As a sort of minor league to the NFL, it’ll never really be able to compete with the NFL.
The NFL will always have the best players since they get to draft first and they get dibs on guys that they want in the AAF.
The only way to compete with the NFL is to allow big money to lure players, put them in a nice stadium and have massive media exposure. None of that would be easy. Even if they met these requirements, it won’t be easy. The NFL is, afterall, a quasi government, media, sports collusion the likes of which has never been seen. Paying guys 70k a year isn’t going to get it. The USFL had money and they had some real talent for a while. They sued the NFL for anti trust. They won but only got $1. Then they got crushed when they tried to move to the same season as the NFL.
This new league is an NFL controlled farm league. It’s testing markets and hopefully going to hinder plans to form a true competitor backed by McMahon and others. Trying to avoid politics here but lets just say that some in politics hate the NFL and the kneeling really set them off. These people are friends with McMahon.
Anyway, I’ll watch it but have no illusions that this is something that will ever compete with the NFL. It’s the NFL’s little toy. They might allow more hitting and thus get some excitement that the NFL sanitized but just wait til the first big injury.... I kinda feel sorry for these players.