Pirates Fans, Front Office Crew, Contribute to Team`s Success
Steve Robinson
Tuesday March 26, 2002
That is how one of the post-game conversations I had with Peoria Pirates general manager Greg Griffith ended in the midst of last season following a Carver Arena home game in Peoria.
Griffith has often credited the fans with his team’s success at Carver Arena, both while the team has been a member of arenafootball2, and even back when the team was a founding member of the now-defunct Indoor Football League.
We finally had our chat concerning Pirates patrons at the scrimmage the team had here in town Saturday. Another scrimmage is planned for The Soccer Forum in nearby Morton, Ill. this Thursday. The season opens in Wichita on April 4.
But, like I said, we were talking about the fans, for openers.
“(Head Coach) Bruce Cowdrey has said having our fans in the stands at Carver Arena is worth 14 points a game,” Griffith said. “This is the loudest crowd that I have ever experienced. They love their silver-and-black. (Our players) are treated like rock stars here,” Griffith said.
For anybody who has either been avoiding arena football or has been living in the caves in Peoria, Kabul, or elsewhere, Griffith offers this piece of advice for coming out to see a Pirates game this season.
“First, coming to a game in Peoria is a blast,” Griffith starts off. “The fans get into it. We probably have 200 fans come to the games who voluntarily dress up like pirates.”
Griffith said the second reason to come out is that the experience is a kind of “football Woodstock.” “It is the most high energy event in this area,” he said. “I really don’t think I am exaggerating. There’s nothing that’s more high energy than a Pirates game.”
For Griffith, now entering his second season as general manager, the fans mean everything and prove how successful the franchise has become in such a short time since becoming af2 members.
“You know what…? As of the last report that I (received), we have the third-highest season ticket sales in the league out of 34 teams,” Griffith starts.
Griffith said Peoria is just a scant 34 tickets behind the expansion Wilkes-Barre-Scranton Pioneers in ticket sales.
When you weigh in the fact that Wilkes-Barre-Scranton has 1.2 million people in their primary population center and Peoria’s tri-county market holds roughly 340,000 folks, the sales figure pops out at you.
Peoria may be third, but Griffith, by his very nature, wants to see those figures climb, and he hates to see his team lose. The Jacksonville Tomcats take the sales prize so far, leading all af2 teams in ticket sales, trying to entice a population of 1.4 million people to come see their product.
“We’re the second to the smallest market (in af2), we currently have something on the order of 1,700 group tickets sold, and we’re, hopefully going to do a lot more than that,” he said.
Griffith’s product, after having been in the market for three full seasons, one of those teaching fans about af2, has just about sold itself, having seen nearly 4,400 season tickets sold in the 10,000-plus seat downtown facility.
“(Those season ticket numbers) are spectacular,” Griffith said.
From watching him, you know Griffith has had a sales background and has had to spend his days convincing people to see his way of an issue. When he was head of the IFL’s Eastern Conference in 2000, he spent time trying to help cities with teams in that conference to bolster their own fortunes in an attempt to put fans in the stands.
He worked hard to get fans in the city of Dayton, Ohio, for example, to come cheer on the Dayton Skyhawks during their second year of operations in the IFL in 2000, but, Griffith admits, selling tickets in Dayton was tough because the fan base lived in one corner of town, but the arena the Skyhawks played in was across town.
In the end, the Dayton Skyhawks folded, but Griffith pressed on, continuing to work for the Pirates when they became af2 members, being named general manager by the management team of Orlando Predators Entertainment (OPE), who own the Orlando Predators of the Arena Football League.
Before trying to market the 50-yard game, he had a similar position with the Peoria Rivermen of the East Coast Hockey League, who share Carver Arena with the Pirates.
Although they finished with a 7-9 last season under last year’s head coach Gary Porter, Griffith found himself having to be concerned with other matters concerning the team last season, in addition to how the product looked on the field.
How his product looks on the field is all Griffith will concern himself with beginning this season, because the front office structure has been revamped, with Cowdrey and assistant general manager Jim Preston clearing all interviews with media through them.
“I do not have to be involved in the football operations in any way,” Griffith, the father of two, said. “I just get to enjoy it.”
But Griffith is not self-made at this. “If I have a mentor in any of this, it’s Dave Berryman,” Griffith said of his boss. Berryman is President and Chief Operating Officer of OPE Entertainment, the Pirates’ parent organization.
Griffith also gives credit to his staff, stating, “because of Jim Preston, we have what many consider the best public relations and football operations areas in the whole league,” he said.
Andrea Soffietti, a graduate of Augustana College, has a business background and sports background mix, having played softball at her alma mater. Her area of expertise as an assistant general manager deals with both the team’s financial and merchandising concerns.
“They are both incredibly energetic, very detail oriented, and because I am more the ‘big picture’-type person, all I have to do is set the direction and they run (with the directions).”
Griffith’s approach must be working. He said af2 has asked for copies of agreements between the team and two local medical providers. The medical providers, Methodist Medical Center and Midwest Orthopedic Group, both in Peoria, to utilize medical services for players free of charge during the season.
Provided the Pirates finish on top of their division or even –inhale, please – as the 2002 Arena Cup champion – Cowdrey and his assistants will garner credit for the success on the field the team could have this year. But someone ought to give Griffith and his staff a medal, too.
Steve Robinson, a freelance writer since 1984, has written about the Peoria Pirates since the Pirates were members of Indoor Football League, beginning in 1999. He covers the Pirates currently for the Bloomington IL Pantagraph.
