If you haven't heard by now, it means you're either out of touch, or could never even fathom the idea of caring in the first place (literally no in between on this one): The Alliance of American Football (AAF) is dissolving. Dissolve? Is that even a word?
Although it's not official yet, the league is on its way out with absolute minimal chances of revival:
I'm not going to sit here and tell the AAF how to run a business, as I'm fully aware that my undergrad marketing minor does not grant me credible input to the situation. However, my prestigious communication degree permits me to lecture you guys on cognitive dissonance, and how it applies to alternative leagues simply not working in today's professional sports climate. Don't worry, I'm truly just not enough of an intellect to actually make this into a boring lecture. But for real, as much as I'd love leagues like the AAF to work, diminishing seasonal limitations on sports we love to watch, these surrogate attempts are bound for failure. The market for such entertainment has been monopolized to the point of no return.
Many football fans, including myself, had the highest hopes of success for the AAF. I mean seriously, what fan could turn down quality football during the NFL/college offseason? We were fully aware that the level of play in the AAF would be inferior to what we're typically exposed to, but that was just part of the payoff for getting that football fix before the withdrawals could even fully kick in.
The Merriam-Webster definition of cognitive dissonance uses the word "incongruous," which would require a second definition search for the average human. Any definition that enables definition inception is just unacceptable. So let's put it into simpler terms, courtesy of humanity's most useful creation, Wikipedia:
"In the field of psychology, cognitive dissonance is the mental discomfort (psychological stress) experienced by a person who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values. This discomfort is triggered by a situation in which a person’s belief clashes with new evidence perceived by the person. When confronted with facts that contradict beliefs, ideals, and values, people will try to find a way to resolve the contradiction to reduce their discomfort."
So for anyone who actually likes football enough to direct any attention to the AAF, the shared beliefs, ideas, and values generally revolve around the sport's emotional investment and the experience that accompanies that autumn and early winter ride. The AAF's (not particularly successful) business model revolved around scratching the itch of football fans ,when they had historically needed it after the thrill of the postseason. Which seemed perfect. Until the reality of subpar play combined with zero ritualistic value kicked in, this league seemed like it could fulfill the beliefs, ideas, and values of football as being, in the simplest terms, "good" and "fun."
Unfortunately for everyone involved, the AAF as a whole completely failed to fulfill the beliefs, ideas, and values of football being good and fun. The idea of it leading up to opening weekend was extremely fun, and one might even say it was good. But seriously, the first slate of games was a good time. It was partially ironic, but deep down everyone was counting on this to be at least decent.
One could argue that the quality of play was decent at best, and there's no doubt in my mind that I've consumed football with both lesser and equal value, many times. It's not like my eyes were bleeding during AAF games. Hell, financially reviving the AAF would be absolute chump change to me if I had a dollar for every conveniently timed college game that I watched, having no knowledge of anyone on either roster. So if the AAF kind of just flat out sucking is the dissonance to our cognition (that's like the part of a movie/show when they say the title) of football, why do bad college games not seem as terrible as an AAF game?
Before the AAF season started I found myself eager to react to some unfamiliar football truly at face value. Other than the fun realizations of some former college stars on rosters, there weren't any past storylines to fog the actual on-field play, which is somewhere from extremely rare to absolutely impossible with today's media coverage of football. And although there was some media coverage of the AAF, it truly was all speculation with no opportunity for historical bias. But I quickly understood that in order to enjoy football without the surrounding storylines, traditions, and fandom- the quality of play needed to be spectacular. Which, as a complete and utter shock, it was not. Who would've thunk that an aspiring minor league would have inadequate talent?
There are plenty of football games that we willingly, and happily, consume that display a deficient performance from both teams, in college and the NFL. But our preconceived ideas of a program/organization's value to the sport's landscape skew our perceptions of certain games. Let's take last season's USC vs. UCLA matchup. Heading into this historic Pac 12 battle, the Trojans had had five wins matched by five losses, while UCLA was rocking a dismal record of 2-8. I'm not an old man yelling at the clouds about this new league not being played "the right way" or that USC/UCLA is even worth tuning into nowadays. But that intangible, preconceived value of two traditional, regional rivals battling it out at the Rose Bowl is not too shabby of a fall back if the quality of play is completely underwhelming. The AAF obviously, in its inaugural season, does not have any preconceived value of "tradition" or "legacy."
I feel that's the same obstacle for sports outside of the main four to truly break through the mainstream barrier. Soccer and lacrosse are the only two that currently come to mind, as they've both been on the cusp of evolving into conventional spectator sports for a little while now. It's tough for fans to buy in league-wide, since there's no sense of inherited fandom. A major aspect of professional sports is the notion of team loyalty paralleling devotion to your roots, both territorial and hereditary. And even in the case of expansion teams in already existing leagues where there is a complete lack of traditional fandom, there's the David and Goliath factor of competing with established franchises. Let's take the Nashville Predators as an example; there's obviously minimal hockey history in the state of Tennessee (no place I'd rather be), and the fans went all in on this relatively new experience the city was offering. This happened in the cities that had AAF teams, but the problem was that they were all expansions. There were no Goliaths to be taken down.
There are four paradigms that can define a person's reaction to cognitive dissonance, and the "Effort Justification" paradigm fits the AAF perfectly. Essentially, this alludes to willingly doing something that sucks because you've convinced yourself that the payoff will be worth it. Sound familiar? "Okay, I know nothing about this league; their rosters, divisions, playoff formats, rulebook deviations. Let me read up on it. Prep myself for the season so it'll be like the NFL season never ended." First weekend or two of games rolls around; "This isn't that great but if I keep watching it'll pick up steam and this will be awesome." One week later; "If I start throwing on the unders this could remain somewhat relevant in my life." And then you realize, there is absolutely no way a football league established in 2019 could give us anything even remotely close to our inherited perception of the game. No matter how much we want it to work, it won't. Rest In Peace to the Alliance of American Football. And may this be a lesson to future alternative leagues that martyrdom isn't worth it if you're still alive to pay the debts.
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