The Alliance of American Football came apart at the seams quickly. So quickly that plenty of AAF employees didn’t get official word that they were out of work until nearly 24 hours after the league decided to shut down.
Daniel Popper of TheAthletic.com tells the story of the disorganized manner in which members of the Atlanta Legends learned of the league’s demise, beginning at 12:41 p.m. ET on Tuesday with the PFT tweet regarding the suspension of operations and culminating in official notice at 10:47 a.m. ET the next morning with details about health insurance and unemployment compensation.
“It’s complete and utter chaos,” an unnamed source told Popper.
At 1:00 p.m. ET on Tuesday, Atlanta G.M. Billy Devaney told players that more information was coming at 5:00 p.m. ET. An email indeed arrived at that time, but it wasn’t shared with players.
The players didn’t see the end coming, even though the warning signs were there. And as the dust continues to settle on the abrupt exit of the AAF, plenty of blame continues to be directed to Carolina Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon for pulling the plug on football operations with only two weeks left in the regular season.
But here’s the reality: Dundon saved the league from certain implosion after only one week of games. And he spent $70 million to keep the league going until deciding that he no longer wanted to throw good money after bad.
What was Dundon supposed to do? Keep pouring cash down what he determined to be a dry hole? The more amazing reality here is that the AAF entered its first year of play without enough money in the bank to fund a full season.
There are plenty of really rich people who’d love to get involved in sports. The fact that the AAF never could find one or more who would commit to multiple years of little or no profit shows that maybe, just maybe, the world still isn’t ready for an alternate pro football league that plays its games beyond the boundaries of football season.
