New Football League Takes Aim at College Fans



The end of college bowl season is a bittersweet time for seniors, as a vast majority of them are done playing football. There are hundreds of colleges that offer football on various levels, and there are thousands of seniors who play. But only a very few of them are good enough to be drafted — and the NFL has just seven rounds in its annual college grab bag, which means only about 225 are guaranteed a glance by the 32 NFL teams. The NFL also limits its training camp roster to just 80 players. It means there are just a few openings for college seniors for even training camp tryouts. The only other option for hopeful players is the Canadian Football League, as the various

indoor leagues start their seasons in February.

But a group of former college sports officials, led by Cedric Dempsey, a former NCAA president, is offering a new option for those who want to keep playing. It has formed a new spring football association called the All American Football League, with the intention of recreating a college football-type atmosphere for players who just are not good enough for the NFL.

The AAFL will kickoff its training camp in Mobile, Ala., on March 13. In April it begins a 10-game schedule featuring six teams in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Michigan, Tennessee, and Texas. The teams — some of whom will be playing in college stadiums such as Legion Field in Birmingham, Ala., Neyland Stadium in Knoxville, Tenn., and Rice University in Houston, Texas — will feature players who starred on the gridiron for colleges, universities, or high schools in the state. None of the college seniors who are participating in the various bowl games are eligible for the new league until they graduate from their schools. There is a "no diploma, no play" rule (although there will probably be some player and some agent who will go to court and challenge that AAFL bylaw). Since the demise of the United States Football League in 1986, following the USFL-NFL antitrust lawsuit, various promoters, including the NFL, have sought to fill a spring football void. Various incarnations — including the NFL's World League of American Football, NFL Europe, NFL Europa, the XFL, the Spring Football League, and the untested, unplayed Professional Spring Football League — have come and gone. But the AAFL may have a shot at lasting if the organizers keep salaries down to between $50,000 and $100,000 a player annually — and by not competing with the NFL.

The new league already has a deal with the NFL Officiating Program to provide training sessions for all coaches on AAFL playing rules and regulations during training camp. The NFL will also provide officiating crews for all 30 AAFL regular season games, two playoff games, and the championship game. The AAFL will be developing officials and can become a de facto farm system for the NFL, in that it can develop players who might need more seasoning. The league can save the NFL money on research and development. Pro football Hall of Famer Joe DeLamielleure is a spokesman for the league, and plans to be in the lineup for one series for Team Michigan when it opens its season on April 12 in Knoxville against Team Tennessee. The 56-year-old guard, who helped open up holes as a member of the "Electric Company" — the Buffalo Bills' offensive line that helped O.J. Simpson to rush for 2,003 yards in 1973 — thinks the AAFL will succeed where others have failed, for one reason.

"The biggest difference in our model is that we are not trying to create a new audience for football. We are trying to tap into one that is already there: college football fans," DeLamielleure said. "That is why we are emphasizing our players from great programs such as Florida, Alabama, Michigan, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Texas.

"The whole league is based on one question: 'Whatever happened to?' If people do not

care about their favorite college football players, then we do not have a league. But they remember and care very intensely"

AAFL organizers are banking on Florida residents to show up at Gainesville, Jacksonville, or Tampa to cheer on old Gators such as quarterback Chris Leak, who led the University of Florida to the BCS championship last January. AAFL officials claim they have studied the failures of previous spring leagues, and are convinced they have a better concept.

The USFL had a real chance to succeed in the 1980s, had its owners behaved with fiscal responsibility. The new league had a TV deal with ABC, and a cable deal with ESPN. The teams drew audiences reasonably well, but the USFL failed because the original 12 team owners blew through their budgets in 1983.

In 1986, the USFL sued the NFL for hundreds of millions of dollars in an antitrust case that the USFL won. But a jury awarded the USFL $1 in damages, which was eventually tripled. The USFL owners were counting on big bucks, which they believed would have forced a merger, and that didn't happen. The Professional Football League folded in February 1992, about a week before it was supposed to kick off. The league's commissioner was a former TV executive, Rex Lardner, and the league managed to cut a deal with SportsChannel America, which was run by Charles Dolan and managed by Lardner's brother, Michael. The league went bellyup during training camp due to a lack of interest.

In 2000, the Spring Football League was supposed to be the first true Internet sports league, with games being available through the Web. The league also borrowed a page from Vince McMahon's fusion of music and pro wrestling, as there was also a concert as part of the game's bill. But the league failed to attract customers, and went out of business after four weeks.

The AAFL has a different formula and is hoping that fans in college football hotbeds want to watch the game in the spring. The league still doesn't have a cable TV deal or a broadband platform, although a cable deal may be announced shortly. It is banking on fans, boosters, and alumni, to pay and watch former Gators, Vols, Aggies, Spartans, Razorbacks, and Crimson Tide play spring football just like they once did. If the AAFL succeeds in capturing those people, they have a chance at lasting. If people don't care, the AAFL will be tossed to the scrap heap of spring football initials, such as the USFL and XFL. It is that simple.

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