Time For AFLPU, Owners To Adhere to "Year of the Fans"

Adam Markowitz
Thursday March 8, 2012

Orlando Predators' managing partner Brett Bouchy and the Arena Football League Players Union (AFLPU) Executive Director, Ivan Soto were on the air together on the "Monsters of the Morning" on 104.1 FM Orlando on Thursday morning. This ended up being an interview that was full of mudslinging, name calling, and the likes, and it all came on the eve of the 25th season of the Arena Football League.

Bouchy called Soto a liar. Soto apparently called Commissioner Kurz, "Hitler." Bouchy said that the players had a lack of class and integrity if they weren't going to come out and play on Friday night. Soto said that Lynn Swann threatened his players that he wouldn't fly them back to Pittsburgh if they went on strike in Orlando.

I only have three words for all of this.

Blah.

Blah.

Blah.

This should have been a great time for this league. The 24th season was capped by, what this writer views as the best game in the history of the AFL, when the Jacksonville Sharks beat the Arizona Rattlers on the final play of the game with a touchdown pass from the storied Aaron Garcia, who had never won a championship before that point. As I speak, there are 10 fantastic AFL alumni that are being officially inducted in the AFL Hall of Fame here in Orlando, and instead of speaking of the greatness of those players, it seems as though the only topic in this area AFL related is what the players are going to do come Friday night when the Pittsburgh Power are supposed to take on the Predators on the NFL Network.

I've played the fence in this whole process. On the AFL Tonight, Tim Capper and I had a great interview Steve Watson, the AFLPU's Vice President on Tuesday night. If you haven't listened to the podcast, I advise that you do. It really is great insight into the life of a player.

I completely understand his side (and the AFLPU's side) of the story. Players aren't being paid all that well at $400 per game, and they really should be compensated more for putting their bodies on the line every single week. The conditions of which the players work is in terrible, knowing that at any given point, anyone can be traded from Tampa Bay to Spokane or anywhere in the middle. They could also just get cut at any point and all of a sudden not just be out of a job, but out of their housing shortly thereafter as well.

Of course, I understand the side of the owners as well. These players signed a contract that said that they are going to play for $400 per week, and they should adhere to those contracts. The $17M bottom line that the AFLPU is claiming that the league is working with is clearly a number that is bunk, and regardless as to whether or not the owners really make that money or not, that doesn't mean that the players should really be entitled to more than this.

It's a case of supply and demand. The players aren't irreplaceable, and if other players are willing to play this game for $400 per week including housing and all of that, why should the owners pay more for players that, quite frankly, probably aren't all that much better than the ones that are striking?

Come hell or high water, in just about 23 hours, the Arena Football League is going to begin its 25th season. Whether this season comes with Kyle Israel and Drunky the Bear leading the Predators onto the field, or whether it is Collin Drafts, TT Toliver, and Marlon Moye-Moore coming through the tunnel. Kyle Rowley might be the Pittsburgh quarterback. Or some guy that you've never heard of might be the quarterback for the Power.

From the owners' standpoint, a strike would be a sad conclusion. The first game of the year, a game that is going to be broadcast on the NFL Network, will be mired with the information of a strike, and it will be a topic that Commissioner Kurz will almost certainly have to address to his national audience of fans from across the country.

From the players' standpoint, this is a dangerous game to be playing. The quality of play on the field might be horrific in Week 1 due to the fact that, at least in Orlando, this reserve team has only been practicing for two days. However, in Week 3, will the quality of football really be that much worse?

I'll be the first to admit that the game isn't the same since the 2010 reformation. I know that Commissioner Kurz spent a good chunk of his State of the League address at the ArenaBowl saying that the players for the Rattlers and Sharks were as good as the ones that were playing in 2008 and before that. But c'mon. Does anyone really believe that?

As sad as it is, the quality of this game has decreased, and it has decreased dramatically.

However, look at the bottom line. The AFL survived. There is no Tony Graziani. No Shredrick Bonner. No Eddie Brown. No Barry Wagner. None of those names exist in the new AFL. Yet now, there is Nick Davila. There is Tommy Grady. There is Troy McBroom. There is Vic Hall. All of these players that, in just two short years have become mainstays in the new AFL.

If the AFLPU really thinks that it has players that are irreplaceable, it is probably sorely mistaken. Though I know that there will clearly be a drop off in talent once again if there are truly replacements that are going to come through the tunnel on Friday night, it is going to make for an ugly, ugly game. However, what we have seen in this league is that talent more or less gets found all of a sudden in the AFL of new.

Last year, we saw McBroom come out of nowhere and be one of the top receivers in the league. We saw Gino Guidugli become one of the league's most efficient passers in the last month or so of the season. We saw Derrick Ross come into the league and rush for 39 touchdowns.

These players are out there to be found, and if the AFL finds those players, the league will once again go on, whether the AFLPU is a part of it or not.

But alas, the owners need to heed this warning as well: When the league took a year off, the average attendance in the league went from 12,957 to 8,135, and the figures weren't all that much better in 2011. Will the league be able to survive a strike? It certainly damages the credibility of the league to have a strike going on at the beginning of the season, and it was just as bad when all of the talk at the ArenaBowl in 2008 was that Commissioner Baker was resigning.

In the end, we at ArenaFan are the voice of the fans. I know that I am probably not making any friends on either side by saying this, but I'm sure that there isn't a fan out there that doesn't think it would be really nice if the first thing that we saw on Friday night, the first year of the 25th season of the Arena Football League, would be a unified set of players and owners under one collective bargaining agreement that will ensure that both the players and the owners are happy and happy for quite some time to come. Picture Commissioner Kurz coming on the NFL Network broadcast, and before we see anything from inside the Jungle, he and players from all over the league sharing a stage and making an announcement that a new CBA had been reached and that both sides are looking forward to a great 2012 season… Wouldn't that be grand?

Commissioner Kurz has stated that this is the "Year of the Fans." All the fans want to see is the highest quality of Arena Football possible. We don't want mudslinging. We don't want underpaid players. We don't want the owners to lose money. We don't want to become pawns in a PR battle.

All that we want, in the "Year of the Fans" is some football. And hopefully, that's exactly what we are going to be getting on Friday night.