Indoor Football League Hits it Big with Caffeine in Week One

The Indoor Football League announced a partnership with Caffeine, a streaming service that has quickly gained a foothold in the live sports streaming world thanks to their ability to provide this content to viewers for free. Launched 6 years ago thanks to some assistance from a rather important figure in 21st Century Fox in the form of a $100 million investment that helped them get off the ground.

Since then they have develop a name for themselves in providing a platform for sports, or content creators looking to gain a following on an app dedicated to sports. Streaming sports like Golf in Hong Kong, Polish Billiards, Elite Rugby, Indy Wrestling, Rap Battles and so so much more, it brings together niche sports that honestly might have a smaller following in their own right than the IFL brings to the table by itself, that boasts over 32,800 subscribers currently.

With two more well-supported teams added for the 2024 season, the assumption should be that number will only continue to trend in the right direction as fans of these two teams previously from the National Arena League move their way over to the IFL. The IFL has continued to expand their national footprint year after year and as they continue to add teams, and partnerships this great league should only continue to grow. If you needed more evidence of this; their high intensity, non-stop action style of football drew in north of 200,000 viewers by the end of the third, despite a 16 point deficit heading into the 4th quarter.

Streaming is the Future of Sports Consumption

While many have questioned what the IFL could expect to see in return for this partnership, it appears that question was quickly answered, and it’s safe to say the league will be thrilled by the numbers they saw following a rivalry game to kick off the 2024 season. Pitting the Northern Arizona Wranglers, and the Arizona Rattlers against each other to begin the year was a clever move that gave this game some extra juice.

The League couldn’t have asked for a better game for their first ever on Caffeine TV, a thrilling game that went down to the wire, and saw 60 points scored before halftime, the numbers continued to grow at a fever pitch in the fourth quarter as the NAZ Wranglers scored a quick touchdown, and made a key fourth down stop to bring it within ten points and give their offense the ball back, although it didn’t translate into immediate points.

With 5 minutes remaining this was still a ten point game with the Rattlers in possession of the ball. The Rattlers could have easily gone into a ball control offense on this 50 yard field an eat up the clock, however they kept to their offense and kept trying to deliver the crushing blow.

With less than 1 minute left in the 4th quarter the NAZ Wranglers follow up a touchdown with a successful onside kick that bounced right off of an Arizona Rattlers player only to be recovered by wideout John Maldanado. With an 11 point deficit to overcome DSC threw a pass that was tipped and intercepted by Dillon Winfrey to close out the game. Winfrey is one of the best ballhawks in the league and it showed on this play.

Big Numbers Should Lead to More Attention for IFL

By the end of the game Caffeine TV viewers had clicked on the game 245,000 times. The YouTube Stream on the Indoor Football League Channel still managed to draw a steady 2,200 live viewers, while the third simulcast on the Signature Network also had a small chunk to add to the bigger picture. This is big not only for the IFL, but the sport of indoor football that has seen a large resurgence of fan attention with after the IFL initially got their Championship game on CBS Sports. Unfortunately the Arizona and NAZ game was removed from the channel following it’s completion so I wasn’t able to grab the view count from the game, although they have consistently seen 10-20,000 views on their games as recently as last season.

Looking back, the highest stream that is still currently on the IFL YouTube channel lays claim to over 43,000 views. The 2021 United Bowl was certainly a game to remember, and the view numbers back that up, however in week 1 with Caffeine, the IFL was able to top their streaming record by over 5 times thanks to the simulcast from YouTube, Caffeine, and Signature Network that saw another 833 views. If we guess low, and say the game saw 10,000 views that still puts the Week one kickoff over the 255,000 mark. This is a big win for the IFL, Caffeine, and the sport of indoor football in general.

More importantly, streaming services/television networks will see these numbers and wonder if they should be getting involved with the IFL. A question I would answer with a resounding YES. The IFL is a souped up version of outdoor football that provides a fast paced, action packed, and family friendly product that is unlike anything you can achieve with the NFL. Are they ever going to rival the giant that the shield has become? Absolutely not, but that is not the goal of the IFL, a league built on developing and elevating their best players.

Indoor and Arena Football Fighting their way Back to Prominence

With the return of the American Indoor Football League, came the announcement that the Amarillo Venom would be broadcast on several different tv and streaming networks, but word was that the games would still be available via YouTube much like the setup for the IFL. The Arena Football League followed these announcements with the news that they will see 30+ games broadcast by NFL Network, and the Orlando Predators mentioned they may jump to another Streaming Network for the remaining games in DAZN. One league that seems left in the cold currently, is the National Arena League, although I have on good authority they have had options presented to them to expand the reach of their league as well but have yet to close on a deal.

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Indoor Football League: IFL