Indoor Football is VALID!. AF2 Confirms it..

[vee]

To All The Bickering Between Af2 And Indoor Football, Indoor Football Is Very Much A Valid Brand, Let Me Back My Statement By Reiterating The Following Facts.

1) Af2 Was Created A Year After The First Ipfl Started, The Whole Small Market Brand Of Indoor Football Was Started From The Indoor League, Arena Football Took Notice And Created Their Spin Off Version Called Af2 The Following Year, Now Of Course With The Arena League Aleady In Place, Naturally Thats Gonna Validify Af2, But If You Look At The Concept, Indoor Football Was Its Own Brand With Its Own Idea Of Hitting The Smaller Markets That Arena Football Didnt Cater.

2) If Indoor Football Was Such A Joke, Why Did The Orlando Predators Of Arena 1 Purchase The Indoor Football League From Kerry Ecklund In 2000? Its Teams Than Went On To Make Majority Of The Expansions In Af2 In 2001.

3) I Played Indoor Football In 2000 When We Were Getting Flack About Our Type Of Ball, Truth To The Matter Is, Not Every Team Is Ran The Same, And Some Teams Have More Financial Backing And Community Support, To Maintain A Higher Level Of Standard, But Given That There Are Only So Many Spots On Arena 1, Indoor Football Was Created As Its Own Product, And We Were Not A Level Below Af2, Our Billings Team In 2ooo Coulda Went Head Up With Any One Of Those Af2 Cats, Just Because You Got The Arena League At Your Front Door, Dont Make You A Better Brand, We Were Our Own Arean 1, We Had Our Own Concept (smaller Markets) And We Were Tied In With The Cfl, We Had Our Own Thing Going, Its When People Try To Compare Indoor Footbal To The Arean League, Is Where Indoor Football Seems To Be Looked Down Upon, If We Had Upn, Or Another Tv Backer, I Bet Peoples Perception Of Our Brand Of Ball Would Definitely Change Drastically.

Indoor Football Gave Me An Opportunity To Play And Experience Football On A Higher Level, As It Did Many Other Players. And For People To Bash It Like Its Backyard Football Is Totally Disrespectful To Those Who Laid The Foundation, The Teams That Was And Still In It For The Long Haul. Take It For What Its Worth, Were Not A Lower Level League, How Can That Be, When Its Our Concept, Were Not Trying To Be The Arena League, Therefor In That Right Were Our Own Indoor 1, And The Rest Of The Leagues Should Be Indoor 2. Now Everybody And Their Mama Wanna Create An Indoor League, Its Things Like This That Discredits The Brand.

Thats My 2 Cents

[Tatonka]

OK, there might be a point in there somewhere, but hell if I can find it amidst all 9 sentences and Every Word Capitalized Making It Too Hard To Read.

[Geoff]

Please coorect punctuation, spelling, and thecorrect names for things. It's af2 (no caps) and IPFL.

As a rebuttal, it is not discrediting the brand when people start their of leagues based off of the same thing, it's growing the sport. It's people like Shiver and Haines and the crap that they do that discredits the brand.

What About You? I Find It Really Annoying To Capitalized Every Word. Seriously, It's Extremely Annoying.

[Jamie]

Why are you even arguing this?

No thinking person disputes your points (whatever they are). The whole arena vs. indoor division is a false argument.

Neither version of the sport is inherently better. They are only as good as their management.

[PIONEERSFAN101]

In emails with Jerry Kurz, he has referred to indoor leagues as "immitation leagues" and has called them "anklebiters" so make of that what you will.

[Jamie]

That is an apt description of many indoor football teams. I can see why, from his perspective, they appear that way.

My point is, only indoor football fans/players/owners with an inferiority complex are worried about who thinks their sport is "valid"

[Billy5]

a point but I could not follow everything you wrote. You used too many big fancy college words, like gymnasium and mayonnaise, for me to understand.


"Thats Gonna Validify Af2, But If You Look At The Concept"

[vee]

Copcat Leagues dont help at all, they give a vision of commonality, like every Joe Blow with some cash to burn, can start up his own league, you dont see everyone doing that with the Arena league do you? Theres no Great Lakes Arena Football League, National Arena Football League, so why is everyone trying to do that with Indoor, come up with your own concept and names, and most of all, brand and product. Its not to hard to see why NOW, that the af2 looks at indoor as a joke, but when we were under Ecklund, we would have been headed for a great success, had he not sold the league, we had Kellen Winslow as our League VP? We had the right ties, and we grew, and became strong, in only 2 years...af2 saw us as a threat, and before we could return for our 3rd year, they made kerry an offer he couldnt resist. Carolyn Shiver is no Kerry Ecklund, obviously, her business plans were not in tact. She didnt run it as tight as we did in the IFL.

[Jamie]

You don't see other "arena" leagues, because "arena football" is a patented game system and trademark.

