History
While he was watching the Major Indoor Soccer all-star game at Madison Square Garden in 1981, it occurred to James E. Foster that, if soccer could be scaled down for an indoor arena, American football could, too.
On the back of a manila envelope, he sketched a diagram of a half-size football field over the outline of a hockey rink. But the sketch didn't become a reality until April 26, 1986, when Arena Football made its debut in a "test game" in Rockford, Illinois, between the Rockford Metros and the Chicago Politicians.
The response encouraged Foster to stage a "showcase game" on Feb. 26, 1987, between the Chicago Bruisers and Miami Vise at Chicago's Rosemont Horizon. The game drew 8,257 spectators. Foster then organized the Arena Football League with four teams, the Chicago Bruisers, Pittsburgh Gladiators, Denver Dynamite and Washington Commandos, which began play on June 19 of that year. ESPN televised the league's first championship game, in which the Dynamite beat the Gladiators, 45-16, before 13,232 fans at Pittsburgh's Civic Arena.
Denver and Washington dropped out after the season, but the AFL added new franchises representing Detroit, Los Angeles, New England, and New York in 1988, when ESPN broadcast a game of the week as well as the semi-final playoff games and the ArenaBowl championship game. Originally, the AFL essentially owned all of the teams, signed players to contracts, and parceled them out. In 1990, though, Foster and his partners in Gridiron Enterprises were granted a patent for the "Arena Football Game System," They then began selling licenses allowing investors to own and operate AFL teams.
Although the AFL has gone through many franchise movements, it has grown steadily since 1990. In 1996, the league surpassed 1 million in attendance for the first time and it's gone over that mark every season since then.
The National Football League in 1999 agreed to an option to purchase a minority equity interest in the AFL over a three-year period. Since then, owners of four NFL teams, the Detroit Lions, New Orleans Saints, Dallas Cowboys, and Washington Redskins, have begun operating AFL franchises. Another AFL team is backed jointly by Denver Broncos ownership and former Bronco quarterback John Elway.
In 2000, a developmental league, arenafootball2, began operating with 15 teams, mostly in the Southeast and Midwest. It has since expanded to 27 teams.
The AFL currently has 16 teams, 12 of which make the playoffs, based on their records during the 16-game regular season. Four of those teams get byes, while the other eight play first-round games. The playoffs culminate in the ArenaBowl.
The ArenaBowl was nationally telecast by ABC for five years, 1998 through 2002. Before the 2003 seson, the AFL entered into a revenue-sharing agreement with NBC sports, under which NBC broadcasts 71 games, including the playoffs and the ArenaBowl. The AFL also shifted its season schedule from April-August to February-June in 2003.
