• Indoor Football returns to us, back on TV starting Friday night on NFL Network…
• After a year absence from us, Arena Football comes back to us in a package a little more close to what we’re used to…
• Hello Iowa Barnstormers!!!

by Mike Zimmer, Former Columbus Destroyers Season Ticket Holder

Football in the spring returns to us in the form perhaps it was best suited for this time of year: in doors!  Yep, the AFL is back and indoor football returns to us this week, on TV at NFL Network in fact. http://www.arenafootball.com/

The NFL’s network will televise games nationally on Friday’s this spring and summer for our football fix.  This Friday they’ll feature the Chicago Rush at the Iowa Barnstormers.

While the league is missing some key teams (what? no San Jose???) and there won’t be an incarnation of the Columbus Destroyers this season, I’m still excited to see the league back at it.  Some things shouldn’t fade away and the AFL was one of those niche sports I always enjoyed watching.  More, the league has gone back to it’s roots a bit, including some seriously smaller markets than the over-inflated and bloated slate like they had in it’s last incarnation.  Places like Des Moines, Iowa and Bossier City, Louisiana will be in the big time this year vs. Philly and San Jose.  More, there won’t be that woman, Jon Fucking Bon Jovi there to fuck it up.

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• Arena Football is back again this spring after a one year hiadus…
• The new formed league will have a 15-team set up and has a deal with NFL Network to broadcast their games live on a weekly basis through the summer…
• Some legacy teams return and expansion is on the menu for next season, but the AFL will also return to it’s roots in places like Des Moines, Iowa, Shreveport, Louisiana and Spokane, Washington.

by Mike Zimmer, In-door football fan and former Columbus Destroyers season ticket holder

Good news for those of us that like our in-door football, the Arena Football League is back.  In a reconstituted set up where a handful of legacy teams are set to be joined by some teams from AF2 and some new teams, the AFL will be back in business this spring.  A year removed from the economic meltdown that shuttered the league as people knew it last year, new money, new owners and a TV deal have made the league come back to life.

The NFL Network agreed to start carrying live telecasts of the game from the first week this spring through to the championship game “The Arena Bowl” in the summer, leading up to the start of training camp in July.

The league has some familiar teams including long time AFL teams, Orlando Predators, Tampa Bay Storm, Arizona Rattlers, Chicago Rush and a few others along side new teams in Jacksonville, Alabama (Huntsville) as well as AF2 stalwarts Spokane, Shreveport/Bossier City, Louisiana.  (see all teams on the work-in-progress AFL page at www.arenafootball.com).

Included with some of the teams you know, teams like the Spokane Shock who have been very successful in AF2 along with the Shreveport/Bossier City Battlewings, some old time Arena League teams and cities return.  The Iowa Barnstormers, the team in which Kurt Warner made his mark and first claim to fame will return to the top flight of in-door football as does the city of Milwaukee.

According to some sources, the league is also set to make some expansion for next season already and some AFL teams and cities from the past could be back on line sooner than later too.  (http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2010/02/17/new-arena-league-targets-four-markets-for-expansion/).  It is very likely that successful teams and cities of the recent version of the AFL like the San Jose Sabercats who routinely challenged for the championship and the Jon Fucking Bon Jovi owned Philadelphia Soul may be back in very, very short order come next season.  As much as I fucking hate Bon Jovi, he and co-0wner Ron Jawarski were very successful with Philly. 

For us former Columbus Destroyers fans and season ticket holders, there is no word whether or not the team will return.  It doesn’t look especially promising considering that the NHL’s Blue Jackets are struggling financially and Nationwide Arena seems to be an expensive venue now days.  The Destroyers weren’t exactly setting attendance records either, but the interest in the team was there.  Especially where it concerned former Buckeye players.  And, the Destroyers were decent at times, making it to the Arena Bowl a few seasons ago.

http://www.arenafootball.com/

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AFL2 Florida Firecats yanked from the post-season because deadbeat owner owes the league over $200K…

Team qualifies for the post-season for 8th straight season but isn’t allowed to compete due the gaff…

Deadbeat owner and his brother GM are cheap and treat people and players badly…sound like he wants to be the next Mikey boy Brown.

by Mike Zimmer, Indoor football fan…but it’s dying an agonizing death

According to the Fort Myers News Press, the Florida Firecats are not headed to the post-season despite having qualified for a play-off spot.  ( http://www.news-press.com/article/20090728/SPORTS/907280361/1010/sports&referrer=NEWSFRONTCAROUSEL )

The team just completed an upset in the final week and therefore qualified for the play-offs despite a (7-9) record.  It was their 8th straight time qualifying for the post-season, every year since coming into the AFL2 back in 2001.

The story is though, that their deadbeat owners are in hock to the league for $200K and therefore have been removed from the post-season after much consideration and warning from the league.

However, things have been bad all season for the Firecats and even the players have been up in arms and out-spoken about the lack of care or attention that deadbeat owner Chris Vallozzi had been paying to his team.  Things such as being without athletic tape, not having enough footballs for games and questions over health care and the threat that paychecks wouldn’t come all had the team in a tizzy.

