Are you referring to the 1980s USFL (the answer is "yes") or the 2019 AAF?I wonder if the hotels and other vendors will require cash up front on all orders and reservations from people and players associated with this enterprise. Didn't the last league default on money they owed to everybody and their grandmother?
The answer is almost always "yes."
1983-86 USFL
San Antonio Gunslingers went broke and players weren't paid
Portland Breakers (the 3rd city in 3 years for the franchise) released their players because they couldn't pay
Bham Stallions owner (Marvin Werner) pulled out and fired 13 admin workers and released Joe Cribbs
NJ Generals (Trump) and Houston Gamblers (Jerry Argovitz) merged
They had several mergers of teams and reduced franchises to 8 to prepare for the fall of 1986
They cut all the high salary players except Herschel, 78 of whom were on NFL rosters on Opening Day 1985
A guy sued the Tampa Bay Bandits because he never got his $150K signing bonus, which put a lien on everything
the Los Angeles Express went bellyup despite a billionaire owner (who was only rich on paper) and the new owner (from Denver) saw a team $1 million in debt and suggested a $25K documentary be made on the team's cheerleading squad (I'm not making this up)
Not only did they leave unpaid bills and players but some of those guys later suffered from CTE and had zero health insurance once the teams went out of business.