The chaotic 2024 launch of the Arena Football League- and where to go from here

When the Arena Football League announced its grand return in 2023, it was an exciting time. A league that had once been the undisputed king of the sport was finally returning to give fans and players another opportunity to experience great arena football. Throughout 2023, the hype continued to mount for the league– but the inaugural season was nothing short of a mess, all the way to a championship in a mall. The league is not beyond salvaging, and all signs point towards a 2025 season, but where does the league management go from here?

How did we get here? For starters, the collapse of the AFL in 2019.

The 2010’s were a weird time for the AFL. Instability plagued the league, and teams jumped ship to newer leagues or contracted. The IFL and NAL especially began to gain traction, competing directly with the dying AFL product. As well, fans began to pay attention less, as the league was unable to fully adapt to modern social media, unable to promote their product to larger audiences. Without success, the league went under in 2019, and the pandemic in 2020 killed any chance they had to return.

With the death of the AFL, promotion for the sport from any major sports media outlet also died. No more TV deals broadcasting the sport to a wide audience. The IFL and NAL, among all the other leagues, were fledgling, and hadn’t yet figured out how to fill in the gap left by the premier Arena league.

However, they eventually managed to fill in that gap pretty well. The IFL and NAL only continued to grow, and the IFL especially began to find a vision for itself. However, no league was stepping up with success on the same level as the AFL had back in the day.

No better time to relaunch a dormant league than when the market is wide open.

G6 Sports Investment group announced their plans to revive the AFL in early 2023. They touted a league that would far surpass even the peak AFL from the 2000’s. They would offer “streaming, betting, technology and virtual reality” elements. All very lofty goals for an upstart league, but it sounded positive to the fans.

All of a sudden, the promise began to look really good. Almost too good. Teams would have a $700,000 salary cap, and players would receive $1,000 per game check or more. Clearly upstart commissioner Lee Hutton III was promising he would be throwing money around. This would be a very enticing promise to potential players and team owners. Exposure and money higher than competing leagues? This was too good to be true.

So who would be in this league?

TMZ Sports reported the league’s potential cities in July of 2023, and the league would later confirm the list featuring cities of Austin, Boise, California (Bakersfield), Chicago, Denver, St. Paul, Lake Charles (Louisiana), Cincinnati, Orlando, Salem, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Tallahassee, Everett (Washington), and Odessa (Texas).

One problem- several of these announced cities and arenas weren’t even aware of the situation.

One such team was the California franchise. Arena officials in Bakersfield were completely in the dark when it came to their supposed franchise. Only after the relaunch announcement did a representative called “Tim Robinson” contacted the arena- and Tim Robinson didn’t exist. Tim Robinson was an alias for Tim Carbajal, a mysterious owner of this supposed franchise which ended up not existing. Carbajal never ended up launching his franchise, and the AFL hasn’t acknowledged them since.

Cincinnati didn’t even want their team, as the Heritage Bank Center was reported saying they wouldn’t be letting a team play there. As expected, they never got their AFL franchise. Lee Hutton responded to critical press and releasing information early by saying everyone “would have an egg of their face come April 2024.”

Multiple other markets ended up never getting their team. Boise never received a team, despite the Burn website domain being updated. The Tallahassee market was supposedly served by the Capital City Cyclones, but they switched directions to the IFA as the Tampa Bay Tornadoes.

From August to October, the league began to confirm teams that would be joining the AFL, starting with the eventual champions in the Billings Outlaws. The West Texas Warbirds of the NAL rebranded as the Desert Hawks and announced they would be joining the upstart league. The Orlando Predators also announced they would be joining the AFL for 2024, becoming the first legacy brand to join the league.

Champions Indoor Football was breaking up after their 2023 season, it became clear when teams began to fold or leave. The AFL was swooping in to absorb the CIF teams that weren’t leaving, which at the time seemed to be an interesting move to get more teams and grow the league. However, looking back, this looks like a move done out of desperation since they didn’t have the number of teams they wanted.

Eventually, it became a full-blown merger, and CIF teams that hadn’t found a new home before October 5th 2023 would be joining the AFL: Wichita Regulators, Salina Liberty, Rapid City Marshals and Southwest Kansas Storm. CIF commissioner Mike McCoy was also appointed as deputy commissioner of the AFL.

In November 2023, Lee Hutton held a relaunch event for the league finally announcing all 16 teams that were expected to be playing in 2024. Hutton touted expansion to 24 teams in the future, but only 16 were to play in 2024 and only 18 teams were announced. Future expansion teams were announced as the Chicago Rush and Arizona Bandits.

Hutton also claimed the original list wasn’t completely abandoned, but that “leagues and individuals were trying to cancel teams contracts with the arenas and participated in “anti-competitive practices.” Hutton doubled down on his claims the league would be broadcasted, streamed and available in VR, and also announced his intentions to globalize the game, changing the league website and socials to reflect the name “Arena Football USA.”

