The Cowboys’ facility in Frisco, Texas, commonly known as The Star, will serve as the host of the Alliance of American Football’s first championship game.
The AAF and the Cowboys announced today that the team’s 12,000-seat venue will host the first AAF championship on April 27.
“The Alliance has built a foundation of high-quality football, revolutionary technology and world-class partnerships with the NFL, CBS and Turner Sports,” Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said in a statement. “It was only natural that we at the Cowboys organization would want to join that great group of partners. I have always believed that our great game of football could use a league to give players the shot they needed to make it to the NFL, and Bill Polian, Tom Dundon and Charlie Ebersol, have done just that. We are proud to be able to host their inaugural Championship Game.”
This is the latest sign that the AAF and the NFL are building a close relationship, one that may one day result in the AAF being an official minor league for the NFL. Putting a championship game in a 12,000-seat stadium definitely gives the game a minor league feel, but it’s a better look than tens of thousands of empty seats, which some of the AAF’s games have had. There are enough fans in football-mad Texas that it’s easy to see the stadium being full for the biggest game of the league’s first season.