A San Antonio bankruptcy judge has dismissed two former Alliance of American Football players’ remaining claims in a lawsuit against the defunct league’s majority owner, the San Antonio Express-News reported. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Craig Gargotta dropped the claims on Monday at the request of all of the parties. Their motion to dismiss stated the two plaintiffs — Reggie Northrup and Colton Schmidt — “no longer desire to pursue” any of their remaining claims against league majority owner Thomas Dundon of Dallas. Dundon, owner of the National Hockey League’s Carolina Panthers, agreed to the dismissal, which doesn’t affect a settlement — reached earlier this year — involving unpaid wages for the players. The Alliance of American Football, or AAF, started in 2019 but its inaugural season came to a halt after eight games when Dundon suspended operations. The league filed for bankruptcy liquidation about two weeks later in San Antonio. The San Antonio Commanders, one of the teams in the league, played its games at the Alamodome. Northrup and Schmidt sued the league, Dundon and AAF co-founder and CEO Charlie Ebersol for fraud, breach of contract and other claims stemming from the league’s collapse. The lawsuit, which the former players filed in a California court as a proposed class action, later became part of the bankruptcy case. The players alleged in their complaint that Ebersol launched the AAF as a technology business rather than as a football league. The league was developing gambling technology intended to allow viewers to bet on each player during a game using their mobile devices. It planned to license the technology to other leagues, the suit said. The AAF was established to use the players as “lab rats” to test the technology, the players said. MGM Resorts International, which invested $7 million to finance development of the technology, ended up with it under a 2019 sale approved by the judge.