[Pounder]

If people are drawn by watching AFL on TV, they MAY have questions about indoor given the different game system. Thing is, the ratings for AFL don't indicate a lot of viewers.

To me, this means that most people don't give a rat's posterior about the differing game systems. They wouldn't know the difference.

Therefore, as the Boise af2 outfit was semi-officially announced yesterday, the media is focused on trying to "prove" that this venture won't be like the IPFL version... concerns mostly attributable to the previous ownership and FO. In short, with a lot of upset unpaid entrepreneurs out there, even af2 has an uphill battle here.

[Bill]

To All The Bickering Between Af2 And Indoor Football, Indoor Football Is Very Much A Valid Brand, Let Me Back My Statement By Reiterating The Following Facts.



2) If Indoor Football Was Such A Joke, Why Did The Orlando Predators Of Arena 1 Purchase The Indoor Football League From Kerry Ecklund In 2000? Its Teams Than Went On To Make Majority Of The Expansions In Af2 In 2001.



Actually... While the Predators bought out the rights to the Wichita's, Peoria's, and Lincoln's of the IFL... They also bought the Billings, Bismarcks, Black Hills (Rapid City), Casper, Dayton, Erie , Fargo, Flint, Topeka etc etc etc... The old IFL was not the majority of expansion teams in AF2... Very few of the old IFL teams ever played AF2... Other than Wichita, Peoria, and Lincoln... Who else played IFL and AF2 other than Green Bay.. What real connection does the Green Bay Blizzard have to the old Green Bay Bombers?

[preeths]

No connection. The Blizzard didn't come in until years later and play in a new arena. af2 set up shop in those three IFL markets and could have in the rest. They either could not find ownership or the markets/arenas were too small.

[vee]

You dont get my point, even if those teams didnt operate, the predators purchased their rights so they could control it, and ensure no other league would purchase their rights to operate, because they wanted to be in control. So what if they never ever stepped on the field or played another game, they we purchased by the Orlando Predators, which is Arena 1. There might not have been no connection with the bombers and the blizzards, but the fact still remains, obviously Indoor Football did meant something or had some sort of significant, because the Predators purchased the IFL. Point made.

[Bill]

You dont get my point, even if those teams didnt operate, the predators purchased their rights so they could control it, and ensure no other league would purchase their rights to operate, because they wanted to be in control. So what if they never ever stepped on the field or played another game, they we purchased by the Orlando Predators, which is Arena 1. There might not have been no connection with the bombers and the blizzards, but the fact still remains, obviously Indoor Football did meant something or had some sort of significant, because the Predators purchased the IFL. Point made.

OK... I guess I missed the part where people were dogging the old IFL...
After the last several years of watching teams burn bridge after bridge with fans all over the place, I guess you "might" look back at the IFL as the good ole days where all the teams played all their games.. Course.. If I remember right, Eckland left unpaid bills all over the midwest. That doesn't leave a good taste in peoples mouths either.. I WAS a fan of the old IFL (Warlords/Knights). But if given another chance, I doubt the Predators organization would do it all over again. The vast majority of people have no idea what the difference is between "arena" and "indoor".. nor do they care. Give most fans a team that's going to stick around, opponents that show up for every game, and they couldn't care less what league it is.

[preeths]

Look at what's happened. OPE (the Preds) bought the league for Peoria, Wichita and Lincoln. Which of those markets still have af2 teams? Whatever their aims, I don't think it was worth it.

[vee]

At some point, it was about the teams, but from a business standpoint, long term, it was for controlling purposes. They purchased it so the IFL didnt expand and became a vital competitor. Ecklund didnt leave unpaid bills all over the midwest. George Lemon and his Topeka Knights team left unpad bills and a bad taste in peoples mouths in Kansas. That had nothing to do with league, again that was ownership. The NIFL, need to organize a better structure and close deals with ownership groups who are stable to sustain it for the long haul, and not groups who dip out halfway through the season as soon as attendance drops. Scare money dont make money, than again, not working to retrieve your investment (promotions, etc) dont make no sense neither. Ecklund developed a system that proved vital for majority of the markets he expanded to in 2000. Billings, Casper, Sioux City, Rapid City were all succeessful markets with good ownerships. Hopefully this new PIFL will revive the Indoor Football originality, but I get the feeling that Carolyn Shiver is behind this as well, because why would the NIFL's Indoor Bowl site (www.indoorbowl.com) promote a banner of the PIFL, whom would be a competitor, unless they had something in common, a venture, or a sale, etc. Thats like saying the ARENA LEAGUE PUTTING THE NIFL BANNER ON THEIR SITE? any insights?

