Why the NFL has no rival: 'It's the game, stupid'

It's easier to find out-of-work supermodels than athletes good enough for the NFL, which is the short answer why the Lingerie Football League will survive for another day and the Arena Football League won't.

An AFL players' association official confirmed Tuesday what was rumored for some time: The league, which had already suspended the 2009 season in hopes of returning in 2010, has given up. It "seems to be inevitable at this point," regional director James Guidry told The Associated Press, that the AFL will formally announce it's ceased operations any day.

"I feel bad for the fans," Philadelphia Soul wide receiver Chris Jackson said, "because for 22 years it was one of the most unique, most loved, most fun sports I've ever been a part of."

For those keeping score at home, the demise marks the fourth time in the last 50 years an outfit tried to make a living basking in the reflection of America's 800-pound sporting gorilla.

The American Football League launched in 1960 and survived nine years before being arm-wrestled into a 1969 merger. As far as success stories, that's it.

The World Football League, which boasted stars such as Larry Csonka, Jim Kiick and Danny White, folded in 1975, 10 weeks into its second season. Things were so bad by the end, the Birmingham, Ala., sheriff's department ambushed the winners of the World Bowl in the locker room and confiscated their uniforms.

Some 10 years later, the United States Football League featured Doug Flutie, Steve Young and Jim Kelly. The legendary George Allen coached. The bombastic Donald Trump owned. But not for long.

The USFL folded its tent three seasons later, after winning an antitrust case against the NFL and being awarded $3 for its trouble — about $1.5 billion less than it was seeking.

The XFL took its shot in 2001 and failed, disproving the notion nobody ever went broke selling sex and violence. That because the league, the brainchild of then-NBC Sports boss Dick Ebersol and World Wrestling Entertainment Chairman Vince McMahon, forgot it was trying to sell football.

They put cameras in the cheerleaders' locker room, carnival barkers in the announcers' booth and tweaked the rules — no fair catches or quarterback-in-the-grasp stoppages — to ensure the maximum number of collisions. But once the games actually began, it became apparent the XFL had plenty of actors, but too few athletes.

In that regard, nothing has changed: There's barely enough of those to fill out the roster of the 32 NFL teams.