“What a complete disaster.” - WKRG’s Simone Eli on Major League Football’s (MLFB) Shutdown in Mobile

by Reid Johnson

This past week on the August 5th episode of The Markcast, Simon Eli of WKRG in Mobile, Alabama stopped by the program to run down and detail her first-hand account of the collapse of Major League Football over the past 2 weeks. Following the success of USFL playing their 8-team hub format in Birmingham this past spring, the residents of Mobile (along with the other 3 cities that MLFB planned to play in during their inaugural “season”) were excited with the potential a boost to the local economy, paired with the chance of watching a real-life “pro” football team of their own.

What followed was a series of unfortunate (and widely predicted) events that would culminate with players in 3 of the 4 MLFB cities being kicked out of their hotel rooms, after the bills had gone unpaid by Major League Football.

“What a complete disaster. I don't see the money coming back for the city vendors anytime soon, if ever.”

Simone and her sports department were just down the street at the station when they began hearing calls about MLFB players being escorted out of their rooms by hotel staff.

“Come to find out, this is when we're getting news, that these guys are getting kind of kicked outta these hotels. So we look at each other and we're like, well, well, crap, this hotel is like a five iron from our TV station. So we get in our personal vehicles and we ride over there, and sure as heck there's 20 football players sitting in the lobby. Half a dozen coaches, a couple of league officials, if you wanna call them that out there, everyone's like got their panties in a wad and I'm like, wow, like this is, this is seriously like unfolding right now, right before our eyes. We're watching it.”

For many of us in the alt-football landscape, the utter collapse of Major League Football didn’t come as a surprise. Having faltered for the past 8 years to get any semblance of a season off the ground, this past few months with lack of a broadcast deal announced weeks before kickoff and players only seeing a $50 handout for their work during training camps didn’t inspire much faith either.

“Honestly, I just think that Frank Murtha and whoever his cronies are were gambling with, with people's lives. They were trying to, they knew there was a huge risk. They knew the money wasn't there and they were hoping people were going to invest in something because they had this motto of Cleats in the Grass”. And if you go back and you look at marketing videos, or you wanna call it from several months ago, they're like we're gonna have cleats in the grass that was like their sales pitch almost to folks to like invest into this company. Because they ended up having a Jamboree, which had like 10 people there and because they ended up going through some practices, like they thought people would be like, wow, this is real football, and nobody bought it literally, and figuratively and, and here we are today.”

What’s most frustrating about this situation is the hundreds of players that were left out on the street following the shutdown of Major League Football who then had to pay money out of their own pockets to find their way back home.

“I sat there and interviewed multiple players at the airport who paid their own way, but to call their aunts, uncles, whoever to pay for these tickets had no way home, nowhere to stay the night before when they got kicked outta the hotels.”

At the time of this article’s publication, we are still awaiting a final admission from the league of there not being a season in 2022, but things aren’t looking good. Disappointing for many players looking for additional non-NFL opportunities to show their talents and get game tape, and also upsetting to fans in the local markets who were looking for another alt-football league to fill their calendar in the month of August.

Do you see MLFB making another “go” at it next year, or was this final nail in the coffin for this 8-year-old “spring” zombie league? Sound off below and make sure to check out our full interview at the link below!