Planning for Future AFL Success: Next Year Starts Monday
Tim Ball
Friday June 25, 2004
Think about John Elway trying to win his first championship with ten less guys on the offense and no Denver Bronco defensive player allowed to take the field at any time.
Like a winning franchise, the Arena Football League needs teamwork for success. Everyone is just as important as the next person, and without being able to count on each other’s support, there is only failure. No matter who owns a franchise, without people in the seats, even hiring Moses as the CEO isn’t going to get the team anywhere.
Nothing is more dangerous to the health of the league or any franchise than no one being next to you during a game. That means you. You’re reading an ArenaFan article, which means you are a genuine Arena Football fan. There’s nothing wrong with you, but something has to be done about those empty seats.
Think of an arena like a pleasant face. Now think of that face with a big grinning smile with half of its teeth missing.
Every thought about the future of this league should start with an empty seat in mind. Like salesmen-dentists, league executives need to fill those holes. Better health and better self-image will follow.
ArenaBowl XVIII is a sellout in Arizona’s America West Arena. Seventeen teams are now in their “wait ‘til next year” phase and are actively looking at personnel for their possible ArenaBowl teams next year. But what are they doing about new fans? Every AFL game should be a sellout.
Also, eighteen of the teams in the league are going to have empty arenas this weekend. What are the plans for filling those seats next season since they are just as important as player rosters?
Hopefully the league is just as concerned about fan development, if not more so, as they are about a new design for a championship trophy? Why not ask James Foster to pen an idea for a sellout every game, in every city, every weekend next year?
Owners and operators
If you own a season ticket, then you are a stockholder, investor and are the most important person in the league. San Jose made big noise league-wide and made the ArenaBowl because of the faithful in attendance as well as on the field.
Home field advantage is not important to players because they can drive their own cars to the game. It is because of whom they play for as much as for what.
Ticket holders secure a future for the league and though the practice of moving a successful team needs to end, selling tickets to every game is job one. You can’t grow sideways unless you’ve reached middle age or have lunch every day at 7-11. Health is never achieved
For the record, I don’t think moving a franchise like Nashville or any other great team is a good idea. I don’t care how much email I get, the league gets great credit for being eighteen years old, so why can’t a team get to grow old in the same place too? Especially with great fan support and winning ways. Doesn’t sound like good business to me. If I buy a good car at the local dealership, I am not going to drive several states to get another car from them if they leave town. Sorry, it doesn’t seem logical to grow business in a new marketplace when you’ve achieved success from loyal clientele.
Now, NBC has the right not to televise venues that are half empty, but go back up and reread the toothless grin analogy and think about why NBC would want to have an empty arena to showcase a game anywhere. Televised or not, their agreement with the AFL is a split partnership. They can be self-serving and not have to worry about anything.
In the off-season, what are the powers that run things going to do about spectator participation? Arena Football is a game that thrives in the live format and after a few games in person the game on TV is much more exciting, even if it’s not your team.
Eighteen years is no flash in the pan and is almost a qualification as the all-American “overnight” success story. NBC and the AFL have a promising future and hopefully will look towards filling seats as priority number one. You can’t operate a team without fan support and Nielsen families need to be off the couch and at games first and foremost.
You are job one
Is there gossip and rumor about the future of the Arizona Rattlers right now? Now? Right before an incredible ArenaBowl match-up played between pure rivals?
The East Valley Tribune, a local Phoenix area newspaper, ran an article written by Darren Urban ("Era closing for Rattlers") that was linked on ArenaFan and it may tend to worry Arizona faithful and have chatrooms talking. It’s doubtful that a new owner would do anything to this franchise, but fans should start a groundswell of support for the Rattlers that can’t be ignored.
And ponder this, the hardest core San Jose fan couldn’t possibly imagine a season without the Arizona Rattlers. The “conversations” between season ticket holders in the front rows under the nets during an Arizona kickoff, though definitely R-rated, just don’t mean as much directed at some other team. No one else has ever had the Western Division title since the SaberCats have been in existence, except San Jose or their “hated rivals,” the Rattlers. So not just Arizona fans have an interest in the Rattlers’ future.
