Normally speaking, when Arena Football League officials huddle together under the hood for an instant replay, it's anyone's guess what type of buffoonery they're going to come up with. However, this time around, when the AFL called for an instant replay of the tape delayed game between the Jacksonville Sharks and the Orlando Predators on Friday night, the league officials got everything just right.

 

I give credit where credit is due. We'll probably never know whether this was a creation of the NFL Network, the NFL itself, Commissioner Jerry Kurz and his staff in the AFL league office, or the uproar of the AFL fan nation. However, what we do know, is that on Wednesday night, roughly 24 hours after announcing that the playoff game would be televised at 1:30 AM on Sunday morning on tape delay, that now, the Sharks and Preds will be streamed live on NFL.com.

 

On top of that, fans of the Spokane Shock and the Arizona Rattlers will be thrilled. Now, both FOX Sports Arizona and KSKN in Spokane can televise their teams' playoff games live instead of on tape delay. The NFL Network previously had exclusive television rights to the time block of 8:00 PM ET until they signed off from their telecast of the game, and the only way that games running concurrently could be seen was on Nifty TV.

 

Ironically on April 30th, it was a game between these Preds and Sharks in Jacksonville that ended up being tape delayed one night thanks to the NFL Draft. During the 3-hour time slot in which the game was actually going on live, no one else was allowed to broadcast AFL games even though the NFL Network wasn't using its timeslot. This time around though, with two other playoff games running at the same time, the NFL Network has freed up the time block, and other games are able to broadcast live.

 

There hasn't been a heck of a lot that the AFL has gotten right this year in this writer's opinion, but this was the best that could be made out of a bad situation. Enjoy the games this weekend.

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.