Death of the Alliance of American Football

[mkg74]

2 hours ago, GDAWG said:

 

Yes, although most of us are in support.  I want San Diego to succeed out of all of the teams.

SD are doing very well both on the field and attendance. Props to them. Would be great for every team to succeed, we have teams like Memphis(Ok,Manziel is in town jury is out)  Arizona & Atlanta(why and why? too much going on in both towns) and Salt Lake that are not drawing well. Especially in SLC, Perfect weather and only 8,000 paid attendance. I can see franchise relocations coming up in the off season.  here's my scenario:

 

Arizona- keep the Hotshots name, move them south to Tucson. Smaller stadium, only the NCAA basketball Wildcats as competition.

Atlanta- get rid of that silly Legends nickname, keep the uniforms. Move them to Louisville and rename them the Louisville Kings.

Salt Lake- try for dear life to move to Rio tinto Stadium, if that fails then retire the name and unifroms: move them to either Sacramento or Tulsa (both towns have suitable mid-sized stadiums) 

[MJWalker45]

1 hour ago, 4_tattoos said:

I think the only way a Stallions move to Rio Tinto Stadium could work would be if it's possible to have a temporary field turf surface over the grass for AAF games. I know it's been done the other way around, most recently during the Copa America Centario *sp* when several NFL stadiums with field turf had temporary grass pitches placed for the tournament.

 

Or they could pull a Copa America move and have temporary grass laid down at Rice-Eccles. They'd be able to paint on that at least *shrug*

 

 

Turf over grass is even worse than putting grass over top of turf because grass is more uneven. Real Salt Lake would probably nix that idea as well. They'd be better off making them chip in for field repair. I'd suspect they could just put the name in the end zones with none of the extras the rest of the league does. That way they just paint over the lines then throw down soccer lines. 

[Gothamite]

Which is why it probably won’t (and shouldn’t) happen. 

[MJWalker45]

41 minutes ago, Gothamite said:

Which is why it probably won’t (and shouldn’t) happen. 

Or they require they play 3 home games early.

[Red Comet]

Only one game that aired live could be rated this weekend. 354,000 watched the Orlando Apollos and Arizona Hotshots game. 

 

But, there was a replay of the Stallions versus Express game that aired after the Apollos-Hotshots game that had 184,000 people watching. At 11 PM EST on a Saturday. So, at least half of the audience stuck around to watch a replay of a minor league football game that they likely knew the score of after watching a minor league football game.

[NYC Cosmos]

I really want the league to succeed even though I admit I don't watch much of it. I feel bad for the front offices in Memphis, Salt Lake and Birmingham. I wish more people would show up.

 

Getting back to the situation in Sacramento, I sincerely hope they don't suddenly switch gears and go with the WLAF model – some teams owned by the league and some with private investors. Montreal was a crap storm. The NFL gave some Molson executive a franchise with a 10-year balloon loan. I went to see a game. The game was good but the crowd was dismal. "Ownership" didn't have a clue how to attract fans. Sacramento was stable. The Maloof family owned Birmingham but wanted to move them to Houston. Frankfurt and London were owned by the league. Barcelona was "owned" by Josep Figueras who turned the team over to the NFL. New York/New Jersey, Orlando (if I am not mistaking), and San Antonio had stable ownerships. Raleigh-Durham was owned by the infamous George Shinn, who threw in the towel after one year. I guess he could be called "stable" too.  

[Pauly]

20,000 is a good amount for the Fleet although they had a special buy 2 tickets, get 2 tickets for free for the game.I believe the Fleet play 3 straight on the road now so we'll see how good they are. Moving the Hotshots to Tuscon would be a good thing; I'd like to see the Stallions survive where they're at but if there's a 2nd year for them it's probably in another city.I don't know what effect Johnnie Manziel will have on a 1-5 team who might play spoiler unless it's to bring fannies to the seats as well. I hope the AAF survives.

[Gothamite]

2 hours ago, Pauly said:

20,000 is a good amount for the Fleet although they had a special buy 2 tickets, get 2 tickets for free for the game.

 

That's why their numbers are suspect - they get to count twice the number of tickets bought under that promotion, regardless of whether the purchasers ever had any intention of using those tickets.

 

But still, I want that particular number to be as high as possible, to embarrass the Spanos family.  If they are capable of such a human emotion.

[Red Comet]

3 minutes ago, Gothamite said:

 

That's why their numbers are suspect - they get to count twice the number of tickets bought under that promotion, regardless of whether the purchasers ever had any intention of using those tickets.

 

But still, I want that particular number to be as high as possible, to embarrass the Spanos family.  If they are capable of such a human emotion.

 

Every sport inflates attendance, though. 

 

If anything, it just means that turnstiles/tickets scanned should be the standard for attendance across the board.

[Gothamite]

8 minutes ago, Red Comet said:

Every sport inflates attendance, though. 

 

If anything, it just means that turnstiles/tickets scanned should be the standard for attendance across the board.

 

Oh, I agree.  Everybody does it to one extent or another.  But few leagues give away as many tickets as the AAF does, which means that few leagues can inflate their attendance to the same extent.

