Arena Football was never dead.  Even though the AFL scratched its 2009 season, the AFL2, a “minor league” version of the AFL (which was considered a minor league of the NFL) played out its season.  Many wondered whether the AFL2 would just replace the AFL with the AFL’s former talent.  There is no longer a need to ponder that potential circumstance.

The new AFL will return in 2010, and it will include four teams from the former regime.  It will also bring in many teams from the AFL2.  The new league will start with a total of sixteen teams.  That’s a lot of roster space to fill.  I have heard from many agents that they have no clue what the new start-up UFL has been doing in terms of talent acquisition.  Many believe that UFL executives are passing up on clear-cut talent; players who are well beyond the level of many current UFL roster inhabitants.  With the return of the AFL, those agents will once again have an outlet for their fringe NFL clients.

Games in the new AFL will begin in late March of 2010, which means that there is not much time to waste before you should start hawking league execs about your players.

I am not sure what the league is thinking by placing a team in Jacksonville, FL, a city that can’t even come close to selling out its NFL games.  Also, a Jacksonville and an Orlando team?  The markets are really close to each other.

Here’s to hoping that the UFL turns out to be a successful venture.  Less than a year ago, I was sitting at a table outside of a panel at the 2008 Princeton Sports Law Symposium when someone yelled that the AFL was going to be suspending its 2009 season.  After quickly verifying that rumor, I was in shock.  Sure, the economy was hurting, but how could a league with strong friends in ESPN, NBC, and other large corporations be that bad off?  A year off, and maybe the league would rebound, and once again serve as a place for players on the cusp of breaking into the NFL to show their skills.  Looks like that won’t be happening.

Facebook is on a tear (it’s the fourth largest site on the web now).  Your mom uses it, your dad uses it, your dog has its own Fan Page, and Presidents/COOs of professional football teams are updating their statuses with breaking news on it.  Apparently, the first word that the AFL will diesband came from Jim Borghesi of the Tampa Bay Storm.  It is disbanding and declaring bankruptcy (sorry for you crditors with outstanding debts).

All along, there seems to have been two factions within AFL ownership: Owners willing to spend the money to keep the league afloat and a group who wanted to cut their losses and end the show.  Will the first group stay in the business of football?  Will they invest in a new start-up league?  Will it be the UFL?

Here is a clip of my boy Darren Rovell discussing this matter in depth:

The AFL2, which is a peg below the Arena Football League (AFL), has been playing out its 2009 season while the AFL scrapped its season due to financial issues.  Just last week, the AFL2 had a big announcement that its championship game will be held at the Las Vegas Orleans Arena.  The AFL2 is busy publishing press releases about securing deals, and the AFL is having its name dragged in the mud.  Things are not looking so good for the league that is supposed to be one step up (in talent and payment) from the AFL2.

At the end of May, the AFL seemed to be situated nicely.  Reports that Lynn Swann was behind a Pittsburgh expansion team and that the league expected growth over the next five years (to 24 total teams) seemed very promising for the AFL.  When I read this sentence in ProFootballTalk.com, I no longer felt all that confident:

[Chicago] Rush owner Alan Levin says time has already run out for the league to return next season because there are no players allocated.  Most coaching staffs, although not all, have disbanded.

The AFL already scrapped the 2009 season.  If it does not return for 2010, then I find it hard to believe that it will ever come back in its 2008 form.  This may aid the UFL’s growth, but will continue to leave many football players who wish to play professional ball, out of a job in 2010 and beyond.

In December 2008, the Arena Football League canceled its 2009 AFL season with the intention of reviving the league for the start of a 2010 season.  Since then, Commissioner Ed Policy relinquished his position, but stated that the position of Commissioner will be abolished as a whole in favor of appointing a new person in a new role of CEO.  The AFL apparently remains in business, and wants to be viewed as a business by using a term like CEO over Commissioner.  In fact, a tentative agreement has been struck on a revised four-year Collective Bargaining Agreement.

