“We’ve narrowed the list for@officialafl expansion to five markets—we're in negotiations now and are committed to adding 2 new teams for 2020. We want to be thoughtful and get it right even if it takes more time. Look forward to announcements soon,” Boe tweeted. 

Boe and the AFL are looking to grow the league and in order to do so they had to know which cities to target. Without revealing any locations, Boe did mention some of the qualifying factors for a new AFL franchise.

“The expansion process was interesting because we looked at 50 cities and about 125 data points for each city. Part of it was AFL history in the city, what other professional sports are there, what are the demographics, what’s the arena like, and what the media landscape is like there. We’re trying to build a national footprint, so you need to have a balance of smaller markets and bigger markets and be geographically balanced as well,” 

“We have a number of cities that are really interested in having an Arena Football League team. We’re trying to make sure that we pick the right city and that we get the right deal. If that takes an extra week or two, fine,” Boe said.

Arena Football fans everywhere will now hope the new unofficial timeline for the announcement is a week or two. Until then, everyone is still wondering what cities will join the AFL. The commissioner said, “Let’s just say on twitter, there have been some really accurate guesses,”

Anthony Reindhard from AFL Fan Zone posted an article, “Deep Routes: The Definitive Guide to Expansion Speculation.” The in-depth article looked at what markets could potentially be a good fit for the AFL with an emphasis on history, followed by location, venue, untapped markets, sports betting, and metro population. It’s unclear whether Boe was referring to Reindhard’s article, which gained a lot of traction on twitter.

Reinhard reviewed 327 arenas in the country, narrowing the list down to 49 arenas that would suit the AFL based on the factors mentioned above. The top five markets on Reindhard’s list were – Newark/NYC, Cleveland OH, Chicago IL, Tampa Bay FL, and Pittsburgh PA. Boe responded to Reindhard’s list saying it was a “thoughtful analysis.” Matthew Kass from Arena Insider reported that Newark will not be joining the AFL in 2020.

Cleveland is the most speculated expansion market with the Gladiators most recently taking the field in 2017. Renovations to the Gladiators home Quicken Loans Arena forced the team to take a two-year hiatus from the AFL. When the Gladiators announced the hiatus, they said the team would return for the 2020 season when renovations were done. Prior to this season the league added Columbus Ohio, a natural rival and city close in proximity to Cleveland. 

Ron Jaworski, majority owner of Trifecta Sports, had the following to say about the AFL’s expansion plans during his statement on stage at the awards ceremony.

“We’re going to make an announcement during the next few weeks of expansion teams in the Arena Football League. The lawyers have the paperwork now, they always slow things down, but we’re going to make that announcement,” Jaworski said.  

The awards ceremony has come and gone without an announcement, and all signs are pointing towards no announcement during ArenaBowl 32. Boe and Jaworksi both mentioned a timeline of a week or two, and the general consensus is that last year’s delays into January and February won’t happen again.

For the time being we’ll have to keep speculating expansion cities until there is a formal announcement. I’ll get the ball rolling with where I’d expand if I won the lottery and decided to throw my money in Arena Football, (because who wouldn’t?) Raleigh, North Carolina.  

Harrison Brown is a college student who has been covering Arena Football since he was 12 years old and has been with ArenaFan since 2014. Harrison was a captain of the varsity football team during his senior year of high school and went on to play one season of Division III football in Massachusetts. Harrison has worked for two indoor football teams, in 2018 he was the Director of Player Personnel for the Jersey Flight and in 2016 he was the Color Commentator for the Philadelphia Yellow Jackets. You can follow Harrison on twitter @HarryBrownRusso.