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Canceled Season Has Football Players Riled
All American Football League athletes call foul, seek penalty for delay of game
Fulton County Daily Report
April 08, 2008
The 2008 football season has been canceled, and the players -- all hyped for spring training -- are none too happy about it.
That dissatisfaction is revealed in a suit filed against the Atlanta-based All American Football League, which abruptly called time out just days before the nascent league was to take to the field.
The AALF planned to capitalize on college football enthusiasm by fielding six "minor league" teams of former college and NFL players who would play in university or municipal stadiums. But last month, it canceled its season days before some 252 players were to suit up for spring practice, according to six former National football League players who say the new league owes them at least $50,000 each, plus moving and other expenses. The athletes have filed a class action against the AAFL and its founder and CEO, college loan mogul Marcus Katz.
Katz, the one-time president of the long-defunct Georgia School of Bartending and now retired in San Diego, announced the league's launch in mid-2006, and subsequently lined up a roster of notable athletes -- both professional and former collegiate stars -- to get the effort off the ground. He named former National Collegiate Athletic Association President Cedric Dempsey as chairman and, according to press accounts, pledged as much as $75 million of his own money to bankroll the effort.
By late last year, the league had struck deals with several colleges and municipal stadiums and had begun recruiting trainers and players for six proposed teams:
• Team Alabama, whose home venue is Birmingham's Legion Field;
• Team Arkansas, whose home venue is Little Rock's War Memorial Stadium;
• Team Florida, which had scheduled home games at stadiums in Tampa, Gainesville and Jacksonville;
• Team Michigan, whose home venue is Detroit's Ford Field;
• Team Tennessee, whose home venue is Knoxville's Neyland Stadium; and
• Team Texas, whose home venue is Houston's Rice Stadium.
The teams held a draft in January and announced player rosters for the first season's games, set to commence April 12.
But last month, the league sent out an e-mail announcing its need for new financing, explaining that the league's funding relies largely on securities backed by federally guaranteed student loans, which have fallen victim to the subprime mortgage crisis.
According to the league Web site, Katz made his fortune as founder of Educational Loan Administration Group, which later merged with insurer UICI. His family, it says, currently owns two of the nation's largest providers of federal student loans.
On March 13, the AAFL announced the postponement of the 2008 season until next year.
On March 25, Steven J. Estep of Atlanta's Cohen Cooper Estep & Whiteman filed a class action in Fulton County Superior Court on behalf of former NFL players Jeffrey Symons, who played with the Houston Texans and Chicago Bears and with the Arena football League's Tampa Bay Storm; Travis Harris, formerly with the Miami Dolphins and Tennessee Titans; Willie Amos, formerly with the Bears; O.J. Small, also formerly with the Titans; Byron Hardmon, formerly with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers; and Kent Smith, formerly with the Oakland Raiders and Titans.
"The whole concept was that you'd have, like, a Texas team featuring University of Texas graduates or players from other local teams, to have sort of a collegiate conference league, and would also have NFL players from the region," said Estep. Some plaintiffs who left jobs, traveled to tryouts and otherwise invested their time and money in the league, said Estep, have been left "high and dry."
Estep was asked to join the suit as local counsel by Brian R. Redden of Cincinnati, Ohio's Beckman Weil Shepardson and William A. Mudd of Birmingham's Whitaker Mudd Simms Luke & Wells.
Redden said the AAFL had generated considerable buzz among hopefuls and former pros.
"Talking to and representing players like I do, there's been a great deal of excitement among players regarding the AAFL, and a great deal of disappointment when it didn't come through," he said. "A lot of people saw this as a stepping-stone into the NFL, or -- for the ones who'd already been there -- maybe a way back in."
The promised AAFL salaries of $5,000 per game for the 10-game season are a far cry from those in the NFL, said the lawyers, but were acceptable compensation for players in the new minor league.
"As far as salary, there has been -- as far as I know -- no compensation to any of them. At the end of the day, that's why this has been filed: to get them what they should have earned in 2008."
The players' suit charges Katz and the AAFL with fraudulent and negligent misrepresentation, breach of contract and other torts, and seeks the $50,000 contractually owed to each AAFL player, compensatory damages for wages and other expenses, and punitive damages.
The AAFL's Web site says the league has thus far been funded by "private investors," and envisions future cash infusions from "corporate sponsorships, broadcasting, and royalties from the sale of merchandise, ticket and membership proceeds."
But the players' complaint says that, as far as they know, "the sole source of funds for the daily operations of Defendant AAFL was from Defendant Katz's personal assets and no other meaningful source ... "
Thus, while the League is a named defendant, the complaint says that the AAFL is "the alter ego of Defendant Katz" and has "no true factual or legal separation from" him.
Asked whether any players had been contacted by AAFL officials regarding their contracts or plans for the canceled season, Redden said he was not aware that anyone had been contacted.
Telephone and e-mail efforts to reach AAFL chief operating officer and acting commissioner Keenan Davis or a media representative at the league's local office were unsuccessful, and a woman who answered the phone at Katz' San Diego number said he was traveling and unavailable.
The AAFL is the latest of several troubled efforts to launch a new football league. In 1983, the short-lived United States football League attempted to enter the professional arena, only to fold after three seasons. In 2001, another pro league wannabe, the XFL, failed to make it beyond its first season.
But the Arena football League, from which some of the AAFL talent was drawn, has seen its popularity grow since its founding in 1986 and now boasts 17 teams, including the Georgia Force.
The case is Symons v. AAFL Enterprises, No. 2008CV148400.
