The Arena Football Legue begins to rebuild

I think the new owners of the once defunct Arena Football League have done a masterful job of rebuilding this sport and their league. Arena Football has a place in the lexicon of American Football, and it surely has a pretty large market of fans. How large that market actually is may be open for debate, but by playing a spring to summer schedule and having games each week broadcasted on the NFL Network that market is surly growing in numbers. Now for 2011 the league is looking to expand and bring back some of Arena Football’s most storied teams.

Of course we have been here before, a new league has a touch of success and they are off to the races via expansion. I would caution the folks at the AFL to expand slowly. It seems very likely that AFL Commissioner Jerry Kurz will announce during halftime of Orlando Predators and Jacksonville Sharks that the league will grow by at least three teams in 2011.

The teams to be added seem to be the Philadelphia Soul, Kansas City Brigade, and the San Jose Sabercats. Of course there are all teams that were once proud members of the Arena League, and their inclusion would bring the number of teams to 18. For year two of a restructured league, 18 teams sounds like enough. I sincerly hope this league and its leaders have learned the lessons of other leagues, careful slow expansion is always the best policy. This insures that no teams fall though the cracks.

The big loss in all of this seems to be the once celebrated list of celebrity ownership in the arena league. The Soul were once had Jon Bon Jovi has a minority owner (he is unlikely to return), and the Colorado Crush (whose future is yet to be determined) were once owned by John Elway. For the time being it seems that Ron Jaworski will be one the league most famous team owners (he remains a part of the Soul ownership group).

Related Links:

• The Business of Arena Football
• MTR Football.com