How much does it cost to own an APFL team?

[Indoorfootballguy]

Just Wondering

[rams80]

Simple rule:

If you have to ask you don't have enough.

[Indoorfootballguy]

Could you please tell me, I don't want to own a team. I just want to know how much.

[nksports]

Player payroll $28,800 (12 games x $100 game x 24 players)
Staff payroll roughly $50,000 to $75,0000
Arena rent roughly $21,000 (although depending on the arena, it could be anywhere up to two or three times that, I used 6 games at $3,500, which is on the cheap end).
Equipment around $20,000
Turf about $22,000 (if the ad I just saw from some firm saying $1.25 a square foot is believable)
Travel (using charter buses, which run about $1,500 a day at the low end before milage) $9,000
Feeding your team on road, roughly $4,500
Office space ($1,000 a month, we're on the cheap here) $12,000
Utilities about $24,000
Taxes ?????
Insurance (including liability, major medical, workman's comp, payroll, auto if you are just renting vans for travel or have company owned vehicles) ????
(there are those out there who know more about those expenses than I do. I just know they exist)
Office equipment ?????
Marketing ?????
Dance team (get an advertiser to sponsor it)
Trainer and team doctor ??????

That's $215,000 for the items where I have some idea the cost, so for grins and giggles, let's add $150,000 for a guess on what all the other items cost.
That's $365,000.

For a 12-game season, that's six home dates, you'd have to draw about 6,000 fans at $10 a ticket to break even. If you average 3,000 a game at $10 a game, you'd have to come up with $180,000 in promotions and advertising to hit break even.

(So how does Springfield, Mo., with an arena capacity of about 1,500, make it? I know they don't pay their players.)

But it should sober up those when a CG comes along with their peculiar brand of Kool Aide.

[exit322]

Springfield's budget wasn't anywhere near $200K if my numbers are right.

[tony-o]

The costs mentioned by nksports seem correct to me. But those are costs for any indoor league, and turf is a one-time cost. Not to mention that in the APFL you can opt not to pay your players(i.e. Springfield). Also, I don't know the specific numbers but I believe franchise fees, if there are any, is significantly less in the APFL in comparison to other leagues. The APFL is the most cost-friendly league around, but is also one of the least structured.

While nksports focused on the costs, he didn't really show the ways you can make money. Merchandising can help relieve some of the costs, but teams really shouldn't rely on that as a source of income. Marketing should probably be somewhat heavy in the first season, but after that newspaper articles and merchandise can act as free marketing afterwards(Of course, you would still need to market some. I still see Columbus Cottonmouths hockey billboards and they've been around for more than a decade!).

Indoor football is not a very profitable venture and is probably just a "hobby" for most owners. However I can imagine that if a team remains popular over a long period of time it can eventually become somewhat profitable.