Over a Cup of Coffee

by Jerry Hewitt
Published on March 23, 2010 under Indoor Football League (IFL)

Today I'm tackling the CIFL, seeing if their press releases end up as local news stories. Going to run the two paragraphs below again as they spell out my criteria and objectives.

Today I continue a five-part series, league by league, on press releases and the media coverage which follows. I am using one source, OSC, as it is the leader in minor league news and the only national source for all minor leagues. To be fair to all leagues I used Friday, March 19th as my cut off day. Realizing that the leagues all start at different times I am seperating the releases by before season and after seasons start. I am also only going back as far as January of this year.

I believe using the criteria I've laid out for this to be a very fair and unbiased report. If my opinion that press releases turn into mainstream media coverage, then the number will prove my opinion right. As I said, this will be league by league in alphabetical order beginning today with the AIFA and ending on this coming Saturday with a recap on what the results show. I'll take Wednesday of for my usual mid week report, but other than that, this week is all about the media. I will mention that already the new AFL is starting to have more than their fair share of air time considering they are but 15 teams as opposed to 49 teams in the big four indoor leagues. Maybe the AFL knows something about being in the press that indoor teams need to pay attention to.

So lets take a look at the CIFL and if numbers of press releases translate into more media coverage. Below is a team by team chart.

My conclusions on CIFL teams

My conclusion should be for every press release a main stream news article. Appears what I found with the AIFA continues here, not much has been sent out, not in the numbers they should be anyway. Only two teams, Fort Wayne and Miami Valley show any signs of life and neither seem to have been able to get on their local media's side. All this is just disappointing. Yesterday the AIFA and continuing today in the CIFL. I admit the CIFL has had more than its share of problem teams in the past and this season looks like a reasonably solid line up. In talking with CIFL management they see that teams are not marketing to the best of their ability and are looking into getting their teams more on board in that area. Time will tell of course.

Last night

The Billings Outlaws, Sioux Falls Storm was all it was built up to be as both teams traded the lead throughout the game until in the fourth when the Storm took control and stretched the lead to double digits with under nine minutes to go, but with three minutes to go the Outlaws pulled to with in thee and turned the ball game over to their defense. The Outlaws defense did their job, holding the Storm to a field goal with time left on the clock, but in their final effort to pull out the game Chris Dixon threw an interception and that ended it. Storm, 37, Outlaws 31. Sioux Falls remains undefeated at 3-0, while Billings drops to 3-1. This was the first of two meetings, the second near the end of the season in Billings.

We saw what I think is the best Pointstreak can do as the Storm stat man is one of the best. Everything, including the clock worked as advertised.

I found no place to keep up with the Wyoming, Ogden game over in the AIFA, but that's typical of that league. The AIFA may be the second largest of the big four, yet lag behind the others in the keeping the fan informed area. I did go to AIFA Fan.com for the final as they do better than the league on keeping up with games. Oh, Wyoming won 54-40. A closer game than I might have expected and maybe in the AIFA West this season a real competition for the division crown instead of it being handed to Wyoming because of weak teams out West.

Tomorrow I'll do my regular Wednesday Indoor Football Report and pick this back up Thursday with the IFL and Friday, the SIFL with my wrap up on this subject Saturday.

This article and more archived at The Indoor Football Report located at www.IndoorFootballNetwork.com Comments about this article or suggestions can be made to indoorbowl@yahoo.com

Indoor Football League Stories from March 23, 2010

• Indoor Football League Update - IFL
• Monday Night Beefball Now Includes Police Officiers And Firefighters - Omaha Beef
• Extreme Announce Viewing Party Partnership With Hooters - Bloomington Extreme
• Over a Cup of Coffee - OSC Original by Jerry Hewitt

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.