Latest pro football league, AAF, doomed to failure
It’s almost as if they line up to fail. One alternative pro football league after another, offering big promises and dreams, only to be crushed by the NFL’s popularity and a terrible lack of foresight.
The Alliance of American Football, which began play Feb. 9, will be next. It already appears to be in trouble, league officials fervently denying that a recent $250 million investment by Carolina Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon amounted to a financial bailout preventing a hasty demise.
Doesn’t anyone understand “out of season”? Even the most ardent football fans need a break, turning to other pleasures in spring and summer. As the weather turns in autumn, there’s a fine sense of renewal. It doesn’t matter if start-up leagues have cool rules and a television contract. The concept is forever doomed.
Before recalling the only such league that ever made sense (the American Football League, 1960-69), here’s your litany of failure: the World Football League (1974-75), the United States Football League (1983-85, disbanding not long after deciding to play in fall and winter), the XFL (2001), the United Football League (2009-12) and a new XFL (still run by wrestling magnate Vince McMahon) scheduled to launch in the winter of 2020.
I don’t have a single memory from any of those leagues, mostly because I never watched a second of action. It always seemed like a waste of time, and then the latest dumb project went down.
Now, the AFL — that was a thing of beauty. Backed by ultra-rich owners and instantly validated by a five-year ABC television deal, this was a head-on, in-season invasion into NFL territory. It wasn’t always pretty; the Oakland Raiders played at Kezar Stadium and Candlestick Park in 1960-61 and shifted to Oakland’s obscure Frank Youell Field from 1962 through ’65. But in its very first draft, the AFL signed half of the NFL’s first-round draft choices. At a time when the NFL made only an occasional venture into the country’s all-black colleges, the AFL made it a priority, bringing such all-time greats as Abner Haynes, Willie Lanier, Buck Buchanan, Jim Marsalis, Willie Brown and Warren Wells into the league. (Wells was drafted by Detroit out of Texas Southern in 1964 but rarely played, and didn’t resurface until the Raiders signed him in ’67.)
Historically great coaches included Hank Stram, Sid Gillman, Weeb Ewbank, John Madden and Al Davis, who coached the Raiders for three seasons before becoming the AFL commissioner in 1966. And the action on the field — designed to be more innovative and wide-open than the NFL — put the spotlight on Joe Namath, Lance Alworth, Otis Taylor, Fred Biletnikoff, Daryle Lamonica, Len Dawson, Cookie Gilchrist, Paul Lowe, George Blanda and countless others. The league signed a lucrative deal with NBC in 1964 and forced an NFL merger — spearheaded by the relentless Davis — in 1970.
The latest really bad idea, the AAF, is scheduled to run through April 27. In the meantime, count on sports fans focusing on the NCAA basketball tournaments, the opening weeks of baseball season, the Masters, the NFL draft — you name it. The calendar tells great truths.