American Indoor Football Association

Anybody on the board got a AIFA team in your coverage area? I'd like to get some idea of how papers have been covering these sorts of teams. I have to figure it's not that big a deal in, say, Pittsburgh.

 

I happened to do a story on an AIFA team in Syracuse last year, and before it could get posted, the team went belly up...turns out the dance team had more practice time together than the gridders...

 

this league is a disaster. write that one.

 

We just found out today that the team here has rented its turf.

What the heck is that – 1-800-RENT-A-FIELD?

 

It's not the AIFA, but an equally inept organization: the ABA.

You show up with $10,000, and you can own a team.

Well, the upstart team in my hometown had that, and they had verbal commitments from three players, ex-Division II and NAIA guys. But they didn't have office space -- and they called to ask if I knew of any they could lease. I didn't.

Two weeks later, they called a colleague of mine -- a very striking blonde who was a part-timer for sports then -- to ask her, in addition to covering the team for us, if she'd like to try out for their dance team. She declined.

A month later, they planned a huge celebration for their inaugural game at a local high school gym. Only, they forgot to invite the other team! The other team didn't show up for the game, claimed they didn't know it was that night. ... So the owners scrambled to put together a local "all-star" team made up of ABA cast-offs, and held something resembling a game for the people who bothered to show up.

The whole thing was a complete disaster. We stopped covering them after that night.

 

I covered the only season for Nashville in the American Soccer League (1981? 82?). Last game of the season, the other team doesn't show up ... and I come to realize that they'd never intended to show up. And the Nashville owners knew it.

Both of the paying fans were pissed.

 

There's a Continental Indoor Football League team in Worcester, Mass. this year.
The New England Surge.

 

I mean, what do you do with such an animal as this?

We're a 35K-plus daily in between two SEC schools that we cover equally and I haven't been sitting around this winter saying to myself, "Gee, what we need is one more thing to cover on Saturdays."

I can see giving it a little extra attention this week as the season opens ... but then what?

An advance, a gamer, a mid-week feature – does this even rise to that level? Is this more like the semipro (joke) baseball team where we just run the agate ... if they call in ... and move on?

The team opens with four straight home games. I'm going Saturday night to see for myself, then take a good long look at attendance falloff -- and it will fall off -- for the next game. Then, I'm prepared to banish it to the back where we've been sneaking in a little World Cup skiing or figure skating now and then where there's room.

 

OurSportsCentral.com is useful when you have a minor-league sports team to cover. We had a WBA (World Basketball Association) for two years.

OSC's AIFA Page: http://www.oursportscentral.com/sports/?l_id=74

What AIFA fans think of their crummy league: http://www.oursportscentral.com/boards/forumdisplay.php?f=71

 

Well, that was worth the trip.

 

Got part-timers, Henry? This sounds like a delicous opportunity for someone already woefully underpaid and underappreciated.

Do gamers. Nothing else.

 

Yeah, we're trending in that direction.

I'm curious at this point to see whether the team makes it through the first month.