While a minority of the football-hungry public embraced the Alliance of American Football to varying degrees simply because they were excited about the prospect of another viable professional American football league—which turned out to be anything but on the business end—there was significant outside interest in the league because of another reason: a gambling app that it had pioneered.
According to a Pro Football Talk article, the AAF is said to have spent around $40 million, if not more, creating the app, which allowed users to analyze games in real time in a number of different ways and place bets.