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Death of the Alliance of American Football


LAWeaver

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42 minutes ago, GDAWG said:

There were a few tornadoes that touched down in eastern Alabama and Georgia today a few hours before the Commanders/Iron game. I wasn't surprised to see such low numbers there. The others are a little disconcerting. Salt Lake hasn't had any luck with a snowstorm this week.Spring training obviously trumped Arizona's game tonight as well. 

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29 minutes ago, MJWalker45 said:

There were a few tornadoes that touched down in eastern Alabama and Georgia today a few hours before the Commanders/Iron game. I wasn't surprised to see such low numbers there. The others are a little disconcerting. Salt Lake hasn't had any luck with a snowstorm this week.Spring training obviously trumped Arizona's game tonight as well. 

 

This has been good football

 

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6500 is an ECHL crowd. Not good. Where is the money coming from? I like watching Spurrier and the Apollos. I have no hate. It just doesn't look good at all. Again, they aren't getting tv money. They are basically paid programming. Have a day like today or yesterday on a CFB Saturday. If they still played there like they use to, Bama's Birmingham  stadium would have been gut to butt. The Utes would still have a nice draw. 

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1 hour ago, Scrumptious Ham said:

6500 is an ECHL crowd. Not good. Where is the money coming from? I like watching Spurrier and the Apollos. I have no hate. It just doesn't look good at all. Again, they aren't getting tv money. They are basically paid programming. Have a day like today or yesterday on a CFB Saturday. If they still played there like they use to, Bama's Birmingham  stadium would have been gut to butt. The Utes would still have a nice draw. 

They've already revealed they're basically getting the same deal the AFL had with NBC. After production profits are split. How they're split? Who knows. How much is production? Who knows? 

 

AFL was $3 million for production and the split was 50/50. And that was almost 2 decades ago. 

 

The thing about "paid programming" even is they're still the ones selling the ads. If that goes above production, then they're still making money. Whether that's the case or not can be debated. 

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6 hours ago, MJWalker45 said:

There were a few tornadoes that touched down in eastern Alabama and Georgia today a few hours before the Commanders/Iron game. I wasn't surprised to see such low numbers there. The others are a little disconcerting. Salt Lake hasn't had any luck with a snowstorm this week.Spring training obviously trumped Arizona's game tonight as well. 

The Jazz still had folks out to see them play the Bucks on Saturday night which started an hour later.

 

Even if the game was not moved to the evening, they still would have had to deal with another event on campus in the gymnastics meet which was a near sellout at the Huntsman Center as their competition for disposable income.  But nice try to play a song on the "Excuse Jukebox".

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2 hours ago, Sykotyk said:

They've already revealed they're basically getting the same deal the AFL had with NBC. After production profits are split. How they're split? Who knows. How much is production? Who knows? 

 

AFL was $3 million for production and the split was 50/50. And that was almost 2 decades ago. 

 

The thing about "paid programming" even is they're still the ones selling the ads. If that goes above production, then they're still making money. Whether that's the case or not can be debated. 

 

NBC the first $10M received in ad revenues, then the next $3M went to the AFL before the remainder was split. 

http://articles.latimes.com/2003/jan/31/sports/sp-tvcol31

 

But in this case, AAF contracts out production to a 3rd party, Sneaky Big of Scottsdale as opposed to a network.  Here are their rates to get a ballpark on costs.

https://www.sneakybig.com/wp-content/uploads/BIGSTU_40687_Rate_Card_Update_Aug_2018_v2.pdf

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They are not making sustainable money with that TV deal. That's the point.  It's not even close. Again, the hope is to get your product on air for the exposure. Hope the ratings are high so the networks feel like you are worth the investment for a huge tv contract. Until then, you need ticket sales. Local interest is key. It's failing. Minor League hockey teams in Florida out drew an undefeated football team in Alabama. The AAF is cooked. 

