Don`t Look Now, but Guess who Hit the Big Time?
Dan Ryan
Saturday March 9, 2002
Anyhow, our modest little blip on the radar, our summertime diversion is now a certified, bonafide, sanctified network performah. Sixteen weeks of regular season action, playoffs, the Arenabowl all on NBC. No longer is the 50-yard Indoor War just the way the Rams found Kurt Warner. It`s the replacement for the almost almighty NBA, now scooting over to ABC.
Hopefully, Ahmad Rashad scoots over as well. Mr. Ebersol: two words: Hire Arrington.
So do we break out the bubbly and the big smelly cigars? (Nash is smoking something, but neither us or the FDA can determine what exactly it is) Do we crank up Barry Manilow`s "Looks Like We Made It`` now that Arena Football, the overnight sensation that took 15 years, finally has a major national presence that doesn`t require basic cable?
That`s the whole thing that bugged me Tuesday afternoon during the announcement of the new TV deal. It`s hard to describe, and for crying out loud, I`m a writer, or I just play one on the Internet.
Here are the sticks in my crawl:
1) Remember when the game was created how it was billed as a summertime alternative, a way to escape into air-condition arenas as we satisfied our football Jones until the 11-man game started in the fall? Now we`re in the first quarter of the year, up against the Daytona 500, up against the Final Four. Yeah, I can really see the Cobras finding a new audience on any given Sunday in March when 97 percent of Raleigh is obsessed with how Duke is whomping up on Kansas.
2) Sunday afternoon games: Arena Football to me will always be a Friday or Saturday night experience. Get off work and start the weekend in the Arena woofing down a few brewskies while watching 16 dudes beat the crap out of each other and racking up 100 points in the process. Sunday afternoons weren`t bad, especially for deadlines and getting up the next day, but they weren`t as fun. Hey, if the folks at MSNBC need some alternative programming, here`s four words: Monday Night Arena Football. [Fouts and Miller are available, but what would really be cool is if they hired that guy who played Cosell on Monday Night Mayhem.]
3) Can the AFL overcome the stigma of the "next XFL" the mainstream media will lazily attach? Okay, Okay, it wasn`t that bad of a train wreck, but everyone in America thinks three interns and a duck could have done a better job. On second thought, this could be a good thing..
4) Is anyone going to make any money? Deals like this are going to be the future of TV sports. Sure, Fox has the NFL, but did you know NASA could build a space shuttle for less than what Rupert Murdoch is forking over these days? If you`re NBC, it makes sense, especially with the need to bankroll the final season of Friends.
5) Already, Arenafan management is in a tizzy, because we`re no longer on the fringe of the fringe and now our journalistic mettle is up against the likes of NBC. Hmmph. The faith of management.
We can kick NBC`s ass. Screw Jim Gray. We have Joe Kauffman. Ando and Cornett have charisma, or reasonable facsimiles, much more than Marv Albert or Bill Walton. Sheller and Karaganis run the tightest, smoothest of ships (Yes, this means I still haven`t gotten my golf shirt.) And I can outsmug Costas on any given day, countering his sentimental reminisces of a sunny day at Fenway watching Ted Williams with my own fond anecdotes of the Detroit Drive or the cockroaches in the Palm Beach Auditorium that actually had the Bobcats by six points at halftime.
We`ve been ready for this kind of moment. Is everyone else?
Dan Ryan has been involved with all forms of arena football since 1988, including writing for ArenaFan when Joe Kauffman and Tim Capper aren’t killing his columns because they don’t get his jokes or perspective. His day job is at Bethune-Cookman University, which has produced both an NFL Hall of Famer (Larry Little) and an Arena Football Hall of Famer (Stevie Thomas) and his hobby is tracking how many f-bombs Adam Markowitz drops in the chat room on game nights.
