saying all along! We could't even get on the bottom ticker with out scores. 

 

My problem with ESPN, in the last few years, is that they don't care for the entirety of a sport, just a small portion of it. Case in point: they created a f***ing SEC Network, yet if you turn on ESPN and ESPN2 on Saturdays, what do I see? Alabama, LSU, Florida, etc. I thought the point of having the SEC Network was to move the SEC games there and free up the "main" channels for MAC, C-USA, Sun Belt, MAC, American, and FCS games. But nope, ESPN circle jerks the SEC so much that they needed to dedicate another channel to the SEC. Pretty much you can watch all 14 SEC teams every Saturday, but God help you if you want to watch Fresno State.

 

Ok point is that ESPN was only interested in the NFL and not any other form of football. They were more interested in reporting what was wrong with the league, rather than what was good about the league. A a couple of highlights on sports center didn't count. Where was the AAF Live show?

 

Every year the station gets worse. SEC, Yankees, Patriots, Cowboys, Lakers, Warriors, Red Sox. If your aren't a fan of these, don't bother watching. The Raptors just accomplished a historic championship and all they care about right now is the Lakers.

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17 minutes ago, VDizzle12 said:

 

Every year the station gets worse. SEC, Yankees, Patriots, Cowboys, Lakers, Warriors, Red Sox. If your aren't a fan of these, don't bother watching. The Raptors just accomplished a historic championship and all they care about right now is the Lakers.

 

The top trends worldwide right now include the Lakers, Anthony Davis, Lonzo, and the Pelicans, so obviously ESPN is talking about something that nobody could possibly care about.

 

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As the supposed World Leader in Sport, they should be setting trends instead of following them though. That's the biggest problem with current media at large. They miss a lot of good stories for what'll get more social likes.

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2 hours ago, MJWalker45 said:

As the supposed World Leader in Sport, they should be setting trends instead of following them though. That's the biggest problem with current media at large. They miss a lot of good stories for what'll get more social likes.

 

But we just got done criticizing ESPN for trying to push an agenda?

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