Arena Football League Cancels 2009 Season

Posted: December 15th, 2008 | Author: Zim | Filed under: Arena Football League | No Comments »

DOA: The AFL another casualty of the economic down turn.

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.

---