Arena Football League
The Arena Football League was a professional arena football league in the United States. It was founded in 1986, but played its first official games in the 1987 season, making it the third longest-running professional football league in North America after the Canadian Football League and the National Football League until the AFL closed in 2019.
The AFL played a formerly proprietary code known as arena football, a form of American football played indoors on a 66-by-28 yard field, with rules encouraging offensive performance, resulting in a typically faster-paced and higher-scoring game compared to NFL games. The sport was invented in the early 1980s and patented by Jim Foster, a former executive of the United States Football League and the NFL. Each of the league's 32 seasons culminated in the ArenaBowl, with the winner being crowned the league's champion for that season.
From 2000 to 2009, the AFL had its own developmental league, the AF2. The AFL played 22 seasons from 1987 to 2008; internal issues caused the league to cancel its 2009 season, though the af2 did play. Later that year both the AFL and af2 were dissolved and reorganized as a new corporation comprising teams from both leagues, and the AFL returned in 2010. The league's average game attendance after returning in 2010 was approximately 9,500.
The league historically had a nationwide footprint, and was recognized as the most prominent professional indoor football league in North America, offering higher payment, more widespread media exposure, and a longer history than competing leagues. From a high of 19 teams in 2007, the league contracted to a low of four teams in 2018, all in the northeastern United States. There were six teams playing in 2019, the league's final season.
On October 29, 2019, league commissioner Randall Boe confirmed reports that the league had discontinued operating teams in local markets for the 2020 season. Four weeks later on November 27, league commissioner Boe announced via Twitter that the league as a whole had filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, dissolving the league for the second time.
History
Creation
, a promotions manager with the National Football League, conceived of indoor football while watching an indoor soccer match at Madison Square Garden in 1981. While at the game, he wrote his idea on a 9 x 12 envelope, with sketches of the field and notes on gameplay. He presented the idea to a few friends at the NFL offices, where he received praise and encouragement for his concept. After solidifying the rules and a business plan, and supplemented with sketches by a professional artist, Foster presented his idea to various television networks. He reached an agreement with NBC for a "test game".Plans for arena football were put on hold in 1982 as the United States Football League was launched. Foster left the NFL to accept a position in the USFL. He eventually became executive vice-president with the Chicago Blitz, where he returned to his concept of arena football. In 1983, he began organizing the test game in his spare time from his job with the Blitz. By 1985, the USFL had ceased football operations and he began devoting all his time to arena football, and on April 27, 1986, his concept was realized when the test game was played.
Test games
The test game was played in Rockford, Illinois, on April 27, 1986, at the Rockford MetroCentre. Sponsors were secured, and players and coaches from local colleges were recruited to volunteer to play for the teams, the Chicago Politicians and Rockford Metros, with the guarantee of a tryout should the league take off. Interest was high enough following the initial test game that Foster decided to put on a second, "showcase" game. The second game was held on February 27, 1987, at the Rosemont Horizon in Chicago with a budget of $20,000, quintuple the $4,000 for the test game. Foster also invited ESPN to send a film crew to the game; a highlights package aired on SportsCenter.Inaugural season
Following the successes of his trial-run games, Foster moved ahead with his idea for arena football. He founded the Arena Football League with four teams: the Pittsburgh Gladiators, Denver Dynamite, Washington Commandos, and Chicago Bruisers. Foster appointed legendary Darrel "Mouse" Davis, godfather of the "run and shoot" and modern pro offenses, as executive director of football operations. Davis hired the original coaches and was the architect of the league's original wide-open offensive playbooks.The first game in Arena Football League history was played on June 19, 1987, between the Gladiators and Commandos at Pittsburgh Civic Arena in front of 12,117 fans. The game was deliberately not televised so that it could be analyzed and any follies and failures would not be subject to national public scrutiny. Following the inaugural game, tweaks and adjustments were made, and the first season continued. The Dynamite and Bruisers played in the first-ever televised AFL game the next night, on June 20, 1987, at the Rosemont Horizon in suburban Chicago on ESPN with Bob Rathbun and Lee Corso calling the play-by-play. The broadcast showed a short clip of the Commandos-Gladiators game. Each team played six games, two against each other team. The top two teams, Denver and Pittsburgh, then competed in the first-ever AFL championship game, ArenaBowl I.
On September 30, 1987, Foster filed an application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office to patent his invented sport. The patent application covered the rules of the game, specifically detailing the goalposts and rebound netting and their impact on gameplay. Foster's application was granted on March 27, 1990. The patent expired on March 27, 2007.
