My AFL Crystal Ball

I thought I’d take a minute before this inaugural Valor season starts to examine where the AFL is heading, and where I hope it goes from 2017 to 2018 and beyond. If you have not been following what happened with the Arena Football League in the news, this was not a great off season for the league.  The AFL continued to have instability, something that’s plagued the league since the economic collapse of 2007. At one point the AFL had 19 teams all across the country, major TV deals, and celebrity owners.  It fell apart, and some would say that this off season is probably the worst since the league had to suspend its 2009 season and file for bankruptcy.   The 8 team league lost teams in Los Angeles, Arizona, Portland, Orlando, and Jacksonville.  If it had not been for Ted Leonsis adding the Valor and Baltimore Brigade, the AFL might not exist.

Local fans know Leonsis is one of the smartest owners in sports. He has a clear vision of the potential for the Arena Football League.  I firmly believe that going forward Ted’s going to forge the path for other AFL teams on how to operate a successful franchise.  No more slapdash expansion, but careful consideration of future ownership.   The first key to this is going to be obvious: they need to ensure that new AFL owners in the AFL are already NBA or NHL owners. That way, they come into the AFL with that experienced hand, already having stadiums either as owners or the needed deals in place with a stadium.  The other idea Leonsis brought to the table was 1 owner having 2 franchises. This also seems like something that the league will possibly expand upon. Word is already out about next year’s expansion: the AFL is talking with the owners of the New Jersey Devils and there reportedly is interest in the Devils having a 2nd team in Albany, New York. The Tampa Storm’s ownership is apparently looking to bring back a local rival team in Orlando1.  It seems like common sense when you think about it – renting stadiums is expensive and complex, and if you’ve followed other leagues this tends to be a huge obstacle in many teams getting off the ground. Likewise with owners potentially having two teams near each other, you have the ability to create local rivalries, and potentially cut down on some of the expenses for each franchise.

You know I’m all in on the Valor and the Arena League. I have been a sucker for Spring and Summer football leagues for as long as I’ve been into sports. I hope that the AFL is able to get back up to 8 teams next season. I think that the league will find itself back on stable ground with those three additions. The AFL has been running for three decades now, and hopefully this is when we will finally see someone develop an ownership model that is stable and can be replicated. Fans often forget that if you go back and look at the history of the NFL, you will see similar instability in their first 30 years.  They lost more than 2 dozen franchises, with many lasting only a season or two before folding, and you can see the same thing with every major league sport.  Similarly, with many sports, there always seems an urge for one’s footprint to cover the entire United States right away. Oftentimes leagues seem to do this too quickly, and that leads to some serious problems.  Keeping the core of a league close together, with cities that have natural historic rivalries in other sports, is key to building a league’s foundation. Not to mention, putting your team on a bus for a few hours is going to be much cheaper than flying across the country.  We have seen so many sports leagues and franchises collapse due too those same mistakes over and over again, but the Arena League has been able to endure in the past and move forward.

They need to avoid those pitfalls in the future. I think there are a few keys for sustainability of the AFL. First, make sure expansion is slow and deliberate. Second, keep finding NHL and NBA owners who want to be a part of the league. Third, allow for one owner to have more than one franchise if they so choose. Once the league can grow to 10-12 team, then take a break for a while. Show that the AFL can be financially successful at that size.   Keep the expansion focused on Eastern U.S., making sure that every team in the league has one if not several nearby teams, both for the practical purposes of lower travel costs & for rivalries to develop.  If the Arena League can do those things, then the foundation will be back in place.

-By Alex Zeese

1 http://www.timesunion.com/sports/article/Times-Union-Center-eyeing-return-of-Arena-10999070.php