Looks like the Arena League is done

[TrueBeliever]

IMHO, they never should have left the smaller-market cities that got them going. But I suppose if the NFL is willing to buy into your product, you probably figure "What can go wrong?"

End of Arena League 'seems inevitable,' union official says - Arena Football League - CBSSports.com

 

[Angry Man]

Its sad to read this as the AFL is great for smaller parts of the country such as Iowa. Hopefully with the AF2 still doing well that at least the concept of the league can survive.

 

[Ryan]

I always thought it was a horrible league. When the offense scores 90% of the time, it's hard to get excited about anything. I feel sorry for the players and the people that worked for the league, but I certainly won't miss it.

 

[jmt57]

From what I have read what did the league in was escalating salaries. Why that happened, who knows? Pehaps the competitive nature of the owners wanting to win a championship, or for bragging rights of having been the original home to the next Kurt Warner. Once they decided to not play last year I assumed they were done; I'm somewhat surprised it's been so long with no official announcement of their demise.

The good news is that their absence has opened up the door for the UFL. The bad news is that the UFL does not appear to have learned anything in regards to survival by keeping the player salaries in check, offering Michael Vick a seven-figure contract to play in their new league.

Arena League Football outlook bleak by the St Petersburg Times 7/2/09:

Through it all, Marcum has tried not to dwell on the mess that has become the Arena Football League. The irony is the product is still viable. Just not the league. The AFL2 continues to operate in 24 smaller cities with lower paychecks and a lower profile. It is much like the model of the original arena league before it got too big (i.e. too expensive) for its own good.

"After (the Storm) won the 2003 championship, I lost six guys on that team. Four signed free-agent contracts of over $100,000, and the other two got over $60,000. That's crazy. You can't put enough people in the seats to pay for that," Marcum said. "I'm not belittling a man's right to earn a paycheck. He should get whatever the market dictates.

"But this got so far out of whack. The economic model made no sense. It's got to get back to $1,000 a game. We've got to get back to a business plan that's going to work."

I was surprised to read that teams were still paying their coaches at that point. A short time later Jon Bon Jovi stated that the league's chances for survival were 50-50.

Arena Football League livin' on a prayer by the New York Times 7/1/09:

“This is more than a lockout. We’re on the brink of the abyss. I can tell you thousands of man hours are spent trying hard to keep those players employed and keep our fans satisfied. This is my first comment about this process and I’m already regretting giving it to you because I don’t want to talk out of school. We all love it so much that we are working. I swear to you we are working every day. There are phone calls at seven o’clock every night about what we’re doing to try and keep it afloat.”

Bon Jovi said the league’s chances for survival were “50-50.”

Arena League close to folding by the St Petersburg Times 8/5/09:

On its official Web site, a headline still reads "AFL working to resume play in 2010."

The question is, what went wrong?

From humble beginnings, the sport seemed to have carved a successful niche. ESPN aired many of its games, it had celebrity owners in John Elway and Jon Bon Jovi, and the league was an option for fans who might not have been able to afford taking the family to an NFL game.

"It was a success story," said Marcum, who was let go by the Storm on June 30.

Initially, players weren't paid much. But as the league grew, so did salaries. Several players earned more than $100,000 a year in recent seasons, Marcum said. The league minimum, he said, was $2,000 a week.

By contrast, according to Marcum, players make $250 a week in the AFL's offshoot, af2. That league, of which the AFL owns 50.1 percent and which has teams mostly in medium-sized markets such as Boise, Idaho, and Spokane, Wash., "is solvent, self-funded and pays its bills," ESPN.com reported.

 

[TrueBeliever]

Escalating salaries played a major role in the demise of the USFL. The guy who came up with the original business model for the league felt it would only work if each team stuck to one or maybe two "big name", high contract players. However the other owners quickly threw that out the window once the league was actually playing games.

In a way it's the inverse of the NFL - if more owners put more focus on simply making a respectable profit while keeping a decent product on the field, these other leagues might pull it off. But once these guys decide they all want to be the George Steinbrenner of their league, you can see the dominos start falling.

 

[efin98]

IMHO, they never should have left the smaller-market cities that got them going. But I suppose if the NFL is willing to buy into your product, you probably figure "What can go wrong?"

End of Arena League 'seems inevitable,' union official says - Arena Football League - CBSSports.com

They were in large cities the whole time, with most that also had NFL teams. The smaller market teams lasted longer than the larger market teams but they still didn't last.

ESPN's involvement in the league(and ownership) probably had a huge impact on bringing them down as much as anything...

 

[TrueBeliever]

They were in large cities the whole time, with most that also had NFL teams.

Not the whole time... for their first 10-15 years they were mainly in smaller-market cities like Grand Rapids, Orlando, San Jose, Nashville (before the Titans moved there) and whatever city in Iowa the Iowa Barnstormers played in. There were teams called "New York" and "New England" but they played in Albany and Hartford, respectively, not the major markets in those regions. There were a few teams in major league cities, like Tampa and Milwaukee, but those were the exception and not the rule.

It wasn't until the late '90s-early '00s that the NFL got interested and let its owners start buying into Arena League teams, which is when they started moving into NFL cities.

 

[efin98]

Not the whole time... for their first 10-15 years they were mainly in smaller-market cities like Grand Rapids, Orlando, San Jose, Nashville (before the Titans moved there) and whatever city in Iowa the Iowa Barnstormers played in. There were teams called "New York" and "New England" but they played in Albany and Hartford, respectively, not the major markets in those regions. There were a few teams in major league cities, like Tampa and Milwaukee, but those were the exception and not the rule.

It wasn't until the late '90s-early '00s that the NFL got interested and let its owners start buying into Arena League teams, which is when they started moving into NFL cities.

Detroit. Chicago. Phoenix. Los Angelas. Dallas. New Orleans. New York. Denver. Charlotte. Cincinnati. All teams that played alongside the "small" cities over the years, some with multiple teams attempting to break the markets since the start.

They had some success in big markets alongside the small markets, but only when they weren't in direct competition with other sports teams like the NBA and NHL.

The team in Albany was called that- Albany. New York had their own team that played in the city itself.

 

[TrueBeliever]

I stand corrected. In fact I now see the league's first four clubs were all in NFL cities.

Incidentally while looking all this up online, I went to the league's official site. Their only mention of the tumult is a headline where they insist they'll have a new business model ready in time for them to hold a season in 2010. We shall see...

I went to a Green Bay Blizzard game three years ago. It was fun, nothing to write home about. I'd go to more but for some reason almost all their home games are on Friday nights, and it doesn't seem worth it to take off work for that.

 

[TrueBeliever]

The next nail in the coffin...

Arena Football League suspends operations indefinitely - Arena Football League - CBSSports.com