"Just Football"
Adam Markowitz
Saturday September 16, 2006
I have watched this league lose its ways for quite some time now. There was a time that the game was pure. Buying a ticket to an Arena League game meant that you were going to a party where a football game happened to break out. You used to see players who make mistakes on offense get a chance to turn around and play defense to atone for their mistakes. Linemen that were trying desperately to sack the opposing quarterback then had to turn around and defend his own. Now where are we?
We are in a world that now runs on money. We are puppets for money. Owners such as Jon Bon Jovi and John Elway have pushed for this change, perhaps in panic to not having a major television contract in order. But now it’s all about "marketing." The AFL owners are looking to do what’s best for their individual wallets even if it means it’s at the expense of the fans.
Congratulations. We are now the NFL. We are the NBA. We are the NHL. We are MLB. We are NASCAR. We are just like everyone else. We are just another league who tries their hardest to earn a profit with no care how that money is earned. If it comes in ticket sales, so be it. But we now know if it comes between a television contract and 1,000 extra fans a game in seats across AFL arenas, the fans are yet again losing.
Mr. Baker, with all due respect, I have some advice for you. Forget about your precious owners for a minute. You helped create this league and dubbed it a league for the fans. I didn’t hear one fan who ever voiced anything positive about the idea of free substitutions. In fact, I only heard negative comments. Look at your message boards. As I type, there are threads upon threads both here at ArenaFan and on ArenaFootball.com and the overwhelming majority of posts are completely against the rule change. In fact, one thread is absolutely perfectly entitled: "Free Substitution: Excellent Business Decision." Is that what we have become? An "excellent business decision?"
If you truly believe that this is a game for the fans, the wrong people are at these meetings of yours. The owners should have their say, but the fans have NO say whatsoever, and that is completely against the entire basis behind this league. If you really want to cater to the fans, why don’t you ask them? Or even better! You don’t have to ask anything. Just go read their opinions. I am just one writer. I mean nothing. But collectively, the fans that truly care about this league are the ones that are still eating, breathing, and sleeping Arena Football even at a time that the league is essentially in hibernation. We, collectively, have voiced our displeasure. Try some of these quotes from your message boards out for size…
"When you alienate the fans that are already existing you are going to lose business." "Here's my excellent business decision: My team just got four vacant seats for that massive influx of NFL fans that are beating down the doors to get in." "It’s the most pathetic, awful rule change in AFL history." "This is really gonna put a damper on what Arena Football is all about."
So please, Mr. Baker, I plead with you. Give us back the game we love. It’s not about money. Fans don’t care about money. Even the player, who used to play this game for basically the cost of peanuts… almost all of them had to have second jobs just to make ends meet. But they continued to play because they loved it. We, the fans, continued to watch even when games were only broadcasted at 2:30 in the morning on tape delay. You put it together for us and we loved it. We all loved it.
But now, with what, in my humble opinion is the darkest day in Arena Football League history, can I only be enraged with the owners of the league and the league’s management. We have been violated. This game belonged to us, the fans, once upon a time. But now our opinion means nothing. We have been sold out to big shots with cash and the prospects of glamorous television deals.
I must admit, I have lost sleep over this. I am writing this article at 5:00 in the morning and honestly have tears in my eyes as I type. It genuinely pains me to have to write this article. Twenty glorious years of Arena Football have come and gone. Twenty years is a benchmark for stability for a minor league sport. There was nothing wrong with this game twenty years ago. It was good enough for the fans then, and it was good enough for the fans right up through last year. But each year a little something seems to change. First you took away our players with free agency. The players we identified our cities with left for other cities. But we still supported this game. Then you took away our Arena Bowl and moved it to a neutral site. But even then, we still supported this game. Golf became more important than our quarterfinals of the playoffs. Even then… we sat through golf and waited patiently for our beloved games. But now, you took away everything. The essence of Arena Football has been dashed from our hearts, and at least this fan still has a hard time grasping how this is anything but selling out the fans.
I lied before. I said we were the NFL. We are not one of the big shots. We are not mainstream in America like the rest of these sports are. So what are we? We are the XFL. We are the World League. We are the USFL. We are turning into "just football" and nothing else than that. And what happens when leagues try to play a brand of football that is "just football" in this country?
SUBS happens across the league and everything spirals from there. What is SUBS, you ask? An acronym, of course, and surely what many AFL fans are feeling having heard that real "subs" will be a major part of their game. Sorry U Bought Seats.
Adam Markowitz is an accountant living in Orlando. Adam is an old school AFLer, having followed the AFL since 1991. He attended or covered well over 200 games, including 17 ArenaBowls. Adam worked for the Arena Football League for two years as a columnist and historian before retiring in 2017 when the 50-yard indoor war left the Sunshine State. Adam still muses about the AFL on ArenaFan from time to time, and you can follow him on Twitter @adammarkowitzea.
