AFL 2006: Are we there yet?
Tim Ball
Wednesday January 4, 2006
"I’ve seen it on TV," said the guy sitting beside me watching his son at karate class. "But, I’ve never been to a game. I know our team is the Rush. Doesn’t Ditka own it?"
This guy was wearing a Bears hat, sweatshirt and jacket, "Do you know the Bears picked up Rashied Davis; a guy from the Arena League?"
Bears fans know everything about every player and in ten minutes so did I. Luckily Davis is a household word now after his performance against Minnesota so my knowing about him allowed me a place at the Midwest table of football.
At MC Sports in Sycamore Illinois they know all about Arena Football but no one has sent them any promotional stuff from the league office. Why not?
I called other sporting goods stores, some located just miles from a training facility and they have no Arena League stuff.
Why not?
The outdoor league is entering its final phase.
Still, we hear and see nothing about the Arena League. Who is running things? Where is the promotion of the best sports league to enter the American conscience in decades?
Knock, knock
The AFL is an amazing twenty years old when the 2006 season gets under way and still many people only know it by Bon Jovi or Kurt Warner.
I was hoping that the league would learn its painful lesson from an ArenaBowl with empty seats - visible nationwide from every TV angle - that in today’s world if you build it they will come but only if you plaster the world with ad after ad, promo after promo.
The AFL is inundated with NFL players and personnel and that is great, it should be, but what they need even more is talented ad execs that like and even love Arena Football and want to see it attain the status it so richly deserves.
Do you really think women want to wear high heels? Someone has convinced them they look better walking around like they are on glass or don’t want to wake up a snoring uncle. But shoes are bought a million pairs a day and that’s just New York. Someone "sells" shoes.
OK better analogy: Do you really think without gorgeous women on TV holding "silver bullets" that men would drink "light beer?" Beer is "sold."
If you build it they will not always come right away. But if it looks like a party and IS, they will stay and comeback next time.
Remember there were NFL Championships long before they re-labeled it the Super Bowl.
A crowd draws a crowd but only a fun time keeps the on-lookers around. Bad news is cast away like yesterdays newspaper that is soon forgotten.
The AFL is guaranteed fun people talk about the next day. OK maybe not for the player flying over the boards but certainly for the fan that catches him, gives him back and gets to keep the ball and a memory forever.
NBC Watch
No I haven’t heard any rumors but, I’ll be the first not to shed a tear if NBC doesn’t renew at seasons end. I like the colorful network and really love their Olympic coverage but mature relationships sometimes call for breakups.
Like a girlfriend looking longingly across the room, it is better to end it as friends than to get nasty because you know it’s going to end anyway. And hey! there may have some cool friends you haven’t met yet. No sense burning bridges yet to be crossed. The networks are really political action committees now and politics and sports mix worse than religion and the White House.
The NFL is winding down and the chances of reaching a large frenzied football audience is over. Someone is to blame. Thanks a lot "someone" for not getting the message out to an audience that is starting to really think about the AFL as legitimate. Don’t ever try to sell shoes.
While Kansas City and Salt Lake get new teams the league gets the same old return on an investment made with half-hearted business interests. Sell the stock. You didn’t pay for it anyway.
My dream realized would be ESPN to be the sole proprietor of sports anyway with ESPN 100 a real channel.
But then again, Fox Sports makes my pulse soar so there is another avenue for the future that is being grasped today.
Besides competition is the American way (and now of course India and China).
Remember NBC what is what like to wake up in the morning and have passion for what you do?
Now network TV is all about a president screwing up. There is neither fun nor sport in that.
Fans?
By the way, what have you done for the league Mr. or Mrs. AFL fan?
Do you think your season tickets are somehow more valuable than a new fan calling in with a number to win a contest?
Well you’re right.
The league office held a competition last year to win the "fan of the year" by a raffle call-in thingy. What? Who though that was good idea?
How about recognizing fans that have been with the AFL since day one?
Yeah you heard me. Someone email me if you think I’m wrong!
Sorry if that takes away a few newer fans from teams like Utah, Missouri or Philly, from winning a free trip to Vegas but long-time original fans are the real Soul of this league.
Though Philadelphia and KC are most impressive fan-wise and let’s face it Salt Lake gets Hunkie and Coach White so they’re all winners already. No insult intended.
ONLY season ticket holders need apply or be qualified as "Fan of the Year."
That’s a PERIOD in front of the quotation mark. And I mean it.
Please someone in the league office think about the value of fans? Promotions are what is needed; now implement better promotions.
Here’s an idea!
Get someone from each franchise to get in a car with all of the posters, souvenirs, T-shirts and whatever is left over from games and put them in every sporting goods store, bar and grill and/or any place families and children dwell i.e., schools, YMCA’s Boys and Girls Clubs, Churches, rec centers, etc.,etc.).
I’m no ad man but I know exposure is the name of the game. Ever seen a NASCAR race? Huh?
And get Arena Football League Twentieth Anniversary T-Shirts to every fan in the league by the second home game of the season!
They will be worn proudly I can assure you of that.
See how easy it is to spread the word?
Auld lang syne
Its 2006, the Arena Football League is still here against all odds and going on twenty years old. Shout it on the rooftops or better yet save it for home games.
There is a pride in this league that needs to be heard and heard loudly.
The "good old days" in the AFL were not really that great for the players and the present and future is very bright for them now. Let’s endeavor to keep it that way. Satisfied athletes make happy fans and that makes a strong league even stronger.
Visit some team websites and look at the talent streaming on to those franchises. Bye-bye NFL Europe. The future for the Arena Football League is very bright indeed.
If you are reading this article you are an AFL fan or league office snooper, and in any case we are all in this together.
Happy New Year.
And, congratulations AFL on entering your (our) twentieth season.
There is work to be done and done better to make the league stronger and to introduce new fans to something they should not be missing. That is a job we can all do better.
Now let the fun begin.
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.