The club finished (7-9) despite not being able to sign free-agents and replace injured players.  More, it’s amazing to the pride of a few players that continued to play hard despite the worry that if they got hurt, who would pay for the medical attention.  Some players said they pulled up in fear after rumors were rampant about the team not willing to pay.

In fact, one of the Vallozzi’s apparently accosted the teams all-time leading receiver and yelled at him for getting an MRI earlier this year because they hadn’t approved it or approved to pay for it.

Worse yet, it seems the front office staff haven’t exactly been around much and it seems they treated people pretty badly when they were there.  Sounds like a bunch of $30K millionaire douche bags to me.  Probably some East Coast Guido’s that moved down to Southwest Florida and threw around cash and promises that they couldn’t back up in the end.

These guys would do Mike Brown proud of course.  Afterall, even into the early 1990′s, the Bengals routinely charged players for extravagances like towels, jock straps and hot water in old Riverfront stadium.  Players apparently had personal accounts with Brooks Sporting Goods downtown to take care of needs as necessary as shoes which the Browns weren’t willing to part with their money for.

One thing that the Browns don’t do though and I have to defend them on.  They don’t owe anyone anything.  Nope, they’re all a cash business.  They may be skin-flints but the Brown family is full of the sharpest lawyer minds on a curmudgeons budget.  They long ago knew that if you swindle people out of the necessary things, goods and services (not to mention sweet ass deals with leases, stadia build with public funds and screw your fans) you usually pay pennies on the dollar and can still make bundles of money.  Therefore, not owe anyone and can pay what bills you do have early or on time. 

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Report on PFT.com says AFL may go bankrupt before league has a chance at resurrection…

The “Big Leagues” of indoor football needs a new direction and needs to go back to basics in it’s grass roots efforts to come back…

Jon Fucking Bon Jovi and others ruined league need to die.

by Mike Zimmer, Former Destroyers Season Ticket Holder

According to a report on profootballtalk.com, in a business article posted else-where and re-hashed and re-warmed here for you at Kegeratornation, is that the Arena Football League may go belly up altogether before their hope of re-launching next season.

In the article  http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2009/07/20/afl-heading-for-bankruptcy/ it seems that the league is still short on cash and hasn’t yet gotten solid backing from the owners of the league to cough up more cash.

In addition, the new franchise that was supposed to go to Pittsburgh (once upon a time an original city for Arena Football in their second season and now the team that was the Tampa Bay Storm), the deal with prospective owner Lynn Swann and other Steel town native sons haven’t yet come forward with their $10-million for the new franchise.

Bernie Kosar who helped get Cleveland a team (the Gladiators moved from Las Vegas) has also recently gone bankrupt.  There is nothing I have found that he owes the AFL any money at this point, though in his bankruptcy there were all sorts of claim of debt and I’ll be willing to bet he owes them too.

The Arena League peaked too fast and tried to do something that it wasn’t able to deliver which was be a marquee second tier sport in the likeness of perhaps the NBA or NHL.  It quickly attracted ass holes like John Elway and Jon Fucking Bon Jovi and then just as fast started heading down a path of self destruction and economic woe.

The league really needs to get back to basics and deliver a product that is much more home-spun and built on minor-league, grass roots ways.  Instead, the owners that do remain are divided with the likes of Mike Ditka on a richer team with the Chicago franchise saying what is holding the league back are “a few weak sisters”.  While that may be true (we’re talking to you Grand Rapids), the league like any upstart is not ruled strongly from the top and has the same old problems any league like this has when it gets in bed with those with big money and grand plans.

Instead of being all big-time and making it too expensive to do business, the league needs to find a way to get back to their roots in cost effective business plans that include minimal amounts of money paid to the athletes and trying to be a little more realistic about being “big time”.  They also need to boot the ones that can’t conform to the smaller expectations not the other way around.  The big money killed the league just like big money killed the USFL.  Former commissioner David Baker jumped before the ship sank mostly because he was powerless to over rule the Elways, Ditkas, and Fucking Bon Jovis.

The remaining in-door leagues are decidedly small time.  The AF2 is still around and is doing a decent job in their regional approach to the game.  Big B says the Florida Fire Cats of the Fort Myers area are a fun watch and affordable.  In other leagues they still have the per-player win bonus that is decidedly meager.  Something like $100 a game and $150 if the team wins the game. 

As a former Columbus Destroyers season ticket holder, I was more than willing to plunk down $99 for season tickets.  However, those were in the bleeders while the empty seats down below were going for what you’d pay at MLB games ($25-$50) which is retarded for the AFL.  The league needs to find a way to convince what’s left of their owners that, that is what customers want, cheap entertainment.  Mostly because we’re bored in the spring with no football, we like gladiator like mentality towards the game and we don’t want to shell out baseball like money to see it.

