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AAFL postpones season until 2009
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You can scratch another season of All American Football League from your spring sporting calendar.
The league office in Atlanta officially announced Thursday it was canceling plans to begin play this season.
"I'd be real surprised if very many people were surprised by this," Team Tennessee president Larry Seivers said. "It has been coming for a few weeks."
The AAFL admitted financial difficulties with getting the six-team league off the ground caused the postponement.
"The League will continue to build upon the foundation that has been established, and will continue to discuss opportunities with potential investors," an AAFL statement read, adding it hoped to begin play in 2009.
Team Tennessee, coached by former University of Tennessee quarterback Andy Kelly, was scheduled to begin play April 12 at Neyland Stadium against Michigan. Other franchises were located in Arkansas (Little Rock), Florida (Gainesville), Alabama (Birmingham) and Texas (Houston).
"We've got a lot of work to do here just on a human resource level," Seivers said. "We haven't received any full-fledged plan for 2009. Right now we're just taking care of postponing 2008."
The tough part for Seivers is watching 60 Team Tennessee players drafted on Jan. 26 have to put hopes and plans of playing this season on the back burner.
"The biggest thing that concerns me is all these guys were living a dream," said Seivers, who also played for the Vols. "They're dealing with hopes of possibly furthering their careers on the next level."
The league office announced all fans who purchased tickets to 2008 AAFL games will receive a full refund.
When the AAFL idea first surfaced, league founders hoped play would begin in 2007. Details, finances and stadium-lease agreements couldn't be made in time to make that happen, so the AAFL pointed at 2008 for its debut.
Marcus Katz is the league's chief executive officer and was supposed to be its primary investor, but tough times hit his business ventures this past year.
"I invested 29 million dollars in cash to roll out the operations of the league," Katz told KRIV-TV in Houston. "When I told the board I would subsidize the league, that was before the bond market collapsed."
The league announced Monday it was finalizing major TV and radio deals dependent upon finding additional investors. The AAFL wouldn't say which network it was working with, but went so far as to release a planned schedule for 2008 televised games.
Three days later, the league closed shop for the year.
The next question is will the public buy into another possible start up next year.
"As we go forward," Seivers said, "there has to be absolutely no doubt and no question about what's going on next time.
"I wasn't going to be 100 percent satisfied we were going to play this year until the players reported."
That never happened.
Seivers didn't know if he would stay involved with the league until 2009.
"I've got other interests," he said. "But it has been an exciting experience. I think the coaches are realistic and been kept informed on what's going on.
"I'd be shocked if Andy Kelly doesn't end up in the coaching ranks at some point. He has the charisma and work ethic. All the coaches worked hard. It's just too bad this happened for everyone involved."
© 2008, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.
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Posted by givehim6 on March 13, 2008 at 5:55 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I do fill bad for the guys that quit there jobs to make a try for this.
Posted by Nreht on March 13, 2008 at 6:04 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Shucks!!
I was really looking forward to some really bad football this spring.
Posted by pixmonks on March 13, 2008 at 6:51 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I was totally prepared to shell out big bucks to see out of shape former athletes try to regain past glories.
God bless our educational system.
Posted by GreerVol22 on March 13, 2008 at 8:10 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I hear crickets......
Posted by 02champs on March 13, 2008 at 8:13 p.m. (Suggest removal)
It'll never happen...dickey didn't sell enough shaklee shakes..
Posted by rsarazen on March 13, 2008 at 8:30 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Yawn.
Posted by pdhuff on March 13, 2008 at 9:42 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Good night, Jon boy.
Posted by BillVol on March 14, 2008 at 3:17 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Shut down this bogus operation now, please. I can't believe we ever allowed this "league" the honor of playing in Neyland Stadium.
Posted by Nreht on March 14, 2008 at 7:04 a.m. (Suggest removal)
This team was billed as basically Tennessee's post graduate team. On their most recent roster there were only 4 former UT players not counting coaches (who by the way, I don't believe that they have ever coached before). If the league had difficulty getting player commitments this year, just wait to next year if they try to resurrect this junk. Do you really think players are going to buy in to this again next year?
Posted by wvuvolfan on March 14, 2008 at 7:52 a.m. (Suggest removal)
tough break for the players, but as long as dickey was involved, i wasn't going anyway. now, back to your regularly scheduled program. BP and the TN BB VOLS!
Posted by wewhite on March 14, 2008 at 10:22 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Wish I could say these developments were a shock to me, but c'mon! I shoulda known something was up when they continued to run TV and radio commercials touting Tee Martin as the quarterback LOOOOONNNNG after he'd said he couldn't play.
What did the AAFL have that the other add-your-favorite-alphabet-letters-here-FLs didn't? They certainly didn't have the financial support, sponsorship, and TV contracts that the other ex-leagues did. Look, the indoor pro league barely scrapes by due to their lower overhead (smaller indoor vs. large outdoor venues) and tiny salaries. The league has some TV contracts because the networks that don't get to broadcast college or NBA hoops need something to insert commercials into. NFL Europe? Duh. Underwritten by the NFL which, with its HUGE profits, can weather taking a continued yearly loss from using it as a farm league. The CFL? Hello? "Canadian" (i.e., "We're not that snooty American league"). Different rules make it a different game and, let's face it, they live off of NFL players either building or winding down their pro careers.
If a bunch of college "fooball" stars want to play again but can't make the NFL, they can do it in someone's front yard. Some org like the United Way would do well to jump on this opportunity and get these guys to play a game or two (pro bono) at some local high school stadium (UT's not going to lease them Neyland for free) with proceeds going charity. At least something good might come out of that.
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