Early years (1987–1999)
From its inception, the AFL operated in a state of semi-obscurity; many Americans had heard the term "arena football" but knew little to nothing about the league itself.From the 1987 season until the late 1990s, the most exposure the league would receive was on ESPN, which aired tape-delayed games, often well after midnight, and often edited to match the allotted time slot. The league received its first taste of wide exposure in 1998, when Arena Bowl XII was televised nationally as part of ABC's old Wide World of Sports.
On July 23, 1989, much of America learned of the AFL for an unintended reason, when the Pittsburgh Gladiators' head coach, Joe Haering, made football history by punching commissioner Jim Foster during a game with the Chicago Bruisers. The national media ran with the story, including a photo in USA Today. The game was played between the two teams in Sacramento's ARCO Arena, as part of the AFL's 'Barnstorming America' tour. Foster had walked onto the field of play to mediate an altercation between the two teams when Haering, a former NFL assistant, punched him in the jaw. Haering was suspended without pay.
One of the league's early success stories was the Detroit Drive. A primary team for some of the AFL's most highly regarded players, including George LaFrance and Gary and Alvin Rettig, as well as being a second career chance for quarterback Art Schlichter, the Drive regularly played before sold-out crowds at Joe Louis Arena, and went to the ArenaBowl every year of their existence. The AFL's first dynasty came to an end when their owner, Mike Ilitch bought the Detroit Tigers and sold the AFL team.
Although the Drive moved to Massachusetts, becoming the Massachusetts Marauders for the 1994 season, the AFL had a number of other teams which it considered "dynasties" between 1994 and 2016. The most successful of these were the Tampa Bay Storm and their arch-rival the Orlando Predators, as well as the San Jose SaberCats and their rivals, the Arizona Rattlers. Among those four teams, they won 14 of 22 ArenaBowls in that time span and appeared in all but two.
In 1993, the league staged its first All-Star Game in Des Moines, Iowa, the future home of the long-running Iowa Barnstormers, as a fundraiser for flood victims in the area. The National Conference defeated the American Conference 64–40 in front of a crowd of 7,189. The second All-Star event was in October 2013, with two games, the first in Honolulu, Hawai'i, the second being in Beijing, China.
While some teams have enjoyed considerable on-field and even financial success, many teams in the history of the league have enjoyed little success either on or off of the field of play. There were a number of franchises which existed in the form of a series of largely-unrelated teams with little to no continuity of either coaching staffs or players under numerous management groups until they folded. One example of several which could be cited is the New York CityHawks, whose owners transferred the team from New York City to Hartford to become the New England Sea Wolves after two seasons, then after another two seasons were sold and became the Toronto Phantoms, which lasted another two seasons until folding. There are a number of reasons why these teams failed, including financially weak ownership groups, lack of deep financial support from some owners otherwise capable of providing it, lack of media exposure, and the host city's evident lack of interest in its team or the sport as a whole.
The new millennium (2000–2008)
The year 2000 brought heightened interest in the AFL. Then-St. Louis Rams quarterback Kurt Warner, who was MVP of Super Bowl XXXIV, was first noticed because he played quarterback for the AFL's Iowa Barnstormers. While many sports commentators and fans continued to ridicule the league, Warner's story gave the league positive exposure, and it brought the league a new television deal with TNN, which, unlike ESPN, televised regular season games live. While it was not financially lucrative, it helped set the stage for what the league would become in the new millennium. The year also brought a spin-off league, the af2, intended to be a developmental league, comparable to the National Football League's NFL Europe. There was a lot of expansion in the 2000s. Expansion teams included the Austin Wranglers, Carolina Cobras, Los Angeles Avengers, Chicago Rush, Detroit Fury, Dallas Desperados, Colorado Crush, New Orleans VooDoo, Philadelphia Soul, Nashville Kats, Kansas City Brigade, New York Dragons and Utah Blaze. Some of these teams, including the Crush, Desperados, Kats, and VooDoo, were owned for at least part of their existence by the same group which owned the NFL teams in their host cities, after NFL resolution to allow league owners to own the individual AFL clubs. Also, on February 8, 1999, the NFL purchased, but never exercised, an option to buy a major interest in the AFL. Of all of these teams, only the Philadelphia Soul were still playing in the AFL in their last season before folding.In 2003, the season expanded to 16 games. There were also several rule changes in this period. In 2005, players were no longer allowed to run out of bounds. The only way for a player to go out of bounds presently is if he is tackled into or deliberately contacts the side boards. This was also the first year the ArenaBowl was played at a neutral site. In 2007, free substitution was allowed, ending the "iron man" era of one-platoon football; also, games ending in ties were abolished. The next season, in 2008, the "jack" linebacker was allowed to go sideboard to sideboard without being penalized for "illegal defense".