League enjoys its links to NFL
New approach to pro football in springtime
Charlie Ebersol has fond memories of attending 10 games of the original XFL, the spring football league started and scuttled in 2001 by his father, NBC Sports chairman Dick Ebersol, and World Wrestling Entertainment chairman Vince McMahon.
“It was a lot of fun,” the younger Ebersol said. “But the football wasn’t very good.”
Those memories define the design and attitude of the Alliance of American Football, the spring league created by Charlie Ebersol and former NFL executive Bill Polian that begins this weekend with teams in eight cities, including San Antonio.
The original XFL in 2001 was a rebellion of sorts, prompted by McMahon’s
dissatisfaction with NFL football and, on Dick Ebersol’s part, by NBC’s loss of NFL rights from 1998 through 2005.
Charlie Ebersol’s football league, in stark contrast, is an alliance in practice as well as in name, with the established order.
The Alliance of American Football styles itself as complementary to the NFL, with players and coaches under AAF contracts enjoying freedom of movement between the two leagues and with seasoned NFL veterans as head coaches and in other executive positions.
It is a mindset to which Ebersol refers repeatedly and — without referring by name to McMahon’s revived XFL, which will begin play in 2020 in eight cities, including Houston — pointedly.
“We have more than 500 years of NFL experience among our top executives, and that matters,” he said. “Just because you are somehow connected to the NFL does not make you an NFL expert. Having relationships with the NFL and building something in the NFL are very different things.”
All eight teams in Sun Belt
The Alliance-XFL competition, if there is to be such a thing, is a year away. For now, the Alliance has the spring to itself, and it has aligned itself in what Ebersol believes is a manner that allows it to avoid the boom-bust cycle of past spring leagues.
The league’s choice of host cities is the most obvious telling point. Texas, Florida, California and Georgia are the nation’s top producers of high school, college and pro football players, and the league has teams in San Antonio, Orlando, San Diego and Atlanta.
The San Antonio Commanders’ roster reflects the team’s home base. The Alliance has a regional system of player assignment, and more than 20 members of the Commanders team that will debut Saturday against the San Diego Fleet played high school or college ball in Texas.
The Alliance’s other cities are Birmingham and Memphis (which, like Orlando, were 2001 XFL markets), Salt Lake City and Tempe, Ariz.
All eight Alliance cities are in relatively temperate climates, arranged in a more or less straight line across the Sun Belt.
“I didn’t draw that line,” Ebersol said, laughing. “God drew that line and said it will be warm in those places in February and March and that you’re not telling fans they have to sit in parkas for every game.”
Another point of difference from past leagues, including the revived XFL, is the Alliance’s decision to avoid NFL markets with the exception of Atlanta and Tempe, which is 25 miles from the Cardinals’ State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz. Seven of the eight 2020 XFL cities have NFL teams.
“We looked at markets that were more likely to embrace a new football league because they have less going on,” Ebersol said. “I think launching in major markets is handicapping yourself.
“Why go to New York where you’re competing with all those other teams when you can go to San Antonio, which has the Spurs but is a football city and is looking for an engagement factor?”
Playing in smaller markets also allows the AAF to hold the line on prices, with tickets going for as low as $15 to $10. Ebersol said the league will follow the example of MLS in appealing to families.
“The (2001) XFL went so hard after the male audience that when the football was bad, they had nothing to fall back on,” he said. “They told the female audience they weren’t welcome and told kids they weren’t welcome by making it X-rated.”
Ebersol said the AAF has adopted rule changes designed to contribute to pace of game and safety and, he acknowledged, to follow the trend of an “offense-first” game.
Those changes include eliminating kickoffs, some restrictions on rushing the passer, a shorter play clock and a more limited overtime.
“The game is pretty great now,” Ebersol said. “I’ve never understood why (alternative) leagues want to screw with the underlying product. We have NFL experts with NFL experience putting on an NFL-style game at the one time of the year where there isn’t football.”
Alliance games will air on CBS, CBS Sports Network, NFL Network and TNT, which provide strengths in distribution, the opportunity for weekend primetime game slots and, in the case of NFL Network, another link to the established league.
Mobility between AAF, NFL
Eight of the 40 regular-season games, however, will be streamed on Turner Sports’ B/R Live, which will allow the league to experiment with game presentation and to add elements appealing to fantasy players and gamblers.
The league’s mobile app, which had yet to be released as of Thursday, will include Statcast-style play representations that will be delivered to the app 20 to 30 seconds faster than video streams.
App users, Ebersol said, will be able to guess plays and engage in other interactive games at the same time as those watching the game live at the stadium.
“Until today, sports betting has been a real-life version of the movie ‘The Sting,’ ” he said. “If you’re in the stadium, you have a 30-second advantage. In our game, you have no advantage if you’re in the stadium.”
As for the core football product — the key element where the first XFL failed — Ebersol envisions increased movement between Alliance and NFL rosters.
He said 71 players selected in the league’s November 2018 draft played in the NFL last season. Thirty-five are on Alliance rosters for the opening weekend, including former Lake Travis quarterback Garrett Gilbert, who will play in Orlando.
“We want to improve the ecosystem of professional football, and we do that by giving players and coaches the ability to move freely between us and the NFL,” Ebersol said.
For the Alliance to survive and thrive, Ebersol knows the league must provide the entertainment value that the 2001 XFL provided in its opening weekend, with a 9.5 Nielsen rating for its inaugural game in Las Vegas, while providing quality play that the 2001 league lacked.
As for the revived XFL that will compete for attention next year, he believes time and preparation are on the Alliance’s side.
“We have the best 700 available players under multi-year contracts for our league,” Ebersol said. “It will be very difficult for anyone else to have anything near the quality of football that we have and will have for the next few years in our universe.
“Can another league exist? Absolutely. Can they exist with the same quality of football that we have, with the best available coaches, players and referees? It would be very challenging.”