The deal reportedly reduces costs — including salaries — and helps lend financial stability to the league. And the AFL was also said to be exploring a less-costly centralized business operation model.

“Players are making economic concessions now in return for a share of expected increases in the league’s value and revenue, because the players believe in the future of the AFL,” Richard Berthelsen, AFL Players’ Association acting executive director, said in a statement.

At the same time, this paragraph should worry those who expect the AFL will be coming back soon:

Moreover, the suspension forced teams to lay off nearly all support staff — including ticket and sponsorship sales, media relations, finance and marketing personnel and even people who answer the phones. Most Web sites are now dormant and one team — the Georgia Force — lost control of its URL (georgiaforce.com).

March 2010 is less than a month year away.  Will teams be able to basically build their infrastructures over again from scratch, pay players their salaries, and generate ticket sales in time?  Major League Baseball was able to come back from a partially scrapped season in 1994.  But Arena Football isn’t Major League Baseball..

If the 2009 season is scrapped, many football players will be left without a job.  NFL Europe no longer exists, the AAFL was a waste of my excitement, and there are a couple of new leagues in development (see: United National Gridiron League and United Football League).  Let’s also not forget about the Canadian Football League.  Our brothers to the north are secretly excited that the AFL is having financial troubles.  Three-to-five players per AFL team may strike a CFL GM’s interest.  The transition would be seemless.  Salaries are very similar in value and Canada is close enough to home (it’s not like playing in Germany).

“There are agents who refuse to send their players to Canada. They may not have a choice any more.” – Jim Popp, GM of Montreal.

There is one positive AFL note to report, though.  The arenafootball2 league, the official development league of the AFL (which is largely considered a development league for the NFL since NFL Europe collapsed), will have a 2009 season as planned.

The Denver Post has set a deadline of December 19.  If the AFL does not secure financing by that time, the paper says there is a strong chance that the AFL exists no longer.  The one thing that is certain is that there is a lot of uncertainty…among players, coaches, fans, and front office executives.  At least one team will not be putting on pads this season (if there is a season).  The New Orleans VooDoo called it quits in October.  No one knows what is going on, but if The Denver Post is right on its statement of Dec. 19, then we should all find out soon enough.

Sponsors purchase the right to align their product(s) with sport through a variety of mediums such as events, venues, teams and individual sportsmen and women. With the ever-increasing commercialization of sport, many stakeholders (political, sporting, enthusiasts and bystanders) have analyzed the extent to which sponsorship has had an impact on the sport concerned, and whether that impact has been beneficial or detrimental.

Positives

The sponsor that has successfully acquired the rights to an event, venue, team or athlete should inevitably reap such benefits as enhanced brand awareness and increased sales (as appropriate). There will normally be a corporate hospitality entitlement. Team sponsors will usually benefit from the loyalty of that team’s supporters, who will be drawn towards a variety of merchandising opportunities. Sponsorship of athletes will normally involve the athlete promoting the product in some way, such as wearing the product if applicable, making personal appearances during which attention is drawn to the ‘brand’ or even being the new ‘face’ of the product (thereby providing invaluable endorsement).

The sums of money received by teams, venues and event organizers often means that ticket prices are indirectly subsidized, with the supporter/observer finding his/her ability to attend an event more affordable as a result. Some scholars have even suggested that there is a near-direct inverse correlation between the intensity of sponsorship in sport and ticket prices. An increase in the former can and does lead to a decrease in the latter.

Sponsorship can also help to ensure the financial well-being of both organizers and teams, many of whom might struggle to prosper with only ticket sales and own brand merchandise as their primary sources of income.

Negatives

One concern is that sponsorship (and the commercialization of sport in general), and the vast sums of money that this brings, has meant that administrators of sport have not given due respect to its core values. Implicit in this is that the needs of loyal fans have sometimes been sidelined as secondary to the achievement of commercial objectives.

