Who Will Save The AAFL?

Thursday's news that the All American Football League was in serious financial trouble really was not much of a surprise. Actually, it finally showed how absurd the league strategy really is. Were they really tying their fortunes in the mortgage and student lending industries? What, they couldn't invest in the Mexican Peso market? If the grand plan for league security was tied into the two worst financial markets, it's probably a good thing the league may not get off the ground. I'd rather see Danny Wuerffel doing Cox Cable commercials than trying to prop up a front for companies that are swindling millions of people.

Forget the investments of the league for a minute. The AAFL idea was announced in summer of 2006. Two years later they are lacking a legit financial structure and a television contract. What has been going on in these last two years? Were they so focused on convincing former college players that this will be a jump off point to the NFL that they forgot to do everything else needed to run a league?

They keep telling people that the league will bring the passion of college football. That line is total BS because while they will play in college football hotbeds with college football colors, there is no way they can fill a 40,000 seat stadium, much less the 90,000-100,000 seaters in Gainesville and Knoxville. This entire time the AAFL leadership has failed to realize that they are, at best, Triple-A football. They are correct in believing that there is a market for spring football. But they also assumed since 70,000 show up to nearly every NFL stadium and 80-90,000 to every college stadium, that a spring league would get 40,000. That is completely insane. No wonder why they haven't gotten anymore investors. (Although, the AAFL webpage has a much more positive message this morning.)

There is someone who can save the league. He might have no soul but he has the power and can offer the security the AAFL needs; Don Roger Goodell.

It's time for the AAFL to Man Up and do what they should have done in the first place; become a NFL minor league. The AAFL targeted former NFL Europe players, so they can't act like they didn't look at the failure of that league as a boost to them. There are 32 NFL teams and six AAFL teams, so each AAFL franchise would be an affiliate for five or six NFL teams. This is how the NBA D-League works. Actually, the fact that the AAFL has not had an alliance with the NFL is a failure of the league. They have no chance of challenging the NFL, so why couldn't they get a few NFL owners on board?

Going forward, the AAFL owes it to the guys they currently have to play a season. The league likes to issue press releases about giving guys a second chance and players going back to school and getting a degree just to meet the league's stupid "graduates only" rule. Well, guess what? If the AAFL postpones for another year, those same guys will go back to teaching PE and selling cars and the league leaders can make their hands clean and walk away even though that "second chance" was a sham.

Even if the NFL doesn't want to get involved, if the AAFL reintroduces itself as a minor league, drawing 10-20,000 people, they can be successful. There is a reason why minor league baseball is so popular in this country. People enjoy sports and seeing their old heroes makes it even better. But those same people can smell crap from a mile away too. I just hope the AAFL wasn't crap this whole time.

Don Goodell was an old Sporting Orange bit. Here's our favorite. YOU CAN ACT LIKE A MAN!