OT : Revival of Original Arena Football League Having Issues

[johnnyangryfuzzball]

Oh boy.

So the reason the league ran out of money is because the Canadian hedge fund that owned the trademarks had a falling out with Lee Hutton even before the season and refused to pay any bills themselves or even come to the United States. They basically expected Hutton and Gaines to pay them licensing fees for the trademarks and they were going to just sit back and do nothing. They're also not going to honor any of the contracts signed under Hutton because they don't recognize them as valid.

What a ****show.

https://www.kotatv.com/2024/05/26/how-d ... this-spot/

Kind of an odd way to recap it.

Hutton and crew didn't pay the hedge fund for the rights to use the name and trademarks in the proper amount of time... Then the owners of the trademarks pulled out because of breach of contract and voided all contracts with Hutton's crew.  If Hutton et. al. couldn't abide by the basics at the beginning, why WOULD the hedge fund sink more money into the venture?

It's hard for me to see fault with the hedge fund owners of the trademarks.  An initial agreement was agreed upon then breeched immediately (didn't pay the rights fees within 48 hours of signing).

Because they ultimately own the league and are responsible for who they hire. They are just as guilty as Hutton for not taking responsibility for their product.

When you own a league, you pay the bills. Admitting you made a bad investment doesn't absolve you of any debts especially when they invested no money upfront. 

[johnnyangryfuzzball]

Anyone who knows anything about professional football knows it costs money, in most cases more than it takes in. This structure they had expecting to put all the risk on Hutton and reap the rewards through royalties was always a con.

[MGB01]

Oh boy.

So the reason the league ran out of money is because the Canadian hedge fund that owned the trademarks had a falling out with Lee Hutton even before the season and refused to pay any bills themselves or even come to the United States. They basically expected Hutton and Gaines to pay them licensing fees for the trademarks and they were going to just sit back and do nothing. They're also not going to honor any of the contracts signed under Hutton because they don't recognize them as valid.

What a ****show.

https://www.kotatv.com/2024/05/26/how-d ... this-spot/

Kind of an odd way to recap it.

Hutton and crew didn't pay the hedge fund for the rights to use the name and trademarks in the proper amount of time... Then the owners of the trademarks pulled out because of breach of contract and voided all contracts with Hutton's crew.  If Hutton et. al. couldn't abide by the basics at the beginning, why WOULD the hedge fund sink more money into the venture?

It's hard for me to see fault with the hedge fund owners of the trademarks.  An initial agreement was agreed upon then breeched immediately (didn't pay the rights fees within 48 hours of signing).

Because they ultimately own the league and are responsible for who they hire. They are just as guilty as Hutton for not taking responsibility for their product.

When you own a league, you pay the bills. Admitting you made a bad investment doesn't absolve you of any debts especially when they invested no money upfront. 

As Woody Hayes once put it after the driver got lost and caused his OSU team to nearly miss kickoff against Minnesota decades ago: "I don't blame you, I blame the people who hired you"

[Vamanos_Brahmas]

Oh boy.

So the reason the league ran out of money is because the Canadian hedge fund that owned the trademarks had a falling out with Lee Hutton even before the season and refused to pay any bills themselves or even come to the United States. They basically expected Hutton and Gaines to pay them licensing fees for the trademarks and they were going to just sit back and do nothing. They're also not going to honor any of the contracts signed under Hutton because they don't recognize them as valid.

What a ****show.

https://www.kotatv.com/2024/05/26/how-d ... this-spot/

Kind of an odd way to recap it.

Hutton and crew didn't pay the hedge fund for the rights to use the name and trademarks in the proper amount of time... Then the owners of the trademarks pulled out because of breach of contract and voided all contracts with Hutton's crew.  If Hutton et. al. couldn't abide by the basics at the beginning, why WOULD the hedge fund sink more money into the venture?

It's hard for me to see fault with the hedge fund owners of the trademarks.  An initial agreement was agreed upon then breeched immediately (didn't pay the rights fees within 48 hours of signing).

Because they ultimately own the league and are responsible for who they hire. They are just as guilty as Hutton for not taking responsibility for their product.

When you own a league, you pay the bills. Admitting you made a bad investment doesn't absolve you of any debts especially when they invested no money upfront. 

You see, I was under the impression they just had the rights to the IP and licensed the rights to the guys running the league.  I didn't think they had any involvement with the actual league itself. 

It's not like they said, "Let's start a league with this IP and get these guys to run it..." is it?  I thought it was just "You want to do this and use these brands?  Sure, pay us."

[Vamanos_Brahmas]

Anyone who knows anything about professional football knows it costs money, in most cases more than it takes in. This structure they had expecting to put all the risk on Hutton and reap the rewards through royalties was always a con.

So companies with IP like Disney can't license that IP to another company to do stuff with it and just get the royalties?  They have to be involved with the products that are made and take the financial risk for that?

[johnnyangryfuzzball]

Well, well, well...

This is James Larsen, mind you, so take this with a grain of salt, but... boy, was I right about Chetty.

First, let's catch up. Their regular season made it to its close two weeks ago. By the end, there were only eight teams left. Six played the playoffs, and now Albany (defending champions from 2019) and Billings are scheduled to play in what had been planned to be ArenaBowl XXXIII this weekend.

And by this weekend I mean Friday afternoon, because CBS Sports Network forced that scheduling since it had other things going on the rest of the weekend. And Chetty signed a deal with the ice rink at a shopping mall in East Rutherford, NJ to host the game. BUT...

That mall, American Dream, apparently had charged Chetty "hundreds of thousands of dollars" for the privilege of that one-day rental. But Chetty didn't pay. In fact, the other eight owners found out that Chetty had stolen $110,000 from another league officer and left the owners on the hook. So those owners fired him, American Dream canceled the agreement, and all of a sudden there's no ArenaBowl.

https://pfnewsroom.com/news/arena-footb ... -disaster/

Here's the problem: Chetty's group owns the trademarks. So if they fire him, now all of a sudden you have a league that can't use any of the trademarks. The teams might be OK since the Billings Outlaws pre-existed and the Albany team has a backup brand they bought FROM the AFL (the Albany Empire) and didn't sell back. But they can't call it the Arena Football League or the ArenaBowl... even if the game were to be played.

What else could go wrong?

[johnnyangryfuzzball]

Update: both American Dream and the Billings owner say this is untrue. 

[MGB01]

Update: both American Dream and the Billings owner say this is untrue. 

https://theafl.com/arena-football-leagu ... e-details/

Vibes of Paul Pelosi telling Howard David they will in fact pay the players. This has to be one of the lamest confirmations I've seen since then, because how exactly is this supposed to quell anything?

Tom Dundon was fairly upfront about the AAF being on borrowed time after he took over but this?