It wasn’t supposed to end this way. However, not only did the Alliance of American Football suspend operations this week before the league’s initial season was completed, but now they’re making players pay their own travel costs to get home.
“Source says AAF teams making players pay for their own flights home. What a clown show this was,” tweeted Sports Illustrated writer Robert Klemko.
“That is brutal and the powers that be should be ashamed of themselves,” wrote USA Today’s Andy Nesbitt in response to Klemko’s tweet. “They wanted to be a minor league option for football, but instead it looks like they’re just a bush-league operation.”
But how do you expect them to pay for flights home when they ran out of money to run the league?
The AAF folded eight games into a 10-game regular season, and before their first championship game, scheduled for April 27 in Frisco, Texas.
The reason they ran out of money is billionaire Tom Dundon, who bailed out the league after its first week of games, pulled all his funding earlier this week. Dundon, who owns the NHL’s Carolina Hurricanes, reportedly invested $250 million to buy the rights to the league, but pulled the plug after $70 million of that money was spent.
One reported reason Dundon had to bail out the AAF is Arizona businessman Reggie Fowler had pledged $170 million to the league, but actually invested only $28 million, according to The Action Network.
The league’s head of football operations, former NFL GM and Hall-of-Famer Bill Polian, issued a statement somewhat critical of Dundon.
“I am extremely disappointed to learn Tom Dundon has decided to suspend all football operations of the Alliance of American Football,” Polian said in the statement. “When Mr. Dundon took over, it was the belief of my co-founder, Charlie Ebersol, and myself that we would finish the season, pay our creditors, and make the necessary adjustments to move forward in a manner that made economic sense for all.”
In other words, why did Dundon buy the fledgling league after its first week, and expect it to magically transform into a money-maker over the course of its first season?
According to Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer, there is a speculation that Dundon perhaps bought the league to get a hold of their state-of-the-art gambling app.
“Perception inside the AAF is that Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon bought a majority stake in the league simply for the gambling app being developed,” tweeted Breer.
If that speculation is accurate, Dundon, basically paid $70 million for a potentially cutting edge gambling app, and with so many states legalizing gambling, this could turn into a decent investment.
But his investment in this developmental league has gone by the wayside, as have the jobs of 450 AAF players, 100 coaches and employees of the league’s office.
All AAF players signed three-year deals for $250,000, which might have been a little too pricey for a start-up football league. $83,000-a-year might not seem like a fortune, but it might have been for a minor league football league trying to establish itself.
The league had teams in Atlanta, Birmingham, Memphis, Orlando, Arizona, Salt Lake City, San Antonio and San Diego.
Unlike most sports leagues, the teams weren’t owned by individuals, but by the league.
But fans of spring pro football you are in luck, because another league, Vince McMahon’s XFL, starts in the spring of 2020.