Someone mentioned atmosphere here, and it matters. For a minor league offering, you need to have people engaged. If you put on a game, and no one shows up, it will kill enthusiasm and interest. Even if you have outside sources of revenue, people aren't going to look at an empty stadium and go ok, let's throw more money at this. It's bad news.
Even in Birmingham, the attendance dropped:
https://www.nfldraftdiamonds.com/2019/02/aaf-attendance-2/
Now, the article I just linked to said attendance went up right? Problem is from what I understand they had a ticket scanning issue and they started letting people in without scanning them in the first game, so there was actually a noticeable drop in attendance from game 1 to 2. I could get into the reasons why minor league football in America is in a bad spot, but without the smaller venues that indoor football plays in, the sub 20K football crowds look really small. The only places to really sustain 20K+ attendance have been outside the US (CFL and NFL Europe), where it isn't a third best football offering (and they play in smaller venues).
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