Sports stats



af2 arenafootball2

Arena Football: A good fit for Tacoma, Dome?

by Bruce Baskin
June 14, 2006 - arenafootball2 (af2)


It's impossible to spend any time in Tacoma without noticing the ongoing debate regarding the fate of the Tacoma Dome, the city's 22-year-old indoor stadium that is capable of seating well, over 20,000 people for an event under the world's largest wooden roof. Completed in 1984, the Tacoma Dome has hosted everything from pro basketball and hockey to monster trucks and motocross racing to trade shows and concerts. Billy Graham has hosted a revival in the Dome, the Seattle Supersonics have spent time there, and some of the most popular musical acts have performed under its roof. The Dome is still home for Washington state prep football, basketball and wrestling championship tournaments, and the facility continues to be used for any number of events throughout the year. It is perhaps the most-versatile venue of its kind in the Northwest.

However, there has been much talk about what to do with the Tacoma Dome. At one time, members of the Tacoma City Council were pushing an agenda that called for reconfiguring the seating into a more traditional arena bowl. Thankfully, the one thing that makes the Dome unique in Western Washington was preserved when that effort was scrapped. Had the councilors succeeded, the T-Dome would have become little more than Key Arena Lite, further pushing the City of Destiny in the shadows of its big brother to the north. Still, there seems to be little question that the Tacoma Dome is beginning to show its age, and that some renovations are due. Among the more ridiculous solutions put forth is one suggesting the Dome be converted into a museum for the Harold LeMay automobile collection, but before anything is resolved, it should be determined how the Dome will be used in the future.

One of the stated reasons for building the Tacoma Dome in the first place was that it would serve as a showcase for sports. Boosters said the Dome could house local college and high school athletics on a regular basis, not to mention professional sports. While the Tacoma Dome was briefly used as a venue for the annual Pacific Lutheran-Puget Sound college football game every fall and has housed pro indoor soccer as well as both minor league and junior hockey and (for a brief time) Sonics NBA basketball, it does not presently have an anchor tenant among sports teams. And that can be a problem.

Any public entertainment facility will have a better chance of survival is it has sports teams that use it on a regular basis. While buildings like the Tacoma Dome are versatile to be used for a variety of things, it's a lot easier to turn a profit when there are steady users paying rent on a regular basis as opposed to crossing fingers in the hope the building will be used often enough by one-time events like concerts or short-term users like trade shows to make ends meet. And that's where something like Arena football can come in.

Arena football is essentially a scaled-down indoor version of the outdoor game played on the same 200' x 85' surface used in ice hockey. The fields are 50 yards long in Arena football as opposed to the 100 yards used in the traditional sport. Arena football teams have eight players on the field instead of eleven. Rather than rely on the ground-control rushing-oriented offenses so often seen in the NFL or NCAA, the Arena game is a wide-open, pass-happy affair that often results in scores more often seen in basketball than football. In the NFL, a team entering the fourth quarter with a 20-point lead is usually fairly assured of victory. In Arena football, a 20-point lead isn't safe with two minutes left in the game because so much can happen. It's an exciting, high-octane sport, and it would be a perfect fit for both Tacoma and its Dome.

After 20 years, Arena football has become a qualified success. The Arena Football League (which has no Northwest franchises) averages over 12,000 in attendance for its 19 franchises, drew about 2,000,000 fans this season. Outside the NFL, the AFL is the largest pro football league in the country, and its rosters include a majority of players with NCAA Division I experience. Such familiar Northwest college football products as former UW wide receiver Jason Shelley, ex-WSU quarterback Aaron Garcia and one-time Oregon State signal caller Tony Graziani play in the AFL. Far from being a gimmick, Arena football is a great spectator sport played in much closer proximity to fans than could ever be hoped for in Qwest Field. Several NFL owners and ex-players like Jerry Jones, Pat Bowlen, Ron Jaworski, Neil Smith and John Elway have bought into Arena Football League teams, as has rocker Jon Bon Jovi. While the AFL will never replace the NFL (and has no such pretense), it is a fun, affordable alternative played during the NFL offseason. The early success of the Tacoma Stars indoor soccer team indicates that Tacomans are willing to embrace an offbeat sport, and it could be argued that there are more football fans than soccer watchers in the city and Pierce County.

Still, the asking price of 12 million dollars for an AFL team would be a steep price to pay for something with no assurance of success, if the league were willing to place a franchise in Tacoma in the first place. The presence of a city like Grand Rapids on the league rostrum suggests the AFL is willing to set up shop in a smaller metropolitan area, but the better bet for Tacoma might be the AFL's minor league, arenafootball2 (or simply, af2). The af2 is a developmental circuit for the AFL, and is in the midst of its seventh season. With 23 franchises in mostly smaller cities across the nation (including new teams in Spokane and Everett), af2 plays the same game as the AFL, but at far less cost. The franchise fee for an af2 team is only $600,000, and an existing team could no doubt be had for a bit less than that. While that may still strike some as a bit pricey, it's not an exorbitant amount of money for a franchise in a league whose teams have regularly averaged about 5,000 fans a game since its inception in 2000.

The Spokane Shock, who feature ex-University of Washington receiver Charles Frederick and former Washington State footballer Anthony Griffin, have averaged over 9,000 fans at their two home games this season; and although the Everett Hawks af2 team (with ex-Husky Toure Butler in their defensive backfield) has experienced management and financial woes, they are still averaging nearly 4,000 patrons a game. As one might expect, tickets are a lot cheaper in af2 than the AFL (we won't even bring up what the Seahawks demand just for parking, let alone ducats), and a team playing in the 17,000-seat Tacoma could charge a little as $5 a pop for the upper end zone seats to bring in fans who can't afford to watch the Seahawks (or even the Huskies), especially those who don't feel like fighting the traffic nightmare in Seattle.

While there is less marquee value in hosting teams from places like Bakersfield and Shreveport than Los Angeles or New York, a sharp promoter can overcome that disadvantage by selling the excitement of the arena game itself as well as the local team playing it. There is no lack of solid college football products in the Seattle-Tacoma area to place on an af2 25-man roster, and fans coming to games in the Dome can almost be guaranteed they won't have to sit through a 10-3 snoozer in which the most productive player is the punter. In Arena football, there is no punter.

Again, there is no assurance that an Arena football franchise would succeed in Tacoma, although the city has been considered for an af2 franchise before being passed over in favor of Everett's cozier (and) newer arena. Sports teams with lofty ambitions have come and gone from the local scene, often with barely a curious glance from the public. For instance, how many souls have witnessed a Tacoma Thunder game? Or even know who the Tacoma Thunder are? As with life, there are no guarantees or warranties issued for sports franchises, just the hope of fielding a competitive team with a decent fan base.

I'd sure go to watch.

• Discuss this story on the arenafootball2 message board...

arenafootball2 Stories from June 14, 2006


The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer(s), and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts or opinions of OurSports Central or its staff.


Sports Statistics from the Stats Crew
OurSports Central