Well. They're down to 8

The Arena Football League (AFL) forum
nksports
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Post by nksports » Fri Oct 14, 2016 5:01 am

[quote=""Scottmoney""]I read today that the Orlando predators, one of the premier franchises, has suspended operations. This move ends the best rivalry the afl had in 30 years. The war on i-4 was the fuel of this league for a long time.[/quote]

I remember when they bought most of the original IFL to help form the af2.

nksports
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Post by nksports » Fri Oct 14, 2016 5:26 am

[quote=""Orders""]What is the "rattling" sound I hear over at the IFL? Seems they are celebrating their new status as the king of all Indoor Football Leagues. It appears the smart teams know where to go to turn a profit.[/quote]

Trust me. No one is profiting in the IFL, the CIF or any other league.
They are breaking even at best or providing some owners with a tax deduction with controlled losses.
Even in the IFL there are teams bleeding cash. This is an expensive business. Payroll may be lower in these leagues, but you are still paying anywhere from $3,000 to 10,000 per game in rent to your arena. Some of these venues will throw in practice time for that. Some won't, forcing you to contract with the local indoor soccer center for practice time.
Most of these teams travel by bus, which can cost upwards of $3,500 for a trip under 200 miles.
Then you have to pay for various forms of insurance. Indoor football has very high injury rates. Because of that, in some states, the workman's comp premiums for an indoor football team often exceeds the cost of player payroll by a large margin (one of the reasons there are so few teams in California and New York, which have the highest rates). Some owners have tried to skimp on that (See Sioux Falls a few years ago). If you have a player get hurt and you skimp on that, your financial liability could leave you high and dry.
The sales staff is usually commission, but you have to pay for several coaches, a trainer (usually contracted through a sports medicine group these days), a team physician (also contracted through a group), a GM, office space, utilities plus your own marketing costs, not limited to advertising and promotion costs. Depending on your venue, you may have to pay a high commission per ticket to a ticketing service such as Ticketmaster.
The AFL operates at a higher level, so their costs are much higher.
Some fan boy types may take the AFL's woes as a chance to gloat, but it really isn't. The other indoor leagues may limp along, but when a sport is hurt at it's highest level, the distress often finds its way down to the lower levels.

suge night
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Post by suge night » Fri Oct 14, 2016 3:57 pm

Very well stated, NKSports there are many who don't consider these vital cost factors when considering these indoor leagues, I recently had a conversation with a commissioner of a league. His selling point on becoming a franchisee of this league he sold everything but just how a team joining the league was a solid business decision, while independent baseball teams cost in excess of $800,000 to operate for a season with all that being a loss, while an indoor football team is around $200,000 on the high side being a loss, with most teams drawing less than 2,000 fans a game. Also consider this the fee in independent baseball yearly is around $100,000 almost or more than the line of credit in indoor football to simply enter the league.

There are no winner's the fall of the AFL will trickle down the IFL map doesn't make sense with only one Texas team, can you imagine the cost loss of that team with travel, making the question how long can they do that? The CIF folded a team move to a new area where it won't take long for them to become insolvent and has a team that was just in its marque game struggling to make payroll during the season, these and more are things going on in these leagues that the average fan doesn't think is possible but is the reality of indoor football as it currently is designed.
Last edited by suge night on Fri Oct 14, 2016 4:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.

crixus
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Post by crixus » Tue Oct 18, 2016 4:08 am

The AFL is down to only 4 teams now. The Fry Bros. who owned the San Jose SaberCats were right, Butera is a terrible Commish.

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