Internet Brings Non-TV Games to Fans
Randy Snow
Sunday February 9, 2003
The next best thing to actually being at a game is watching Arena Football on TV. You get to see multiple replays of key plays from several different camera angles as well as updated game stats and play-by-play commentary from the broadcasting team.
But what is a fan to do when their team is on the road and not being televised locally, as the Rampage have been for the first two games of this season? Luckily, there are still a couple of options available;
Option 1: Listen to the game on the radio. This is great if you live in or near the city where your team is from, but that doesn’t always work for everyone. Maybe your favorite team plays in another city or state or is clear across the country. Now where can you turn? Have no fear, the Internet is here.
Option 2: Listen to the game over the Internet. A visit to the 2003 arena schedule here at Arenafan shows visitors which games are available on-line. A little blue Real Audio icon next to one or both of the teams indicates that a broadcast is available for that game in a Real Audio format. Clicking on the icon will, in most cases, take you to a radio station web page somewhere in the country that is providing audio coverage for that game. If you don’t have a Real Audio player on your computer you can get a basic version of the player at RealAudio.com for free, or you can spend about $20 for a version that has all the bells and whistles included. But alas, not all arena games are available on the Internet. However, there is still one last chance to catch all the game action while it’s going on.
Option 3: Get real time stats from Arenafootball.com. I’ll admit that staring at a graphic representation of the playing field on a computer screen for 2 ½ hours may not be your first choice for how to spend a Saturday night or Sunday afternoon, but if options 1 and 2 aren’t available, this may be all you can get! Look for the weekly schedule of games on the left hand side of the Arenafootball.com home page. Find your team’s game and click on the link that says, “Get Real Time Stats.”
The stats page is chocked full of pertinent game information. It shows the score, the game clock, what quarter the game is in, the number of timeouts each team has left, who has possession of the ball, the down and distance and what yard line the ball is sitting on. It even shows a yellow line on the field to indicate what yard line the team needs to get to for a first down.
With a dial up modem, the screen refreshes itself about every minute, depending on the speed of your connection. You can also click on the refresh or reload button of your browser at any time if you just can’t stand the suspense. Of course, a cable modem or DSL connection will be much faster than a dial up modem and will make refresh times even faster.
There are also tabs for Team Stats, Offensive Stats, Defensive Stats and Special Teams Stats that break down every imaginable statistic in those categories.
So, if you are one of those people who just can’t wait for the late news on TV or for tomorrow’s newspaper, you can still experience the game while it’s going on. You’ll hardly miss a second of the action this season, unless you are waiting for the computer screen to refresh!
Randy Snow covered the Grand Rapids Rampage of the Arena Football League for ArenaFan from 2003-2008. He also covered the Fort Wayne Fusion of arenafootball2 in 2007. From 2004-2008 and in 2010, he was a member of the Arena Football League Writer’s Association and, since 2011, has been a member of the Professional Football Researchers Association. Randy lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan but will travel just about anywhere for a football game or a great football story. He runs the web site www.theworldoffootball.com and hosts a podcast with his son, Adam, called “This Week in The World of Football.”
