AAFL On the Outs?

I just wasted the effort typing "AAFL" into google and clicking on the website. Farewell league that never really existed to begin with.

 

I remember about 10 years ago there was a similar concept called the Regional Football League. Teams in football hotbeds using players from colleges in that state or region to draw up interest. There were teams in Jackson (Miss.), Mobile, New Orleans, maybe Chicago and a few others. It was an 8 or 10 team league, and basically seemed to group a bunch of existing semi-pro teams into a coherent mass. I know for sure the Jackson team was an old semi-pro team. The most recognizable name in the league was Sherman Williams, the former Alabama RB who had a cup of coffee in the NFL as Emmitt Smith's backup with the Cowboys.

The league lasted one season. The biggest crowds were 7,000 or 8,000 people, and most probably numbered in the hundreds. Management and financial backing counts for a lot, but when I heard about the AAFL I couldn't help but think it was a rehash of the RFL with better publicists.

 

If you look at their "Board of Directors" that's a lot of egos to be on one administrative group. My guess is they met for a day, didn't agree on anything and spent the of the week playing golf and comparing payrolls from their SEC football days.

 

Let us not forget the excitement is growing and a memorable draft it was...

 

Thanks. I wasn't aware there was such a thing, either. Monster truck rallies held 'em off, eh?

 

Who knew this was not going to happen???

 

"Hundreds" may be generous. I was living around Mobile at the time and I remember seeing game highlights on TV. Stadium was damn near empty.

 

There was a minor league basketball experiment a couple years ago called the All American Professional Basketball League.

A month after the league was annouced, it folded. A team was to play in our city, and we celebrated that night.

 

I covered a few games for the Jackson team. The crowds there weren't bad, maybe a couple thousand. Not bad for a league like that. Of course, when you're in a 60,000 seat stadium like most of the teams in that league were, and drawing 7,000, you might as well pipe in chirping crickets over the PA.

 

Depends what your time in the 40 is...

 

How come all these leagues with American or United States in the name fail? ABA, USFL, AAFC, NASL, AFL. Only the American League survives!

 

Oh well, that means more time for this.