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Are You Ready for Some (More) Football?
Back in the 1990s, Dick Ebersol helped form the short-lived XFL. Today, his son Charlie introduced the AAF. The Alliance of American Football kicks off in 11 months, with the first games on the Sunday after the 2019 Super Bowl. The games will be broadcast on CBS and a variety of digital platforms.
Why this might succeed where the XFL failed is the team the younger Ebersol has recruited. Legendary NFL executive Bill Polian; former players Troy Polamalu, Justin Tuck, Hines Ward, and Jared Allen; Peter Thiel and a large group of major investors; and, of course, Dick Ebersol, who created “Sunday Night Football.”
The league will have eight teams with the cities to be announced in the near future. Players will include undrafted collegians, former players returning to the sport, and free agents from other leagues. The AAF will also try to place players by region, so a receiver who gained fame on a Florida-based team will play for that state.
The play will be different from the NFL in several respects. No kickoffs — the ball starts on the 25-yard line — and no onside kicks. All extra points will be two-point attempts. Coaches get two video-review challenges.
Charlie Ebersol explained why he thinks the AAF will be a winner:
“Football is so dominant for six months of the year,” Ebersol says. “It even hides a number we focused on: millions of fans who stop watching the top five sports in America when football is off the air. Millions of football fans who don’t want to watch other sports.
“And there are 59 million who play fantasy sports, 29 million of them stopped when football ended.
“So what to do to really empower our fans? Fans are investors. They invest time and emotion and money … and what they get in return is the thrill of victory and agony of defeat. We wanted to empower the fans so they will be rewarded for being fans of their team, so fans have a real stake in the league.”
My tip? Avoid kneeling.
What are your thoughts — will you watch this new league?
Published in General
Yep. That’s a big one.
Well, they’d better do something. I’m hearing more and more parents say they have zero interest in letting their son’s play football due to all the noise about TBI’s and the like. They need something that makes it look like fun.
Something that avoids the train-wreck that is the modern NFL AND available off-season might just work. Keep it small and let it grow organically vs massive expansion (like the NHL which expanded to markets that not only couldn’t really support the franchise but also couldn’t manufacture or properly groom decent ice during the late hot months – or come up with suitable uniform colors. I’m lookin’ at you Nashville Predators and your mustard yellow sweaters – gross).
I suppose that I might surf through on occasion, but, no matter how many gimmicks they attach to make their game different, the players are still second-tier. Will it be more fan-friendly? That seems likely, if the creators are smart, but the play on the field still has to justify its existence. Depending on how they are capitalized, I don’t see a really long future ahead.
No mention of one of America’s greatest promoters, Vince McMahon of the WWF. Is he out?
Amen, kneeling with the ball to run out the clock when you are ahead is the cheapest move in all of sports.
Also can anyone say Colin Kaepernick AAF all time Quarter Back MVP? He is a free agent now, and has to be better than whatever scrubs this second tier league will find.
Finally wasn’t the AAF one of the factions from the Cartman in the future episodes of South Park, that was fighting the Otters?
As long as they are equally second tier, great things can happen.
The problem isn’t the fun of the game, but that the maneuvers and game play is inherently dangerous, because throwing yourself at some one just can’t really be done safely. I wonder also about boxing (but I guess this isn’t too popular a sport). Avoiding hits to your head is always a good policy long term.
But won’t they really just be a lamer version of Collage Football? Who are the clear second tier alternative? They should try to internationalize it by having a Canadian, and English team. That could be fun? But I fear it will just become the sad dumping ground of NFL players long past their prime. Kind of like what American professional soccer is to European soccer.
Dunno. Problem number one for the NFL is not enough skilled, experienced quarterbacks, and the AAF will get that, too, without the few qualified QBs that the NFL has.
Absolutely no kneeling. Best innovation would be ~2 hr games — NFL games are too long, boring. Some of the Alliance rule changes are interesting, but not different enough. They should try eliminating hard pads and helmets, which promote spear tackling and actually cause injury rather than prevent it. Go back to form tackling, older style of football.
Nope. Six months of football is more than enough.
If they give the NFL agita more power to them.
I’ll give it a try. I’m always disappointed when the football season is over.
And personally, I don’t care a whit about players kneeling. Who cares what cosseted and entitled millionaires think about anything? I watch to see the game, (not the politics) and they still get played. Let them make their irrelevant “protests”; I’ll just go top off my drink while I wait for the head bashing to start.
Terrible branding. AAF? Is that “ayf” or “aff”? Yech. And no one likes alliances. Geez. American Football Association (AFA) would be better.
Or Warrior Football League. Except you wouldn’t want the acronym, WFL, to be confused for Women’s Football League. So, maybe Patriot Football League?
I don’t remember the details, but one guy wanted to change there rules to indirectly force non-specialization of the players. The start of this league had a website, but it must have gone nowhere.
Ahf. As in “Castle AAAAAAHHFFF.”
What about the Rebel Alliance? Everyone likes them.
Did he die in mid dictation?
They were the bad guys.
It would be better if they got rid of video review altogether. That’s what’s slowing NFL (and NCAA) games down nowadays. The coaches don’t even use their flags, because they review every freaking play anyway.
Twelve months of football wouldn’t be enough.
I’ll give it a shot.
My tip? No pink jerseys.
Rugby is fun to watch on TV.
No Vince in this league.
Vince is trying to get the XFL restarted. From what I’ve heard, he’s planning to take it more seriously this time. (We’ll see.)
Quality of the play is key. If they play the game sharply with few penalties it will go a long way to garnering an audience. Like Minor league baseball if played well, you will get an audience. I will give it a look see, but if it’s crap, I’m on to other entertainment.
Dumb idea. This means a team trailing by two scores late in the game, instead of say a 5% chance of winning, has basically 0% chance.
If there’s a 5% chance I’ll keep watching, because it might happen, if it does, it will be the most exciting come-back game of the week. When there’s a 0% chance, it’s time to turn off the TV.
Peter Thiel? What’s he up to now? After the Hulk Hogan lawsuit, he wants to replace Andrew Breitbart as the non-Leftist cultural warrior?
One thing that would be interesting would be if the typical liberal/Leftist media outlets like ESPN, CNN, NBC, and Sports Illustrated would even cover it — or cover it all in a positive light.
Easiest way to support the NFL is to ignore a conservative-type competitor.
Welcome to the 21st Century where politics is in every molecule everywhere.
I would prefer that Peter Thiel create a conservative version of youtube as conservatives will always be under the threat of being censored there.
Single A in person is just great. I never watch MLB, anymore.
Get rid of the pads and helmets, but ban head-high and no-arms tackles. Make every player play offense and defense. Eliminate the forward pass. Don’t stop when the ball hits the ground or a player is tackled. Eliminate blocking. Make the players push against each other at the line of scrimmage to retrieve the ball. If the ball goes over the sideline have one of the players throw it in so the teams can compete by jumping. Require the touchdown to be actually touched down. (:
I enjoy College more than NFL now, and one could argue they are even less than second tier.