AAF may fold

bamamick

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Feb 22, 2005
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Why would they block these guys from playing in the CFL? Man, any sympathy or goodwill people had towards those running this league is pretty much shot.

Rtr
 

crimsonaudio

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Why would they block these guys from playing in the CFL? Man, any sympathy or goodwill people had towards those running this league is pretty much shot.

Rtr
Funny how now that we know more details, those of us who were so supportive have turned. I had no idea these guys were the dirtbags they apparently are.

It's disappointing and does nothing to inhibit my cynicism...
 

BamaNation

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Former Birmingham Iron punter Colton Schmidt and Orlando Apollos linebacker Reggie Northrup have filed a lawsuit alleging breach of contract, fraud and false promise against Dundon and Ebersol among other claims, the full details of which are available to view here.
https://www.behindthesteelcurtain.c...t-filed-against-alliance-of-american-football



and I hadn’t seen this...

The league’s demise was ugly: Players were kicked out of hotel rooms and found their belongings in the lobby and in some cases had to pay hotel bills themselves. Some players were without transportation home from team facilities.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/spor...uld-take-center-stage/?utm_term=.956792b12327
 
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rolltide_21

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Yeah, that’s a reference to what happened to the Memphis players. Some had to rent cars to get home cause they couldn’t afford the flight. They players I feel the most for are those who suffered serious injuries. They now have big bills and will be doing rehab on their own.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

KrAzY3

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I hope Vince is looking at this stuff, running a league is not cheap at all. Sure he might be willing to blow a couple hundred million, but I'm honestly at a loss as to how he expects to make it back.
 

CrimsonNagus

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If I were the judge, I would not allow the bankruptcy. Billionaires formed the league and entered into contracts with venues, players and coaches. They have the money to honor those contracts. Make them pay from the same deep pockets that produced the cash which formed the league.
Except those same billionaires can afford the right lawyers that will make it all go away.
 

B1GTide

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He does not actually answer the critical question. If they had this money available to draw from, where did it go? He suggests that investors had the ability to pull funding. Why would anyone ever agree to that? It really means that you have no actual funding - just the possibility of funding as long as these guys don't lose interest or fear for their investment.

When the league shut down, these guys all pulled their money from the "fund" and the creditors don't get paid. Does anyone believe that their creditors would have agreed to that? Does anyone believe that any of the coaches would have signed on if they knew that there was no real capital commitment from anyone?

This league was built on lies and misinformation. Ebersol is trying to salvage his reputation but this is not going to satisfy. He just made it very clear that the model was created to protect the investors first and foremost.

The only way this league would have had a chance is if they had real funding and a leader committed to a 3 year business plan. They had neither.
 

BamaNation

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So here's how I understand what Ebersol is saying took place:

Ebersol had partners who agreed to his 3-yr plan. Then they (he?) changed the plan as the league kicked off in weeks 1-2. Dundon came in as a white knight but immediately began demanding things that were in Year 3 of the plan take place in weeks 4-8. Broadcast & NFL & financial & advertising partners weren't amenable to that and began to back away, bills weren't paid, players weren't paid, and Dundon closed access to accounts. Seems pretty stupid on his part that he invested (or committed to investing, based on what actually took place) in something and then totally changed the plan to try and make it happen in a few days/weeks what was planned for 2.5 more years.

Either these people are dumber than a rock or something underhanded took place. Could be both.
 
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BamaNation

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Thinking about this some more is making me mad. I think we're trying to apply the term "invested" to what actually may have just been "committed." Which, in a sense, makes it worse.

I still don't understand how you line up $200mm and in 10 weeks access to that is gone and your new "investor" pulls the plug after "investing" (committing) to saving the league. It's infuriating from a fan perspective (not even considering players and other employees who left other jobs for a chance at this based on a 3-yr promise) that they hyped everyone up, did a pretty good job of putting a decent product on the field that seemed interesting and had guys you could pull for, then Dundon yanks the plank. Here's hoping, all things being equal and knowing what we know, that he pays a price and has to fund the leagues commitments and that Ebersol goes back to producing whatever it is he produces rather than any future attempts at business-building.

The point B1G makes about the PTB being billionaires should weigh heavily on how this case is handled. HUGE power disparities here.
 
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Pilot172000

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Dundon, came in, got what he wanted then left. He only spent operating expenses in the weeks he kept it open, not the $250,0000,000 he promised. It was corporate raiding at its finest. The fact that Ebersol got in such a bind prior to Dundon's intro is what confuses me. As for the bankruptcy, these "Billionaires" formed a company to deflect liability so that if it went south, they could be protected. Its very common in business and there are rarely instances where these guys take a bath afterwards. You can sue them and they will draw it out for so long that you run out of money for lawyers. That the downside of rich and powerful people. Unless the FEDS get involved, they will move on to the next opportunity.
 
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KrAzY3

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Dundon, came in, got what he wanted then left. He only spent operating expenses in the weeks he kept it open, not the $250,0000,000 he promised. It was corporate raiding at its finest. The fact that Ebersol got in such a bind prior to Condon's intro is what confuses me..
It's really not all that confusing, the whole debacle never really had sound footing (also 250 million from what I read was never promised, that would have been a whole new level of stupid honestly and they didn't even calculate their three year operating costs that high). The first investors thought better of the whole thing, and then the second investor (based on Ebersol's account) became frustrated because the league wasn't doing what he felt they were needing to do, and he pulled the plug.

It's easy to call it corporate raiding, but I have yet to see proof that it actually had anything to be raided. Right now the liabilities are in the tens of millions, the first investors wanted no part of it, and the second one (after investing a very large sum, 70 million) thought better as well. They basically sold the league mid-season to Dundon. That's not what how really valuable assets tend to be treated.