That woman Bon Fucking Jovi though, man I’d like to kick his pansy ass one of these days.  Seriously what the hell is a 56-year old bird like her doing fucking up my niche sports anyways?  Doesn’t he have some sort of liberal candidate to go play music for or event to be seen on while playing the same old tired, horrible music he always delivered with agonizing repetition?  Seriously, can’t this guy get the anal cancer or contract the AIDS or something?  Die already Bon Jovi, you’re waaaaay overdue.

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Cash strapped and losing a major credit source amongst the poor economic times, AFL decides to cancel 2009 Season…

Once again big money men including NFL-types seem to have ruined a good thing…am I wrong about this???

Is getting the AFL back in 2010 yet another item for Obama-Jesus to help us with???

by Mike Zimmer, Former Columbus Destroyers Season Ticket Holder

Today, after some capitulation, the Arena Football League announced it was canceling the 2009 season.  In a rather craptastic article on the front page of their website, they quoted numerous NFL Ass Clown-types, their hopeful saving graces in saying how disappointed they were in doing so.

In what looks like a rather ugly, poorly disguised plan to help ease the pain for those that follow the league, the AFL tried to paint the big money men in the sport in a grand light in calling out the death of the 2009 season.  Now that those big money names like Jerry Jones, Arthur Blank, John Elway and that absolutely awful middle aged woman of an ass clown Jon Bon Jovi are the league’s identity, they made it clear that they didn’t want to be identified as being the ones that killed the season.  In other words, they kissed their own ass in telling the public that the season was dead, they were sorry for it and they would try very hard to make a new economic model for the league in the coming years.

One of the notable reasons for the cancelation was that a major financial backer had fallen on hard times and backed out from offering up much needed cash for the teams to operate.  The economic times are hard and trying to squeeze blood from this turnip apparently wasn’t going to be possible this year.  That meant that the owners weren’t interested in losing millions on an operation that wasn’t generating the hoped for cash they had bet on year before.

I remember the first time I saw the Arena Football League.  I watched on ESPN as the spring/summer schedule helped ease my football blues in what was then the “off-season” in the NFL and for College.  Back then it was a simpler game, a more novel idea perhaps and to me, something really enjoyable.  The nice thing about it was that it was different, the players played for the love of the game and you had a sense that it was distinctly small time and second market oriented.  In other words, it was the niche market hitting the big time and that’s the way it started and was successful.

Those late spring and summer weekends even before ESPN2, let alone all of the World Wide Bore Leader’s multi-layered behemoth network, brought us things like the Albany Firebirds versus the Providence Steam Rollers.  Or perhaps in the years that followed when the deuce had arrived and this kind of programing was a perfect fit for the experimental new second ESPN channel, they offered us up the Orlando Predators and one of my all-time favorite teams, the Iowa Barnstormers.

Notice some of the names of those teams and cities.  Not exactly ready for prime time, not exactly major league cities in some cases.  That was when the league truly was something interesting and had some charm about it.

Many of those small time teams still have teams in the AF2 or other indoor leagues and do well in drawing around 5,000-8,000-fans and offering up a rather affordable evening out to watch a unique game.  However, that was the life blood of the league back then.  But something happened in the coming years afterwards, more and more money got involved and suddenly the league hit the big time.

Then we had the unfortunate addition of all the same people that screw everything up in all the other sports: ego-maniacal NFL types, former NFL players and washed up “rockers” who resemble dried out middle aged New Jersey house wives.

Yes, I am blaming, perhaps wrongly, that the AFL died because of the very people that were supposed to bring it some appeal and marquee value.  The game was still enjoyable, but the charm was gone and the product was suddenly not exactly minor league in price.  Even if we got a team in Columbus, there were still teams in such pioneering ground as Orlando and San Jose, it was no longer trying to be an operation that catered to it being niche.

Though their mission statement said up front that they were going to try and offer great entertainment for the dollar and promise the fans great bang for their buck, it was soon evident that that wasn’t what was being offered at all.

As a Columbus Destroyer’s season ticket holder, we did get a bargain considering.  My buddy Jason and I got two seats, two footballs and two hats for $198 for a 10-games season.  However, we were in the bleeders and if we wanted to sit in a good seat it was gonna cost us an arm and a leg.  Nearly NHL-scale prices in most cases.  Sideline seats at Nationwide Arena were going for around $30/per.  That’s too much for a niche sport.  And in some arena’s these once affordable seats were gobbled up, throw in with NHL season tickets and un-used, causing another undesirable effect: empty seats on TV.  Consider that when the Cincinnati Rockers spent their one season in the Queen City, I paid $10 for a seat in the corner of the end zone.

I just think that since those big names got involved and the league tried to grow too big, too fast and tried to hit the big time when it was truly a niche sport, in the end are the reasons that it’s been killed off for 2009 and perhaps even forever.

I just hope that Obama-Jesus will want to save his hometown Chicago Rush and thus bail out the AFL.  I mean, how is this any different than bailing anyone else out?  By giving millionaires like Jerry Jones more money to ruin something that was once good, seems like a great idea to me.

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