San Jose exit unfortunate, but future plan is coming together for AFL

Adam Markowitz
Friday November 13, 2015

I'm not in San Jose, so maybe this is easy for me to say as a fan of the Arena Football League who lives some 3,000 miles away from the SAP Center. But the news of the exit of John and David Fry from the AFL was not only a necessity, but it was actually a net positive in the long run for those of us who are more fans of the game and the sport of arena football rather than fans of individual teams.

There's no doubt that this flat out sucks for San Jose fans. There's no two ways around that. If the SaberCats find an owner and play next year (something this writer doubts happens but hasn't ruled out as a possibility), they probably won't be any good, and all signs point to their home games being played in Stockton where the ArenaBowl was held, something which many ticket holders will surely view as unsatisfactory. Having been at both Stockton Arena and the SAP Center in the last 10 months, I can safely say that the atmosphere in Stockton isn't anywhere close to what it is in downtown San Jose.

So once again, the fans are the grand losers here. Just as the fan bases in Las Vegas, Spokane, New Orleans, Des Moines, Pittsburgh, San Antonio, Salt Lake City, Chicago, Atlanta, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Bossier-Shreveport, and Huntsville all learned in the last 60 months, losing a team stinks, and even mighty San Jose is now no exception to the rule.

However, it's hard not to at least smile just a bit if you're a fan of the other eight teams in the AFL. It doesn't take a genius to know that there were inequities in the league last season, and there have been ever since the day the league opened up shop again in 2010.

So yes, I appreciate the greatness that was the 2015 San Jose SaberCats, and I still stand by the fact that it was the greatest team ever assembled in league history. Unfortunately, it was a team which was created with inequities instead of earned with hard work, and that's what makes it so disappointing. That doesn't – and shouldn't – take away from what was accomplished on the field. The coaches still had to coach. The players still had to play. That degree of dominance by any team though, is bad for the product and the league as a whole.

So on the day that the news broke of the Fry family no longer running the SaberCats, the AFL was a fairer league, and that, in and of itself, is a net positive.

However, there's more going on here than just an owner leaving the game. Plenty have done that.

The bottom line is that the future of the AFL isn't John and David Fry. The future of the AFL actually isn't Jeff Bouchy or David Siegel or Ron Shurts or Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley or Terry Emmert or Craig Spencer either. The future of the AFL is the Tampa Bay Storm and the Cleveland Gladiators, teams which are owned by the same groups who own their NHL and NBA teams in their respective markets.

Dan Gilbert, who is the majority owner the Gladiators, is also the man who owns the Lake Erie Monsters and the Cleveland Cavaliers, all of which play at Quicken Loans Arena, a building led by – you guessed it – Dan Gilbert.

Jeff Vinik, the chairman of the board of the Tampa Bay Storm, is also the chairman of the Tampa Bay Lightning. Both teams play at Amalie Arena, an arena operated by – yep – Jeff Vinik.

It isn't a mistake that the Gladiators and the Storm have consistently been amongst the most successful teams over the years in this league. Tampa Bay, a stalwart in this league since the early 90s, has consistently been amongst the top teams in the league in terms of attendance, and though the results haven't panned out on the field of late, it's considered a top market for players to go to for good facilities and great treatment. If players leave Tampa Bay, it's not because they were treated poorly or put in bad living and training quarters.

Cleveland, a team which has been notorious for doing things by the books in a league of inequities, went on a magical run in 2014 to a 17-1 regular season. Though the Gladiators came up short in the ArenaBowl, the setting that day was arguably not just the best since the AFL came back in 2010, but in league history. Cleveland, a city which isn't exactly rich in successful sports history, is finally a place where players want to come play.

Part of the reason the Storm and Gladiators are so successful is because they get a ton of massive benefits. Rent is significantly lower for both of these teams from an operational standpoint, and for Gilbert, that rent is only going from his left pocket into his right pocket, for all intents and purposes. Both teams have used staff members from their other clubs to help out their AFL staffs. In many cases, interns for the big league teams get jobs with their AFL teams to ultimately move up the corporate chain and grow, which is good for the parent club.

