AAF Suspending Operations Before Season's End

BIRMINGHAM, AL - The promise was there. The fan base was building. The on-field performance was impressive. However, the fate of the Birmingham Iron football team looks like it will suffer the same fate that numerous other professional football teams in Birmingham encountered, as the Alliance of American Football announced Tuesday that the league is suspending operations before the inaugural season is complete.

Pro Football Talk and Darren Rovell first reported that the AAF has suspended football operations, though there have been no confirmed reports that the league is folding.

The move comes in the aftermath of comments from Tom Dundon, who became majority owner of the AAF several weeks ago. Dundon committed $250 million in funding to the league, but he had the ability to pull funding, and reports say he has done exactly that.

Last night, a source told PFT that the AAF needed roughly $20 million to get to the end of its first season. Instead, the season will end with two weeks left in the regular season, and with a four-team postseason that will likely never happen.

Related Story: Pro Football Returning to Birmingham, But Will It Thrive?

Birmingham was 5-3 coming into the week, good for second place in the division and bound for a playoff spot. Birmingham football fans certainly had hope that this version of pro football in the city would succeed, but as veteran sports writer and former Birmingham Post-Herald sports editor Scott Adamson said upon hearing the news of the AAF's suspension, that was wishful thinking at best.

"I think when it comes to spring pro football, you know going in that without a formal affiliation with the NFL, it’s not a matter of if a new league will fold, but when," Adamson said. "Still, I thought the slow walk (AAF co-founders) Bill Polian and Charlie Ebersol were taking with the NFL would eventually result in a deal and at least give it a chance."

Adamson added, "Then Tom Dundon comes in, takes over as chairman, and apparently wanted something to happen immediately. He seemed to change the league’s mission statement unilaterally and I guess thought he could somehow strong arm the NFL into a deal. He thought wrong."

Birmingham has had an interesting history with professional sports. While the Birmingham Barons have been a mainstay in the community for decades, other professional teams have come and gone with varying success.

The Birmingham Americans (later the Vulcans) of the World Football League in the early 1970s did not last two years, the first incarnation of the Birmingham Bulls hockey team lasted from 1976 to 1981, then came the Birmingham South Stars hockey team (which only lasted a year).

The USFL's Birmingham Stallions football team arrived in 1983 and lasted until the league folded in 1985, a minor league basketball team came to the city in the Birmingham Bandits (folding after a year), which was followed by another Bulls hockey team (1992-2001), a World League of American Football team in the Birmingham Fire (1991-1993), one season of a Canadian Football League team (the Barracudas, 1995) and the Birmingham Steeldogs arena football team, which played from 2000 to 2005.

The Birmingham Legion FC soccer team sold out its first home games and has thus far in its inaugural season strengthened in popularity and support, but time will tell if that sports endeavor will thrive in Birmingham.

Reportedly, general managers across the AAF are holding a conference call Tuesday afternoon to discuss the fate of the league.