Earlier this week, the Alliance of American Football pulled the plug.
The upstart football league had ceased operations several weeks ago, but Wednesday the group filed bankruptcy.
Several factors played into the failure of the league.
The AAF promised viewers it would have premier players associated with the league. What it got were people who could not make the cut it in the NFL. It didn’t even get has beens. A few of the names were recognizable from notable college careers, but none of them made a splash in the NFL.
The league promised it would make an agreement with the NFL Players Union so it could act as a sort of minor league. That arrangement didn’t happen.
The product was inferior.
The league had an agreement with a major investor. The investor’s expectations and the league did not mesh. He expected a certain level of return he realized he wouldn’t get. He expected a quicker return on his investment. Eventually he realized the league needed more help and pulled his backing rather than continue to fund its demise.
The league wanted to be an app and an electronic presence rather than being a good football league first.
Officials tried to be a league that would make players, owners, employees, network executives, investors, advertisers
The league believed that all the people who said they wanted another football league, who said there is need, would actually support the league financially.
The organizers failed to comprehend how difficult it is to run a successful football league.
The league’s demise reminded me of a series of recent documentaries that told the story of the Fyre Festival. Fyre was to be a weekend long party on an island with music and luxury accommodations and gourmet food. Unfortunately, the organizers were out of their depth. They made sweeping statements to make everyone happy. They over promised, could not deliver the artists and accommodations they promised. When the ship began to wobble, there was no one who had the experience or ability to correct course. People began to loose faith and so the wheels began to come off even faster.
Investors and musicians realized, some of them very late, the organizers didn’t know what they were doing. They bailed on the project. The organizers then stiffed a variety of vendors who had offered their support to the festival. Ultimately millions of dollars were lost, people went broke, reputations were ruined and some people went to prison.
Neither one of these groups had a clue what they were doing. They were so clueless they didn’t realize how over their heads they were. As my father would say, they didn’t know what they didn’t know.
Many times in life, when someone with no experience or background comes into a situation and begins making outlandish claims, throwing around endorsements that don’t make sense, making promises they know they cannot keep, offering results they cannot produce, it is best to be wary, because likely something is amiss. At best, they are naive. At worst, they are a con artist.
In the final analysis, the failure of the AAF is kind of attributable to the NFL’s success. The NFL, for all of its problems, makes running a football league look easy. From the outside, it looks like anyone can do it. That’s what good people in successful businesses do, they make it look easy. Unfortunately, some people will have to learn that the hard way.
-Mac Cordell is a reporter for the Journal-Tribune.