In the arenas themselves, the ushers and the vendors get to work for nine more nights a year, which keeps them happier. A happy staff is less likely to leave, and considering the amount of dollars and man hours it requires to train a new usher or team of ushers, that's an important factor which many don't consider. Just filling those dates in those arenas is incredibly important for cities and owners. Empty arenas generate no revenue and cost the city and the owner dearly. Having events is great for the local economy, even if those events only draw a few thousand fans per game.

Then there's the matter of concessions. Multiple team owners have disclosed to me the amount of revenue produced by concessions. The number is always over $750,000 per year. In Cleveland and Tampa Bay, most of that money stays in-house. In the rest of the venues where teams are paying upwards of $35,000 per game just for rent, the deal is often that 10 percent of the concessions goes back to the team while the city keeps the other 90 percent.

Furthermore, sponsorship dollars are easier to come by. If you want to get your name on a dasherboard at a Lightning game, guess what? That same advertisement can be used for the Storm as well.

Plus, unlike the AHL, the ECHL or the IFL, the AFL is still on the ESPN family of networks. That national television deal and the rebound nets might be the only thing separating the AFL from the IFL at this point, but those four letters are a big, big deal. Any time a Cleveland-based team can get exposure on a network like ESPN2 or CBS Sports Network, it's good for the general product of Gilbert.

This isn't a novelty idea in this country, believe it or not. The MLS has been doing this for several years, having their MLS team owners also own teams in the USL Pro or in the NWSL. It's a way to fill dates at the venues and use more staff. More people have jobs, and it's overall good for the community. The farther the reach, the happier the parent club will ultimately be.

But that's why the ultimate future of the Arena Football League is in NBA and NHL ownership. Cities like San Antonio, Washington D.C. and Sacramento have all been linked to the future of the AFL, and Minneapolis, Charlotte and Nashville might not be all that far behind. Even places like Seattle and Long Island with venues that are craving major sports and either do or will have common ownership with major league teams one day could be in the mix. It isn't impossible to believe that there will be teams back in Pittsburgh and Chicago in the near future if the Penguins and Blackhawks or Bulls decide they want to get involved in this potential boom.

The sky is literally the limit here for the AFL. It's not unbelievable to think that 30 teams will be in this league in 2020 if this model proves to work, though that's obviously a lofty goal.

Unfortunately for the existing fans though, there are going to be growing pains. Though it isn't impossible for a "Mom and Pop" team to be successful in the AFL, it's clear that the model is at minimum bent, and at maximum completely broken for them, if for no other reason, they have to pay a ton of rent and don't get a great cut of the concessions. Bringing in another 20 teams would sure help out the little guys, but the little guys have to get that far first. It's a tough grind, and it's going to take more money to get there. Here's hoping that all six of the "Mom and Pop" owners stick it out for the future, but it wouldn't be shocking if any, or even all of them didn't make it.

That's why the 2016 season is scary for AFL fans. We're going to have fewer teams than we've had in over two decades in this league, and there is this bubble which feels like could burst at any given moment if all of a sudden any more teams decide they're going to leave before kicking things off in the spring.

But unlike at any point in the history of this league, there is now a plan in place, and that plan is completely viable and sustainable. Even back in the 2000s, the "heyday" of the AFL, the whole scheme to keep everything going was to get billionaires to keep spending tens of millions of dollars for expansion teams in spite of the fact that there were huge operating costs which far exceeded the income for every team in the league. It was a de facto Ponzi scheme destined to fail, and fail it did on that dark day in 2008.

It's tough to see on this random Friday in November, especially if you're in northern California right now, but the future of the AFL is starting to take shape, and the argument could be made that we are on stronger ground than we have ever been before.

Butera was brought to the AFL to clean up the mess of the Jerry B. Kurz era, and he has had to do a lot of housekeeping. Unfortunately, teams were sacrificed along the way, and there's probably still more cleaning up to do. However, now that the dust is settling, there is a clear path being defined going forward, and I, for one, am excited to see where that goes.

Back in 2005, John Elway infamous said that the AFL needed to become "as much like the NFL as possible." He was wrong. The AFL needs to become as much like the AHL, the ECHL, the USL Pro and the NWSL as possible, and finally, we're on that path.