Well spotted Bomp. Being in hockey for 14 years I can tell you that at least 2 NHL teams and 2 minor leagues are in real danger of folding. I can only imagine that the AFL and AFL2 could be in trouble. The AFL guys are all f/t pros' too.
I've heard rumblings of trouble with the AFL for three years but they appear to be very serious this year. I hope it doesn't happen but it truly doesn't look good. WNBA This league is in trouble. Houston Comets have already folded and my source inside the league tells me the Sacramento Monarks may announce folding soon. NBDL This could be the last season of this league. NBA will be cutting finacial support which will doom the league. Strange with all of this going on us Indoor fans have three leagues this season. But who will be still playing come next season?
The Augusta Lynx of the ECHL folded this week. Not an indicator of the strength of the league, but sad nevertheless. From what I read, though, Augusta may try to get a team in the SPHL (one level lower) for next year.
OUCh! Although folding franchises happen all the time in minor league ice hockey, that's the first time that a team folded midseason in the ECHL. The ECHL is 21 years old. And as some indoor soccer fans on this board can recall, when you have to rewrite a schedule midseason, it never comes out the way you want. And the ECHL has been having issues the last few years anyway. The number of franchises have been slowly decreasing: 2003--31 2004--28 2005--25 2006--25 2007--25 2008--23 (now 22) Also, arena football is VERY dependent on NFL money. If they pull their support, then you could probably kiss quite a few AFL clubs goodbye. The only good point for arena soccer clubs would be less competition for the fans and better choice of arena dates for those indoor soccer clubs that share arenas with ice hockey or arena/indoor football teams.
Aren't at least a few of the AFL teams owned by NFL owners? I know the Georgia Force is, and New Orleans was, until Benson pulled the plug on them.
espn has a minority interest in the league. benson's new orleans team was one of the cross-ownership teams. dallas is owned by jerry jones. georgia is owned by arthur blank. tom benson used to own the new orleans team and bud adams used to own the team in nashville. william clay ford's kid had a team in detroit, that folded. i am not aware of any other nfl owners that own afl teams. john elway doesn't count as 'nfl money'. nor does ron jaworski. years ago, the nfl had an option to acquire up to 49.99% of the afl, but i do not believe they ever exercised it. the nfl oversees the afl's officials. i am not aware of any substantial financial stake the nfl has in arena football. vested interest? sure, you could say that, i guess. and some team cross-ownership. but it's overstating the case to say the afl is 'very dependent on nfl money.'
I think Pat Bowlen owns 1/3 (or some portion) of the Crush. I think the San Francisco and Washington owners bought options to own teams and never excercised them.
i think you're right. bowlen is in with elway. there are, what, 16 teams in the afl nowadays? surely they can't all go away, right? even if the nfl guys say they've had enough. weren't the franchises worth like $20 million or something just a couple of years ago?
yes phil ,20 million is the current franchise fee (overvalued imo should b at least 10million to attract new teams)
of course it's overvalued. but you and i don't get to make that call. we're not the ones with the asset. and if you bought in for x amount, you sure as hell don't want new franchises valued at 10m just to 'attract new teams.' any more than you want the house down the block valued at half of your house to 'attract new neighbors.'
Perhaps not the NFL as a league, but several of its owners do, or so it seems. I don't think anyone meant to say that the league itself has a stake in the AFL.
Individual owners in the NFL are allowed to own AFL teams, however the NFL has no financial stake in the AFL. This should clear up my comment.
my only point was with the notion that the afl, as a league, is 'very dependent' on nfl money. a few teams are, obviously. but the league isn't. if the nfl has no direct financial stake in the league, it can't pull its investment and doom the afl. now, espn supposedly has a 10% equity stake in the afl.
You are correct ESPN does have an ownership stake in the AFL which is a single entity league. Its strange because the percentage is cloudy and based on numbers and sales, I'm not sure exactly what the deal is, which is why I say cloudy, I wish I was still in this loop to answer.
The NFL shuttered its feeder league, NFLeuropa in 2007. If the AFL goes then its only the CFL left. They aren't going anywhere but a number of teams have NFL owners. The league itself was trying to sell an interest in the AFL to a capital group LLC that would buy an interest in the 'league' while the teams hold a seperate entity. In essence the franchisor was being shopped around and the franchisee's (teams) were needing the capital. Its bad all over. The Augusta Lynx have stumbled for a couple of years. The ECHL is shrinking more than shown, they merged with the 7 teams in the WCHL and added Victoria BC as a expansion team who was set to join the WCHL. In all honesty I think the AFL could afford to 'take a year off' and recover. The problems in sports are getting worse. Look for Nashville and Phoenix of the NHL to move to KC and Houston/Winnipeg/Toronto-2/Las Vegas in the next 2-3 years. Florida and (possibly) Atlanta aren't in as bad shape but aren't making any money. The SPHL is a money losing entity that attracts low money investors. Its a house of cards in my opinion. The NBDL or D-League will be the next to go. It will probably merge or morph into the PBL. THe only thing basketball can agree on is that Joe Newman and the ABA is not going to be in anyone's future plans. The CBA just tarnished their name by agreeing to cross over games. Its bad all over.............................
they have talked about becoming single-entity, but i do not believe they got that accomplished before this most recent season ended and the stuff hit the fan. phoenix already came from one of those markets and are unlikely to go back. toronto has been talked about, but it's a long way from happening. vegas is a graveyard. i don't know about houston. the coyotes are in bigtime trouble, though. so relocation may not be out of the question, but it wouldn't come without a fight, seeing as how glendale just built that new arena. hey, if the coyotes leave, boom, there's your indoor soccer expansion.
Even though you were trying to make another funny, you may have stumbled on to something. The right kind of expansion can work to absorb some potentially empty arenas if the NHL and AFL lose some teams. However the business side must be done right. I strongly believe that the NISL, with its business first approach can work here. We will see, but I believe that if the AFL takes a year off, look for the NISL to aggressively go after some of those vacant cities. I'm being honest Phil Cheesesteak, that was very astute on your part. But hey, even a broken clock is right twice a day
This was my point that i made earlier, and didn't explain sufficiently. My bad. If the economic downturn starts to affect the NFL, you can be assured that any owners' investment in other leagues/teams (AFL & CFL) will go away. And that would mean no AFL clubs in those big markets. Which would mean less advertiser interest, and less ESPN interest, and so on, and so on. The numbers that i showed earlier start with the first year of the WCHL takeover (source is Wikipedia). The ex-WCHL teams have averaged between 9 to 11 teams each year. Still, the western ECHL teams are hurting too. Those trips to Alaska and BC ain't cheap. From what i can gather from other forums and articles, apparently af2, AFL's minor league, is in a much better way than its bigger cousin. af2 is seperate from the troubled AFL. They've kept costs and salaries down, and are almost a bus league for their regular season.
i think we've established denver and atlanta and dallas have nfl owner investment. that would hardly be a death blow. the economic downturn is affecting the nfl - the league laid off some staff just today or recently. everybody is panicking. everyone needs to run to the nisl for their sports investments, because with the leadership of ed hale, it can't miss.
Personally, I think indoor soccer needs to be blown up, and start all over, rules and everything (and no, I don't mean going with futsal). Oh, and if anybody cares, I passed my Technician ham radio test tonight (shameless plug--gotta tell somebody), transporting myself to a new level of geekdom.