 

And yes, turnstile counts should absolutely be the standard.  For all leagues.

[Pauly]

2 hours ago, Gothamite said:

 

And yes, turnstile counts should absolutely be the standard.  For all leagues.

I don't know if they still do this but the AL and NL used to have 2 ways of counting 1 was tickets sold, the other was tickets scanned. Forget who was who though.

[Gothamite]

The NL used to count turnstile clicks, while the AL counted tickets sold (which is still better than “tickets distributed”). 

 

I remember it because this was back when the Brewers jumped from the AL to the NL.  Then the Senior Circuit changed to match the Junior around 2000. 

[dfwabel]

1 hour ago, Gothamite said:

The NL used to count turnstile clicks, while the AL counted tickets sold (which is still better than “tickets distributed”). 

 

I remember it because this was back when the Brewers jumped from the AL to the NL.  Then the Senior Circuit changed to match the Junior around 2000. 

They also needed a standard since the AL and NL offices were consolidated.  A standard definition was determined by MLB for revenue sharing.

 

AAF seems to use the "tickets distributed" definition similar to NHL and NBA.

[Gothamite]

Yes, thank you.  They had to agree when they eliminated the league presidents and consolidated baseball under the commissioner.

 

Still think they made the wrong choice, adhering to the AL standard instead of the NL’s accounting.  

[dfwabel]

10 hours ago, Pauly said:

20,000 is a good amount for the Fleet although they had a special buy 2 tickets, get 2 tickets for free for the game.I believe the Fleet play 3 straight on the road now so we'll see how good they are. Moving the Hotshots to Tuscon would be a good thing; I'd like to see the Stallions survive where they're at but if there's a 2nd year for them it's probably in another city.I don't know what effect Johnnie Manziel will have on a 1-5 team who might play spoiler unless it's to bring fannies to the seats as well. I hope the AAF survives.

They've devalued their tickets so much in every city to the point that relocating cities isn't going to do much for various reasons. People are only buying $5 tickets now or just the cheap endzone seat.  The all-inclusive seats (inc. parking, concessions and booze) seem to have failed, especially since you had to buy them in pairs of two. 

 

1- They've got to break the commercial lease(s) for office space, which isn't like when you broke a lease as a Junior in college.  Memphis, for example, would need to pay the final two years of their lease or reach an agreement with their landlord.  The space they are renting was listed at under $110K/month in late 2016. Then you have to lease new space on another multiple year lease.

2- If the current staff isn't moving, then you have the cost of hiring new staff and start all over again.  For the most part, their sales staffs are small, young, inexperienced and unfamiliar with the areas where they now work. This would likely be repeated in City X.

3- Decision(s) to relocate cannot wait for the offseason, Dundon and others need to have the choice made now and announced during Championship Week in Las Vegas.  Otherwise, you are going to get the same late fall start to sell tickets and run into the three months of big household spending: Halloween, Thanksgiving, and the Holy Holidays as folks run out of money and credit.  Hopefully, no government shutdown either.

[GDAWG]

5 hours ago, Gothamite said:

 

That's why their numbers are suspect - they get to count twice the number of tickets bought under that promotion, regardless of whether the purchasers ever had any intention of using those tickets.

 

But still, I want that particular number to be as high as possible, to embarrass the Spanos family.  If they are capable of such a human emotion.

 

0% chance Dean Spanos knows what that is. 

[Sodboy13]

AAF just moved the championship game from Las Vegas to Frisco, Texas. But please, continue to tell me how I shouldn't believe my lying eyes.

[Red Comet]

52 minutes ago, Sodboy13 said:

AAF just moved the championship game from Las Vegas to Frisco, Texas. But please, continue to tell me how I shouldn't believe my lying eyes.

 

I would make the argument that moving away from Las Vegas is them realizing what an impending disaster that would be (which is admittedly a first but they are learning so progress) and head it off at the pass. Probably would be better to have it be at the stadium of the team with the better record, but what do I know?

 

Apparently Jerry Jones owns this facility. Maybe it has something to do with it, maybe it's a coincidence? Probably the latter, but the only way this league survives long-term is to be the NFL's G League and that requires building relationships with the power brokers of the NFL.

 

EDIT: Dundon and Jones discussed relocating the championship during the Combine.

 

[dfwabel]

Birmingham's Team President and VP for Marketing no longer with team.

 

Quote

“Birmingham Iron president Tom Ward and vice president Randy Campbell are no longer with The Alliance,” the Alliance said in a prepared statement in response to questions about the departures. “We wish them the best of luck in their future endeavors. Jay Roberson will serve as Interim Chief Business Officer for The Iron. There will be no further comment from The Alliance.”

 

 

With these two moves and the relocation of the championship game, Dundon's control or "coup" of AAF management took effect TODAY.

[Sec19Row53]

2 hours ago, Sodboy13 said:

AAF just moved the championship game from Las Vegas to Frisco, Texas. But please, continue to tell me how I shouldn't believe my lying eyes.

I actually think this is a positive.  It shows a little more cooperation from the NFL.