By way of illustration, consider ticket allocations given to the clubs participating in the UEFA Champions League (soccer) Final in 2007. This game was held at the Olympic Stadium in Athens, which has a capacity of 71,030. However, the two finalists were each given just 17,000 tickets, meaning that 37,030 tickets (52% of the stadium’s capacity) were given to sponsors of UEFA, or other recipients such as the Greek authorities.

With over half the stadium consisting of non-supporters, it is no surprise that issues have arisen subsequently. Many true supporters traveled without tickets, and forced their way into the stadium. As a result, people holding valid tickets were locked out due to capacity restrictions. It goes without saying that security at the event may have been seriously compromised with the potential for major crowd incidents.

For huge numbers of people, sport provides a lifeline, a passion, something to look forward to on a regular and frequent basis. It provides opportunities for socializing and being part of a community. The increasing part that sponsorship has to play in sport has, however, led to changes that have had differing impact for different stakeholder groups. On the one hand it is possible to praise the impact sponsorship has on sport – for example, many supporters are now able to afford ticket prices which are lower than they would otherwise be without the financial boost that sponsors provide to event organizers, venue owners and teams. On the other however, many fans are prevented from actively supporting their team because sponsors take a significant and substantial proportion of available tickets as a legitimate part of their sponsorship deal.

In this brief article I have only really touched the surface of what for many, is an increasingly worrying situation. Having considered the relationship between sponsorship and ticket prices it would seem we might unfortunately be in an ever-increasing ‘catch-22’ situation.

Does anyone have a solution?

I hope you all had a great Christmas, and have a happy new year. JAT

Year-round football on Monday nights…just another way that the World Wide Leader in Sports is trying to take over the world. At the same time, this deal should bring even more prestige to a league that has been growing as of late (NBC coverage, EA Sports video game, etc) and will benefit players who cannot quite make it in the NFL. Deadspin pokes some fun at the ESPN purchase, but I think that this may be even better long-term than short-term for the AFL. The AFL has lingered around as Minor League Football for a while on a certain type of speed that did not come close to the XFL. ESPN may give the league even more legitimacy and further establish the AFL as something that will not disappear anytime soon.

For more information on the Arena Football league, check out a post I made on May 16, 2006: [Football Client not Ready for the NFL?].

Maybe ESPN will get lucky enough to catch another ref getting hit in the “wind mid-section” [YouTube - Arena Football: Ref gets taken down during TD celebration].

-Darren Heitner

Players and coaches will be employed by the league, not the teams. This means that salaries will be under strict control. Players will earn about $100,000 a season, as much as triple what players in the Arena Football League make. This fact may allow the AAFL to become a viable alternative to Arena Football and the Canadian Football League. The league could allow potential NFL players a league to practice their skills before taking it to the next level. Graduation from college is a prerequisite of playing in the league.

The All American Football League has a website, and it even contains a blog where visitors can have an influence on league rules!

Not a bad place for your football clients who cannot make it into the NFL straight out of college to start their careers.

[tags]aafl, all american football league, football, nfl, afl, arena football[/tags]

One viable option for many years now is to send football players to NFL Europe. Another arena (pun intended) is the Arena Football League (AFL), which will be the option discussed in today’s post.

Some interesting notes that I made while reviewing the AFL’s Collective Bargaining Agreement:

• The AFLPA (players association) does not have an agent regulation system in place, but in the case that it does in the future, teams may not sign a player contract negotiated by an agent that is not certified by the AFLPA (Article VI)
• The term of a player contract, plus the term of any option to extend such a contract, may not exceed 3 league years (Section 11 of Article XIV)
• In 2006, the minimum player salary will be $1647 per game with a slight increase in future years (Section 1 of Article XXX)

The entire Collective Bargaining Agreement may be found here. The money is substantially less for players in the Arena Football League, but not everyone can make it into the NFL right out of college and sometimes players fall out of the NFL due to a lackluster performance. As an agent, it is likely that you may represent at least one client who will find himself in the AFL. It is important to be knowledgable in all areas where your clients may end up performing.

[tags]afl, arena football, nfl, sports agent[/tags]