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28 minutes ago, dfwabel said:

The Jazz still had folks out to see them play the Bucks on Saturday night which started an hour later.

 

Even if the game was not moved to the evening, they still would have had to deal with another event on campus in the gymnastics meet which was a near sellout at the Huntsman Center as their competition for disposable income.  But nice try to play a song on the "Excuse Jukebox".

It's not an excuse, just an observation. If you still don't trust the style of football being played you ain't going to watch it in bad weather.

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11 hours ago, See Red said:

That seems like pretty clear proof of the effect weather has on attendance, as much as you want to poo-poo people blaming some of the poor attendance on the weather.

 

Weather only affects walk-up crowds, since all tickets sold or given away count towards the attendance even if the person who received them never even intended to go to the game.

 

You can’t blame bad attendance on just the weather. 

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7 hours ago, MJWalker45 said:

There were a few tornadoes that touched down in eastern Alabama and Georgia today a few hours before the Commanders/Iron game. I wasn't surprised to see such low numbers there.

 

Anything that happens “a few hours before” a game could only affect walk-up numbers.  Every other ticket distributed counts toward attendance as soon as it is sold or given away.  

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2 hours ago, Gothamite said:

 

Weather only affects walk-up crowds, since all tickets sold or given away count towards the attendance even if the person who received them never even intended to go to the game.

 

You can’t blame bad attendance on just the weather. 

Do we actually know that? Attendance numbers always seem iffy because you never know if the organization is going with tickets distributed vs. actual butts in seats. And walk-up tickets are probably the vast majority of ticket business for minor league sports because who would buy season tickets for such a thing, especially in its first year? I think when you see a massive drop from multiple other games, it’s perfectly okay to blame the weather for attendance. 

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Columnist for AL.com is much harsher on AAF than me, @Gothamite or @Scrumptious Ham

 

https://www.al.com/sports/2019/03/uninspired-football-is-unsustainable-for-iron-aaf.html?fbclid=IwAR07k0ZdXt12ZRmAwWW__mjXIUxlyEjercbNjFTzfG_KvWB-lpcVDMxYgzI

 

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The Iron played the San Antonio Commanders on Sunday at Legion Field and the Commanders won it 12-11. Both teams were awful. It was an unimaginative, cautious NFL football game of screen passes and equally annoying slop, but with players and coaches who couldn’t make it in the NFL.

“I thought it was two evenly matched teams that both played 3-4 defenses, and both tried to run the football and grind it out, and it was a low-scoring game, but a good one,” Birmingham Iron coach Tim Lewis said.

No. Just no.

It was not a good game. It wasn’t anything close to being a good game.

It was a showcase for the punters. Birmingham Iron punter Colton Schmidt is great, and so is kicker Nick Novak. Everyone else on the team could be replaced tomorrow, including the coaches.

 

 

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Right now, after four weeks, the Alliance of American Football feels like a pro sports league thrown together so a few people at the top can make some quick TV money. The in-game experience is dreadful. Officially, there were 6,539 hardy souls at Legion Field on Sunday for the fourth game of the Birmingham Iron’s existence. Bless their hearts. It felt like a football game played inside a giant abandoned strip mine.

 

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17 minutes ago, dfwabel said:

Columnist for AL.com is much harsher on AAF than me, @Gothamite or @Scrumptious Ham

 

https://www.al.com/sports/2019/03/uninspired-football-is-unsustainable-for-iron-aaf.html?fbclid=IwAR07k0ZdXt12ZRmAwWW__mjXIUxlyEjercbNjFTzfG_KvWB-lpcVDMxYgzI

 

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The Iron played the San Antonio Commanders on Sunday at Legion Field and the Commanders won it 12-11. Both teams were awful. It was an unimaginative, cautious NFL football game of screen passes and equally annoying slop, but with players and coaches who couldn’t make it in the NFL.

