Plenty of people seem to be curious about the Alliance of American Football. It’s still unclear how many people will be sufficiently interested in the alternative football league to actually consume its games.
This weekend, four games will be played for the first of 10 straight weeks. Two games will be played on Saturday night, both starting at 8:00 p.m. ET. Two games will be played on Sunday, with one at 4:00 p.m. ET and the other at 8:00 p.m. ET.
For every indication that the league will have a chance to thrive (NFL Network recently agreed to televise one game per week), there’s a separate sign of looming trouble (Mike Vick abruptly resigned as offensive coordinator of the Atlanta franchise). By Monday, a clear indication will emerge regarding the question of whether people showed up for games and/or watched them on TV or online.
As a quasi-member of the media, I’m trying to gauge whether and to what extent fans want coverage of the AAF. In theory, every story written here about the AAF (or the XFL, which has made more news this week than the AAF) is one less story written about the NFL. So we’ll be taking a cautious approach to both leagues, a wait-and-see driven largely by the guiding principle of creating a football website of which I would be a customer.
So how interested am I in the AAF as a customer/fan of football? For now, mildly at best. I definitely won’t be asking my wife to change our plans for Saturday night (Bohemian Rhapsody screening with some family members coming over) to watch either game. And I absolutely wouldn’t have thought to point out when the Saturday night plans were being made that I may be heading down to the barn to watch three hours of football.
On Sunday, whether I watch either game sort of depends on what’s otherwise going on -- and it depends on whether I remember to tune in.
That’s probably how plenty of ardent football fans will be approaching the launch of the AAF. Which means that the AAF had better create moments that will cause those who currently aren’t interested enough to plan their weekends around this brand of football to feel like they’re missing something interesting by not watching. And the AAF had better do it quickly.
