Fledgling sports leagues often run into money troubles. In the early days of the American Football League, Bills owner Ralph Wilson loaned the Oakland Raiders $400,000 to keep one of the AFL’s eight charter teams afloat. Without big-ticket television deals and attendance figures that help franchises outpace operating expenses, it’s understandable that the outlay for a new league will be problematic at times.
And through the Alliance of American Football has put a compelling product on the field through its first two weeks, it appears that this new league isn’t unfamiliar with these issues.
According to a report by David Glenn of The Athletic, the AAF required an influx of cash—and quickly—if it was to make player payroll before Week 2 began.
“Without a new, nine-figure investor, nobody is sure what would have happened,” one source told Glenn. “You can always tell people their checks are going to be a little late, but how many are going to show up on the weekend for games when they don’t see anything hit their bank accounts on Friday?”
The angel investor was found in time—Dallas billionaire and owner of the Carolina Hurricanes NHL team Tom Dundon will be named the AAF’s new chairman after agreeing to put $250 million into the league.
That’s great for the players who are trying to work their way into the NFL, and it provides an additional benefit for NFL teams, always on the lookout for talent. The NFL hasn’t had a feeder league of talent since NFL Europe shuttered in 2007, and given some of the names that came out of that league (Kurt Warner, Jake Delhomme, Adam Vinatieri), it would make sense that, given the AAF’s initial quality of play, the NFL would want the AAF to succeed.
So, one might ask, why doesn’t the NFL subsidize this new league? The AAF doesn’t just have talent that might go beyond the practice squad; it also runs with ideas the larger league might want to implement, such as a 30-second play clock, no kickoffs, and improved transparency regarding the replay process.
Per Statista, the NFL’s revenue has grown from $4.28 billion in 2001 to $13.8 billion in 2017. Even when you take out the percentage that goes to the salary cap and other operating expenses, running the AAF as a true spring feeder league would be a relative pittance for owners who are used to what has become a license to print money.
And if the NFL was to take the AAF over, it could more closely monitor the effectiveness of new rules concepts, as opposed to throwing reactionary rules at the wall and hoping they’ll stick.
The AAF is the closest thing we’ve had to actual professional football in over a decade. It would be a needless shame if it were to close down, and the larger league should take an operating interest to prevent that from happening.