“I thought it was two evenly matched teams that both played 3-4 defenses, and both tried to run the football and grind it out, and it was a low-scoring game, but a good one,” Birmingham Iron coach Tim Lewis said.

No. Just no.

It was not a good game. It wasn’t anything close to being a good game.

 

The guy who wrote that should probably stick to watching Arena Football.

Now, I don't mean to gratuitously bag on Arena Football, which I generally like.  The logos of two Arena League teams appear in my sig.  But when I was watching this past weekend's games, I was reminded how nice it is to watch games in which the scoring plays are valuable (which highlights the main flaw of Arena Football). 

 

The San Antonio-Birmingham game and the Arizona-Atlanta game had real tension.  There were indeed some mistakes in each game: dropped passes, missed blocks, bad decisons, officiating mistakes.  But even these were part of the enjoyment, as the mistakes on the field allowed the announcers to do some explaining. 

And this leads me to note that I am so impressed with the standard of announcing on the AAF games.  I have yet to see a game in which the announcers were less than excellent.  They are all entertaining and informative, with plenty of great anecdotes.

 

Watching the AAF games has been a distinct pleasure so far; and I am looking forward to each upcoming game.

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3 hours ago, Red Wolf said:

Do we actually know that? Attendance numbers always seem iffy because you never know if the organization is going with tickets distributed vs. actual butts in seats. 

 

Yeah, we do know that.  “Tickets distributed” is the industry standard.  Almost everybody does it, although it’s less important in major leagues, since their money comes from television and not tickets. Those few entities that count turnstile clicks are very eager to tell us, since they by definition they report lower numbers and are eager to put those figures in context.  As the AAF would undoubtedly love to do with theirs. 

 

I’m not aware that the AAF has told us they were going with either turnstile clicks or tickets sold; until they do we can be sure they use the standard “distributed” model.

 

Speaking of which, is the AAF still going gung-ho with the giveaways?  If not, that would help account for the drop off. 

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17 minutes ago, Gothamite said:

 

Yeah, we do know that.  “Tickets distributed” is the industry standard.  From big leagues to minor leagues, in the five major professional sports.  Almost everybody does it. Those few entities that count turnstile clicks are very eager to tell us, since they by definition they report lower numbers and are eager to put those figures in context.  As the AAF would undoubtedly love to do with theirs.

 

I’m not aware that the AAF has told us they were going with either turnstile clicks or tickets sold; until they do we can be sure they use the standard “distributed” model.

 

Speaking of which, is the AAF still going gung-ho with the giveaways?  If not, that would help account for the drop off. 

Part of the confusion is that sometimes teams will report actual numbers when they get called out but still post a different number later on. Anthony Precourt was insistent on doing this last year to prove the Crew weren't viable in Columbus. I would think most teams would be "donating" 5,000 or more tickets each week but that 5,000 in Birmingham may have all been present. 

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People compare the AAF to the USFL a lot, but I think it’s worth noting that the USFL wasn’t trying to be minor league and had actual, legit football stars on their rosters. The AAF doesn’t have a lunatic owner that’s just going to through a dump truck of cash at the modern day equivalents of a Steve Young and Jim Kelly. 

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5 hours ago, MJWalker45 said:

Part of the confusion is that sometimes teams will report actual numbers when they get called out but still post a different number later on. Anthony Precourt was insistent on doing this last year to prove the Crew weren't viable in Columbus. I would think most teams would be "donating" 5,000 or more tickets each week but that 5,000 in Birmingham may have all been present. 

 

Thats a good point - sometimes owners will switch from “tickets distributed” to “tickets sold” or even turnstile count when they think it advantageous.  Precourt wanted to back up his claim that Columbus didn’t support his team, so he found ways to minimize the attendance.  Which also impacted sponsorship contracts, which also played right into his narrative.

 

Dan Snyder and the Washington football club also recently switched to turnstile count, presumably to aid his quest for a new stadium in the District.

 

Numbers can be finessed to serve a number of agendas. 

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