Moore: Alliance of American Football might seem a long shot, but league has shot to work

Don’t sleep on the Alliance of American Football. This can work.

It might seem easy to dismiss as the latest in a string of upstart football leagues. But newly announced Phoenix coach Rick Neuheisel put it best when he said, “This is a league of opportunity.”

The Alliance has an opportunity give more action to football – and gambling – fanatics. It’s got the opportunity to exploit a smart, tech-focused business model. And it’s got an opportunity to get some things right where the NFL and NCAA have struggled.

Charlie Ebersol, son of TV legend Dick Ebersol and CEO of the Alliance, says that after the Super Bowl, about 80 million people stop watching sports on the weekend and that about 20 million fantasy players are left without a fix for six months.

He wants to give these folks more of what they crave. The Alliance season will run from February to April, featuring “the first fully integrated fantasy experience, where you can play while you’re watching,” Ebersol said. “You can engage with your friends, have a dialogue with your friends, all while you’re participating in the game.”

Position to pounce

If he’s concerned with the NFL’s declining TV ratings, he’s not saying it.

Ebersol, in Tempe on Friday, has access to TV revenue through a deal with CBS, but his plan to bake fantasy play into the fan experience puts him in position to pounce on newly legal gambling money.

He’s also pushing an app for fans to stream games, meaning he’ll be in position to know far more about his base. He’ll be able to monetize the data he collects and tailor his product to its consumers.

He doesn’t sound concerned with competition or a history of upstart failure, either.

Ebersol isn’t going head to head with the NFL. By playing in the spring, he avoids the spike strip that popped the USFL’s tire decades ago.

That league had good teams and great players, but it died when it went from spring to fall. Many people involved think that was the death knell and that the USFL would have lasted longer or forced a partial merger if it had stayed in its lane.

Ebersol also doesn’t seem pressed over the recent announcement of a new XFL, led by wrestling mogul Vince McMahon.

“One of the things I’ve learned over the last couple of years from my Super Bowl-winning compatriots – (Bill) Polian, (Troy) Polamalu and Justin Tuck – is Super Bowl teams only concentrate on themselves,” Ebersol told me.

“The only thing you can control if you want to win a Super Bowl is what you do with your team on your field. We’re concentrating on that.”

Besides, the Alliance and the new XFL have announced similar plans. Maybe it’s because Ebersol’s dad and McMahon were partners in the old “extra fun league”? They seemed to be on good terms at the end of a recent XFL “30 for 30” documentary that Charlie Ebersol directed, which has had the effect of generating buzz for both the Alliance and new XFL, saying over dinner that they wouldn’t mind trying it again.

Both leagues are planning eight teams. Both are planning shorter games. Both are planning 10-game seasons.

The key difference?

The 72-year-old McMahon says no social issues or politics allowed.

The 35-year-old Ebersol? He’s open to guys like Colin Kaepernick and Eric Reid, who are suing the NFL, saying owners have conspired to keep them off rosters because they kneeled during the national anthem to protest heavy-handed police tactics in minority communities that have led to the deaths of unarmed black men.

“Best available players,” Ebersol told me. “You show up, and you can play, and you want to play in our league, then we want to talk to you.”

Neuheisel backed him up.

“This is a league of opportunity,” he said. “I would welcome the opportunity to coach those kinds of guys.”

The family ties, similarities and differences establish the underpinnings of a natural rivalry reminiscent of the old NFL-AFL days.

Filling gaps

Ebersol and Neuheisel say the talent is there to support the new league. They also say that NCAA and NFL football have become so fundamentally different that quarterbacks and other players often need a developmental bridge. The Alliance wants to be that bridge.

That’s not the only gap it can fill.

“Best available players” could be taken to mean a guy like Maurice Clarett could go pro straight out of high school, eliminating the indentured servitude aspects of the NCAA model where everybody gets paid but the players.

The league also can forge a more meaningful partnership with its athletes than the NCAA or NFL have been able to establish, starting from a mutually beneficial place of respect that acknowledges social concerns, safety and post-playing career planning.

That’s “that ‘alliance’ that I talk about,” Ebersol said.

It’s not going to be perfect.

The NFL has a stranglehold on American sports. It’s so big, bad and popular that it’s looking beyond U.S. borders. London. Mexico City. The league has been interested in China for years.

Good luck denting that penetration.

And the USFL, the XFL, the UFL and several other failed “FL’s” prove that starting up isn’t easy.

But Ebersol seems to have a clear sense of what he wants his league to be and a plan for how to get there. He seems to have a good sense of how the world works and how to operate within it.

Scoff if you want, but the Alliance can work.

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Reach Moore at gmoore@azcentral.com or 602-444-2236. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram @WritingMoore