Money woes sideline AAFL until 2009
Posted on Friday, March 14, 2008
An iffy financial climate all but assured the All American Football League of a rocky maiden voyage.
Now, the first-year league won’t even be making it out of port.
The AAFL formally announced Thursday it would be postponing its inaugural season to 2009, about a month before the 2008 season was set to kick off.
The league seemed to have survived a scare a week ago, when it announced it might postpone the season if outside investors could not be found.
The AAFL’s chief financier, Atlanta-based student loan tycoon Marcus Katz, had tied part of the league’s finances into the federally backed student loan market. Like other businesses, that market has suffered as a result of the ongoing subprime mortgage crisis.
Late last Thursday, members of the league’s front office claimed to have found additional investors and said the season would start as planned with a slight delay in the start of training camps. That news now appears to have been premature.
Fans who purchased season tickets or single-game packages will have their checks returned or will have their accounts credited. What’s less clear is what’s to become of the league’s personnel.
Team Arkansas Coach Ron Calcagni confirmed late Thursday that he and his assistants were officially no longer employed.
“We’re no longer on payroll,” Calcagni said.
Team Arkansas, one of six AAFL franchises, has about eight front office employees to go along with a full coaching staff. One of those employees, director of public relations Tracy Thibodeaux, declined comment when asked Thursday if his or other front-office jobs had been eliminated.
Team President Alicia Cooper referred all questions to the AAFL league office. A call placed to AAFL senior director of communication Risa Balayem was not immediately returned.
Thibodeaux did say that at the time of his hiring there was no contingency plan offered by the AAFL in the event of the league folding or postponing its season.
For most of the league’s players, the answer appears to be more clean-cut and more stark. All players drafted by an AAFL franchise were guaranteed salaries of $ 50, 000 providing they made the final roster coming out of training camp. No training camps mean no final rosters and possibly no salaries.
The outlook is murkier for those players who signed special public relations deals with their respective franchises. For Team Arkansas, former Arkansas Razorbacks quarterback Clint Stoerner and running back Chrys Chukwuma were guaranteed bigger salaries in exchange for doing yeararound public relations work for the league on the local level.
Thibodeaux said he didn’t know what Stoerner and Chukwuma were set to make but that the boost would be sizable if it was the same given by other league franchises.
“I don’t know what they were paid,” Thibodeaux said. “These salaries, as I understand it, were up to $ 100, 000.”
Stoerner did not return a phone message asking for comment.
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