[fwp]

The Indoor Bowl site is not controlled by the NIFL, trust me. Jerry, who used to be the NIFL's media director started the site for fans to have a place to talk, since the league didn't want a board. A site that the league has no control over, so fans could share what was going on. Little did everyone know that this season would turn out so badly in the NIFL, some wondered, but most hoped that lessons had been learned.

Indoor football should be successful, it should be more successful than the exhibition called arena. The PIFL was born out of the frustration from people that love the game and know it can and should work and flourish.

I guarantee that Carolyn Shiver has absolutely nothing to do with the PIFL.

[yellowpages]

There is absolutely no involvement of the NIFL or Carolyn Shiver in the PIFL.

None! Nada!

[nksports]

Look at what's happened. OPE (the Preds) bought the league for Peoria, Wichita and Lincoln. Which of those markets still have af2 teams? Whatever their aims, I don't think it was worth it.

And those were the strongest markets at the time of the buyout.

[vee]

Well its not good marketing to have a BRAND NEW league advertised alongside a league thats in turmoil, that has bad rumors circulating around it, and most of all, having a PIFL promo banner on a site that has the NIFL platered everywhere. They say all promotions (good or bad) is good promotions, but when people misconceive the promotions, thats where it can causes problems. Any new leagues out there, that is stable, and want to hire someone as a consultant from a professional and experienced standpoint, shoot me an email: executivepromotions@hotmail.com

Id like to see the PIFL succeed where the IFL left off, and see how much of a positive impact the INDOOR game can have, and see how far we can take it, national tv is far fetched, but not if you have a stable, and marketable product.

[yellowpages]

There is a huge difference between the PIFL and the NIFL. The site is owned by the same gentleman that is starting the PIFL. I can understand the misconception but, it simply is not the truth. It was predominately an NIFL messageboard. It is my understanding that the sight will switch over to a PIFL message board in due time plus, allow for other league's to be discussed as well. What I'm hearing is that the PIFL is standing on its own in regard to interest and preception.

[vee]

Regardless Of The Af2 Seeing The Indoor As Lower Level, The Arena 1 Teams Is Still Scouting Indoor Players From All Indoor Teams, Alot Of Times, Players Opt To Stay Closer To Home, Because After All The Pay Scale Is The Same, Which Another Thing The Af2 Did To Compete With The Indoor Game, They Saw The Indoor League Paying Players $200, Than They Started Paying Their Players $200 A Game, Bottom Line Is The Indoor Game, Gave The Arena 2 League A Gauge Of How To Start Theyre League, Pay Scale, Smaller Markets, But Yet They Wanna Sit On Their High Horse And Look Down Upon Indoor Football And Call It A Gimmick, They Only Exist Because Arena 1 Validates Their Existance, Where As The Indoor Leagues Stand On Their Own Two Feet, Even Though Sometimes, One Foot Might Have A Sprained Ankle, We Still Stand Tall And True Next To The Product We Created.

[DestroyersFan]

There's a big difference between a sprained ankle and a ruptured spine.

[Sykotyk]

The AFL wanted to start a feeder system at about the same time the original PIFL was created (who changed their name to IPFL a year later). There were very few 'true' AF2 teams, most of which stuck around. The AF2 merged with the ECHL-owner led XFL (not the Vince McMahon version) which had teams in ECHL markets. And most of those teams no longer exist.

Sykotyk

[vee]

CORRECTION, THE INDOOR LEAGUE STARTED, 1 YEAR PRIOR TO THE arena 2, THE XFL, WAS ABOUT TO START THEIR OWN INDOOR LEAGUE THE YEAR AFTER, BUT THE AF2 CAME IN AND MERGED THEM OUT OF EXISTANCE. HALFWAY THROUGH THE FIRST PIFL SEASON, KERRY ECKLUND TOOK HIS TEAMS AND CREATED THE IFL, SO BOTH THE IFL AND PIFL WAS FOUNDED IN 1998, PLAYED IN 1999. THAN THE IFL EXPANDED TO LIKE 20 CITIES IN 2000, WHICH WAS ARENA 2S FIRST SEASON.

[fbjunky]

Actually, that isn't fully correct either. The PIFL played their first season in 1997, and the IFL was formed and played their first season in 1998. The IFL was purchased by OPE in 2000 and the NIFL was formed and played their first season that same year.

[preeths]

Okay, here's an early unveiling even though the site is far from complete:
http://www.oursportscentral.com/footballhistory/

This should help with some of the dates.

[vee]

Is Jerry Kurz email addie still: jkurz@af2.com?

[Bill]

Actually, that isn't fully correct either. The PIFL played their first season in 1997, and the IFL was formed and played their first season in 1998. The IFL was purchased by OPE in 2000 and the NIFL was formed and played their first season that same year.

YEP!

Just off the top of my head I know the Green Bay Bombers jumped into the IFL from the IPFL/PIFL (whatever it was when they were a member).. And I believe the Madison Mad Dogs as well...