By my count, and it's hard to keep up, but from what I can tell Dundon will need to get something like 100 million worth of something out of AAF to make this worthwhile. I'm not holding my breath because this whole thing always looked like a trainwreck to me, and the only surprise I have is that people put up any money in the first place. We'll see though... but Condon had no incentive to pretend like he was trying to turn things around if he was just raiding them.

Either way, Dundon didn't come in and break something that was working fine. He came in and allowed them to make payroll. This league didn't fail because of Dundon, it lasted a little bit longer because of him.
 
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B1GTide

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It's really not all that confusing, the whole debacle never really had sound footing (also 250 million from what I read was never promised, that would have been a whole new level of stupid honestly and they didn't even calculate their three year operating costs that high). The first investors thought better of the whole thing, and then the second investor (based on Ebersol's account) became frustrated because the league wasn't doing what he felt they were needing to do, and he pulled the plug.

It's easy to call it corporate raiding, but I have yet to see proof that it actually had anything to be raided. Right now the liabilities are in the tens of millions, the first investors wanted no part of it, and the second one (after investing a very large sum, 70 million) thought better as well. They basically sold the league mid-season to Dundon. That's not what how really valuable assets tend to be treated.

By my count, and it's hard to keep up, but from what I can tell Dundon will need to get something like 100 million worth of something out of AAF to make this worthwhile. I'm not holding my breath because this whole thing always looked like a trainwreck to me, and the only surprise I have is that people put up any money in the first place. We'll see though... but Dundon had no incentive to pretend like he was trying to turn things around if he was just raiding them.

Either way, Dundon didn't come in and break something that was working fine. He came in and allowed them to make payroll. This league didn't fail because of Dundon, it lasted a little bit longer because of him.
You are 100 percent wrong, and everyone who knows anything about this league disagrees with your assessment. This league was built on a 3 year profitability model, and there was no reason to believe that they would not have met that goal. They were attracting talented players and coaches, and they were attracting fans.

The league's biggest mistake was in trusting this snake.
 
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KrAzY3

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This league was built on a 3 year profitability model, and there was no reason to believe that they would not have met that goal.
Except for the fact that they failed to make payroll before Dundon entered the picture! Ebersol is trying to paint a pretty picture, but I'm 100% right on that part of it, and that's a train wreck. Just so we're clear here, a profitable company doesn't usually have trouble making payroll. Ebersol doesn't want to come out and say he's an incompetent lout, but he built something that actually failed twice during the first season.

Blaming the guy who literally kept the lights on is asinine, but I haven't changed my tune on the league from the start, and I've actually still been disappointed. It was a failure from the beginning, and it had failure written all over it (I have yet to see any realistic explanation for how they were going to become profitable). For Ebersol to make claims that in 3 years this would have all worked out (if they just kept the money turned on, I mean after all another pro leagues can be worth 10 million but this baby was going to magically become worth 200), and for you to buy it, while at the same time glossing over the fact that Ebersol couldn't make payroll shows you how leagues like this come into being.

Built on rainbows and unicorns and a lot of fluff, but apparently not real solid financial footing. My earlier posts were built around the fact that I couldn't see how they were going to make money. Well, apparently they didn't make any, in fact they lost a lot. Ebersol now has two failed leagues under his belt, good for him, he's a real pro. Welcome to the world of faith based economic decisions (of which two completely different set of investors thought better of than continuing to participate). If this was money in the bank, someone is going to offer an explanation eventually for why the first set of investors ran away from it like their hair was on fire. May be, just may be it was because this wasn't making any money, rather it was rapidly losing it?

I get it, a lot of people wanted this to succeed so badly, that they'd prefer to blame the person who actually saved them from failing earlier. But, logically there's no way around the fact that without him they'd already have been finished.
 
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B1GTide

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Except for the fact that they failed to make payroll before Dundon entered the picture! Ebersol is trying to paint a pretty picture, but I'm 100% right on that part of it, and that's a train wreck. Just so we're clear here, a profitable company doesn't usually have trouble making payroll. Ebersol doesn't want to come out and say he's an incompetent lout, but he built something that actually failed twice during the first season.

Blaming the guy who literally kept the lights on is asinine, but I haven't changed my tune on the league from the start, and I've actually still been disappointed. It was a failure from the beginning, and it had failure written all over it (I have yet to see any realistic explanation for how they were going to become profitable). For Ebersol to make claims that in 3 years this would have all worked out (if they just kept the money turned on, I mean after all another pro leagues can be worth 10 million but this baby was going to magically become worth 200), and for you to buy it, while at the same time glossing over the fact that Ebersol couldn't make payroll shows you how leagues like this come into being.

Built on rainbows and unicorns and a lot of fluff, but apparently not real solid financial footing. My earlier posts were built around the fact that I couldn't see how they were going to make money. Well, apparently they didn't make any, in fact they lost a lot. Ebersol now has two failed leagues under his belt, good for him, he's a real pro. Welcome to the world of faith based economic decisions (of which two completely different set of investors thought better of than continuing to participate). If this was money in the bank, someone is going to offer an explanation eventually for why the first set of investors ran away from it like their hair was on fire. May be, just may be it was because this wasn't making any money, rather it was rapidly losing it?

I get it, a lot of people wanted this to succeed so badly, that they'd prefer to blame the person who actually saved them from failing earlier. But, logically there's no way around the fact that without him they'd already have been finished.
You have no idea what you are talking about, but I don't care enough to argue with you about it. Many businesses cannot make payroll without financial backing for years. Many companies fail to make a profit for years. Some of the biggest companies in the world started that way.
 
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