Are you ready for some football? The NFL season may be over, but a new league is here to give us our football fix for a few months. The Alliance of American Football will kick off this weekend with all eight teams in action. The AAF is the first league to openly embrace gambling in America, and the gambling world has embraced it right back with numerous props to bet on despite this being a nascent league. BetDSI has released a list of AAF prop bets to get football fans excited for the start of the season.
How many years will the AAF be in existence?
Over 4.5 -140
Under 4.5 +110
Professional football leagues besides the NFL tend to flame out pretty quickly. The XFL lasted just one season before going up in flames, the World League lasted two seasons, and the USFL managed to make it just three seasons before going broke.
However, the AAF has something those other leagues didn’t, the NFL’s blessing. The AAF has set itself up to be a partner league of both the NFL and CFL. The teams will work in conjunction with teams in the other two leagues, and the AAF will be set up as a pseudo-minor league. For years, the NFL pumped money into NFL Europe even though it was losing money hand over fist, and while the NFL doesn’t own the AAF, it has a vested interest in the league succeeding.
The AAF faces two big challenges though. First, their teams need to find a support base. It looks like Birmingham and Salt Lake City have both embraced their teams, but I’m a little more skeptical when it comes to other franchises. The Atlanta Legends may not have even 10,000 fans per game, and I don’t know how viable San Diego and Arizona will be either.
Related: AAF Win Totals
The other big challenge is the XFL. Although Vince McMahon’s first try at professional football failed, he is committed to throwing a bunch of money around to give it another go. They will start play in 2020 and could really hurt the AAF’s growth.
Still, I’ll take the over here. Charlie Ebersol has done a great job of getting initial backing for the league, and every game in the inaugural season will be televised on one of five television stations. The support of the NFL is the big reason to bet on the survival of the league though.
Will any AAF player or team be investigated for match-fixing, wager-fixing, or prop-fixing in 2019?
Yes +600
No -1000
The AAF’s open endorsement of gambling, even allowing players to make more money if gamblers bet on their player-specific props, is the reason this prop is available. That could lead to some shenanigans where players or teams try to double dip and threaten the integrity of the game, but even if that happens it’s unlikely we ever find out about it.
A major betting scandal could prove deadly to the AAF in its inaugural season, so even if something did happen, the league wouldn’t want it to come out. That’s why the ‘No’ is a good value here.
Odds to win AAF Championship
Arizona Hotshots +250
Orlando Apollos +300
San Antonio Commanders +400
Salt Lake Stallions +500
Memphis Express +600
San Diego Fleet +600
Atlanta Legends +800
Birmingham Iron +1200
It’s really hard to handicap a brand new league with so many unknowns, but I like the Orlando Apollos at +300 to win it all. The Eastern Conference appears to be much weaker than the Western Conference, and the Apollos have less question marks than other teams in the East. There has been a major shake-up in the coaching staff of the other three teams, but Orlando still has Steve Spurrier, and he brought in a bunch of his old friends from Florida to run the show. There is a good bit of talent on both sides of the ball here, so I’ll take a chance on Orlando this year.
