With the buzz growing around the new AAFL, is the U.S. ready for yet another American football league? The All American Football League thinks so.
What is it?
Football by any other name. The AAFL is hoping to attract football
fans who need an outlet for professional football in the NFL's
offseason.
What's the attraction?
Besides a spring and early summer season, the AAFL is associating
itself with colleges known for football to attract college football
fans in their offseason. This is critical to its approach because it
intends to recruit players from those colleges. The idea is that if you
closely followed a player's college career and they are now playing for
the AAFL, you will want to follow their professional career as well.
Each college's alumni and local fanbase will be offered ticket packages
and other perks.
Where will the teams be located?
So far, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Michigan, Tennessee, and Texas.
Try-outs
for Arkansas, Alabama, Florida and Michigan have already been held, and
depending on your source, some players have already been signed to
teams. A regular season and playoff schedule is already set, though
again, depending on your source, not all the venues for games have been
finalized. Among the sites that are expected to host at least one game
are Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, FL, War Memorial Field in Little
Rock, AR and Ford Field in Detroit, MI.
Is there anyone well-known associated with the league?
Though the league commissioner and operations executives are not
hired yet, the chairman of the Board of Managers is Cedric Dempsey, a
former NCAA president. There is also representation from former college
presidents and university system chancellors as well as Jack Lengyel,
better known as the character played by Matthew McConaughey in We Are
Marshall.
Wait, isn't there already football in the NFL's offseason?
Arena League Football (AFL) runs from March to June. NFL Europa has
folded. The Canadian Football League (CFL) runs roughly from late June
through November.
Will it work?
A lot of leagues have come and gone. The problem is that it costs a
lot to run and maintain a football league. There are player and
executive salaries, stadium leases and television contracts just for
starters. The AAFL is a for-profit league and if it cannot operate at a
profit, it won't stay around for very long. It is worth noting that the
AAFL will not benefit from concession sales the way some professional
teams do to boost their profits because concessions at the games will
be operated by and for the host stadium. For what it's worth, beer will
not be available.
Another hurdle the league faces is keeping the
costs to fans down. Ticket prices for pro sports are a big turnoff, and
the AAFL will have to find a way to keep ticket prices affordable and
attractive. Ticket prices have been announced to be around $13 and
there will be a big push for locals to buy "memberships" which gives
them special perks such as VIP parking and special screenings of
out-of-town games.
The AAFL has said it will televise games
nationally, but there's nationally televised coverage and then there's
national television. Just ask the NHL who are effectively buried on
Versus, a channel that most people have never heard of.
The
league can get a huge boost if the quality of the game play is high.
Then, it stands a good chance of making it past the first season.
The
real question is whether or not the AAFL model can work by staying
local, and whether it even needs the support of a national fanbase. And
you might also be asking, why bother at all? Is there really a void in
the world of American football that is served by a new league? The AAFL
thinks so. If not, it will be just another football league that comes
and goes in the blink of a season.
Andrew Marx weekly football column Football from the Cheap Seats is featured Mondays on SmartReMarx.com throughout the football season.
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