AAF (Alliance of American Football) is a professional sport started by Charlie Ebersol and Bill Polian. It’s the newest league to enter the crowded world of pro football, starting next February 2019. The AAF consists of eight teams in cities all over the country: Atlanta, Orlando, Memphis, Birmingham, San Antonio, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, and San Diego.
Where to watch AAF?
Games will be aired on CBS and TNT every weekend for about ten weeks with games kicking off at 4:30 pm ET. After each game, there will also be highlight shows throughout Sunday night on NFL Network starting at 8 pm ET. If you’re already subscribed to NFL Game Pass you may as well cancel your subscription now as the league’s games are going to be aired on several networks throughout the year.
The app is going to be free to download with in-app purchases for players and teams items. You can watch on your TV by downloading the PlutoTV app on Roku, AppleTV, or Amazon Fire devices so you can stream from home during halftime. To get all of this info check out our article on where to watch AAF games.
AAF Rosters – Who’s playing?
It was recently announced that each team will have 50 players but only 26 of them are allowed to suit up for a game. Each team will have a practice squad of 10 players who won’t dress every week and therefore won’t count against the league salary cap. All undrafted rookies are automatically placed into a three-year draft pool with a handful of players from each team who have up to two years of experience in the NFL also being selected. After these picks teams will be allowed to draft their star players from both college and competing leagues with a salary cap of $250,000 per player. Each team has a minimum salary of $70,000 for each player on an active roster which won’t count towards the league’s collective bargaining agreement as it’s not paid by the league itself but by individual club owners.
AAF Rosters – How are they built?
AAF Rosters – How are they built?Since it’s been announced that all undrafted rookies will go into a three-year draft pool there’s no room for free agency at this time since you can’t sign a player if they’re already owned by another team.
Teams will have to build rosters through the draft, extensions, and trades which is going to be a huge challenge for each organization’s marketing department as they’ll need to sell fans on building a football family based around their favorite players even though their favorite players might only be with them for three seasons.
Although there are some good restrictions in place, such as not being able to sign rookies from your college or any player who competed in the AAF last season, it still leaves room for coaches and general managers of all eight teams to swoop into training camps of big-name schools and rack up talented free agents before heading back playmaker money with guaranteed contracts. We expect this trend to continue during preseason games on NFL Network as stars who didn’t cut with their NFL team will be given a chance to prove themselves in front of scouts with millions tuned in.
AAF Draft – Who got drafted?
The AAF draft was held on October 30th and 31st and consisted of four rounds where each team had to pick one player from each round. Rookies won’t count against the salary cap until they’re signed and activated onto a 53 man roster following preseason cuts which mean teams can sign more free agents from other leagues including the CFL, XFL, Arena League, etc. without fear of going over the league’s $70 million cap limit. Teams showed up for this draft with a lot of big names and hopefully, we can see them all playing in the AAF soon.
Conclusion
As you can see, the AAF is a brand new football league that’s ready to provide fans with exciting action through its eight teams. While there are still many questions surrounding the playoff format and how players will be compensated for competing there are enough pieces in place at this point to assure us that this isn’t just another failed nostalgia-fueled football league trying to make its mark on the public once again. Although there are some obvious flaws in an idea like this (players could potentially get stuck playing for peanuts while the owners make millions) we expect each team to offer up big contracts to both rookies and veterans alike during the draft season which should eliminate any talk of player protests or unfair working conditions before they even pop up. We’ll be keeping an eye on the league as a whole throughout the preseason and hope you will too!