If you get a chance to go to a “Cats’-Rats’” game in San Jose, pony up the price for a ticket in the end zone. You can tell there is a special relationship between those fans and the Arizona players. It gives a whole new meaning to “spirited discussion” and it’s classic. Don’t bring the kids because the Rattlers players definitely talk back in big boy language.
Back to business
Fans of this league, and Arizona especially, need to understand their part in all of this. Some fans do and some do not. The first thing, if you want to call yourself a fan, is make sure everyone you know is bored to death with you talking about Arena Football.
The next thing, and just as important, is to get people to go to games, especially families. I believe in that little bio that runs under my articles. There is no better sport than Arena Football for families. Is machismo more your personality? If you get off by screaming at football players, and I mean ones that can hear you because you’re only one foot from their helmets, the AFL is home sweet home for you.
Young, female and single? Many AFL players are young, (male) and single! And, you get to talk to them one on one after every home game. No need to spend money at clubs looking for Mr. Right. We all know the press about how nice Arena Football players are.
And next, get involved with your team. This league welcomes fans and doesn’t put them behind fences to glimpse the players walking by. The Avengers and the VooDoo, and many other teams, have excellent fan participation and have links to fan sites and info that are awesome.
Also, buy stuff. Nothing talks louder than money. If you get free tickets to a game, a major no-no, buy stuff for the people you invite. And then invite them back. When you buy a good car, don’t you tell everyone you care about to think about getting that kind of car? Arena Football is our passion and it could and should be to millions and millions of others.
But how? Think about this. Most towns have Boys and Girls Club, a YMCA, and all cities have schools. It is time, again, for Arena Football leagues in all of those gyms. Beat Mr. Foster to the punch and design a field in those venues.
Arena Football has always been the most played form of football in the history of the game. Hundreds of games played by guys all over town always accompany a college or NFL game on the weekend.
Every game played in every park or field is more like Arena Football than the big-field version. If you kickoff you’re on special teams, and then you’re on defense. If you receive now are on offense. Sound familiar? Little Joey big mouth scores a touchdown on you and now you get to bring it in his face. Sound familiar? And how many weekend warriors play football on a 100-yard playing field? C’mon now be honest. Heck, most games are played by guys with guts made for quick bursts to the fridge for a cold one, not a 90-yard post pattern.
What a fan wants
I want to go to AFL games because I like Arena Football. My wife and kids like Arena Football. We’ve bought tickets to every game we’ve ever attended, invited and made sure others came to the game and want the AFL to be around forever, especially until our children can buy their own tickets. I think that qualifies as an endorsement.
Being from San Jose, fan-wise, it would have been great to have the ArenaBowl in town. But it is great for fans of both teams to have this match-up play out in Arizona. If the SaberCats win, bragging rites will be louder than those damn cowbells. If the Rattlers win, then three consecutive ArenaBowl’s in a row will put them in a league by themselves. Arizona has already won two championships in 1994 and 1997, and with a win Sunday can certainly erase the pain of the last two losses.
There is so much drama attached to this game, it will take watching the game to have it all sink in.
Thinking about Elway again, he’s still looking for support around him to win games, but now like every other team owner in the AFL he needs as much help from off the field as on it. Let’s not kid ourselves. The same success sought in Colorado comes by winning football games, but empty seats hardly motivate a pro athlete or keep a franchise in operation or in the same town. Although, in the AFL they have moved successful teams!
A vacant seat, though, should be the sole motivating factor of corporate executives in every franchise and league office. Every ounce of energy should be brought to bear on this like the cannons of a merchant vessel fighting for survival from a pitiless villain.
No matter what happens at this year’s championship game, and let’s enjoy it for all it’s worth, next year will be here before you know it. And one thing is for sure; fans will be as important for the future as a TV contract or a talented team.
Tim Ball is a writer in the Chicagoland area. Married and father of three, his opinions on Arena Football reflects the positive aspect of the game as a family event second to none in pro sports.
