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Outlaws to Suspend Operations

October 7, 2010 - Indoor Football League (IFL)
Billings Outlaws News Release


The ownership group of Montana Professional Sports announced today that the team will cease operations immediately.

"This unfortunate decision was made after our best faith efforts to work with the County Commissioners failed to provide the minimum considerations necessary for us to continue operations and to recover from the property losses sustained at the Metra from the recent tornado." stated Mike Parnell, Co-owner of the professional indoor football team. "When we purchased new turf and dasher pads 5 yrs ago at the Metra's request the the County waived the ticket tax fee to help us subsidize about one third of the out-of-pocket expenses we incurred to obtain turf and pads that met the safety requirements. We asked for this same consideration on Monday and thought we were on the same page but the Commissioners countered with an offer Tuesday to split the tax value. This ticket tax- financial consideration was to help subsidize, not replace the items lost at the Metra after our June 19th game as the true hard costs for these items is over $160,000.00 before we ever were to play our 1st game".

"This was already a significant obstacle for us" stated Adam Steadman, GM for the team "but since the arena would not be ready for us for our first 4-5 games we would have had an additional $60,000.00 in player payroll, workers compensation and away game travel, meals and per diem before we would have realized our first income opportunity from our first home game gate sometime in April. Although we would have started the season at a significant deficit, we developed a plan to overcome these obstacles and decided to move forward. The last piece of the puzzle was this request that we presented to the county commissioners. With the support of the commissioners, we would be playing in 2011. On Monday, we advised the commissioners that this $42,000 improvement fee credit was crucial to the continued operation of this organization. I'm deeply saddened by their decision."

"Our fans and our Corporate partners over the last 5 years have been fantastic!" stated Parnell "and we have had unbelievable success the last 5 years. Our little enterprise had grown to include 9 full time employees and a year-round presence in the community. The Outlaws have played 93 indoor football games at the Metra over the last 10 years and in the last 5 years have won 3 National Championships and have competed in 5 Conference Championships.

"This has become a family for us and over the years I have been blessed and very grateful for the relationships I have had with most of our players and coaches and staff. Every employee and volunteer here is extremely passionate about the Outlaws so it hurts to realize that the Outlaws have played their last game." Stated Parnell.

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The opinions expressed in this release are those of the organization issuing it, and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts or opinions of OurSports Central or its staff.

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