The start of the season featured even more turbulence

Now with our cast of teams revealed, it seemed as though the league could have a smooth transition towards a full season. The league announced that they were planning on getting NFL Network to broadcast some of their games in the upcoming season. However, the deal fell apart just days before the season when like many of Hutton’s promises it was full of holes and lacked substance. The NFL Network never broadcast a game in 2024.

The league then went quiet and news slowed to a crawl. What little news there was didn’t look great. Social media from the league was nearly silent, but they were seen on multiple occasions liking posts that seemed to criticize the AFL. What limited schedules we had at the time seemed to constantly be changing. However, the league was still signing players and gaining sponsors, so it wasn’t completely dormant.

A few teams were seemingly having venue troubles leading up towards the season. The Philadelphia Soul ended up securing a venue in Trenton, New Jersey with less home games than several other teams, only to end up never playing there.

The Louisiana Voodoo also struggled lock down a home venue. While initially a revival of a team that played in New Orleans, the team reported that they would be playing in Lake Charles, Louisiana instead. Even that never materialized, as just days before their home opener, they relocated to Lafayette, Louisiana due to rent issues in Lake Charles. Ultimately, they only played a single game in Lafayette before pausing for 2024.

The pre-season was out first chance to see the league in action, and it wasn’t pretty. Not all of the teams participated in the games which were meaningless to regular season record, and some teams didn’t even have all of their equipment for these games including uniforms and nets. However, it was easy to blow these games off as tune-ups for the league. The real test would be the opening week.

Opening week finally arrived and the league had many positives and many negatives. Despite not having an NFL Network deal, the league scraped together a deal with Vyre Network to display games, and games were streamed on a website called Arena Football Live, which no longer exists.

The opening game between the Orlando Predators and Albany Firebirds was an exciting back and forth match up that had fireworks throughout. The arena was packed, the broadcast was decent, and the game was high quality. For fans, this game showed the potential of the league. The overtime thriller was the high point of the opening week.

But for every Predators-Firbirds, there was a Soul-Voodoo game. The Soul lost the game 53-18 in Louisiana, but the big story was the fact that the roster wasn’t the Philadelphia Soul. The Dallas Falcons of the AAL2 suited up as a replacement, due to abrupt resignations by coach Patrick Pimmel and several players thanks to more failed promises by Hutton and company. Only a few were able to make it to Louisiana to play the game, where they only had one-way tickets and were unable to retrieve luggage from their motel.

The Washington Wolfpack and Oregon Blackbears faced off in their opening bout, but the stadium couldn’t maintain a proper stream for fans to watch despite being an exciting contest ending 40-47 in favor of Oregon. However, the arena was using cattle fences to hold up the pads, and the nets weren’t up to standard. They hosted another game against the Georgia Force in the arena before it was officially deemed unsafe forcing the Blackbears out- and the Blackbears supposedly still owe money to the arena.

The Nashville Kats traveled off to Albany to play the Firebirds to open week 2. The Rampage played against the Storm before they stopped playing. The Georgia Force traveled to Oregon and got obliterated. Billings went to Washington and won in blowout fashion. West Texas beat Orlando in a low scoring battle. The replacement Soul somehow managed to get to Minnesota to get destroyed, The Voodoo and Marshals were abruptly given bye weeks due to not being able to play.

Week 3 was one of the most chaotic weeks of the entire season. Prior to the week’s slate of games, the Force, Voodoo and the Soul were folded. Georgia needed financial assistance in order to get all the players home since league ownership wasn’t willing to even pay that, so fans donated to a GoFundMe to help fund all the players making their way back home.

The Rapid City Marshals players called a player strike before their game, refusing to leave the locker room. After a few players left the team, they decided enough was enough and forfeited the contest. Ultimately, the Marshals would remain in the league, but would later fold.

Oregon had to cancel their week 3 game against the Liberty, instead, Salina went and filled in for the now-folded Soul against Nashville. The Minnesota Myth ended up having to move their game to Albany since the Minnesota Timberwolves had a playoff game in their arena, but they couldn’t make the trip and would soon fold.

This whole time, the National Arena League was trying to sue the West Texas Desert Hawks for breaching their contract with the NAL by leaving for the AFL. They thankfully would get to play their scheduled game against Washington, thanks to an undisclosed settlement with the NAL, but would later be forced to suspend their operations citing once again failed promises by the league leadership.

How did the AFL get back on track?

When it looked like the league was dead in the water, at its lowest point, somehow it managed to turn itself around. Owners had enough of Hutton, and former CEO Travelle Gaines voteing to oust them and have former NFL and USFL coach Jeff Fisher, Nashville Kats president, become the interim commissioner. There was no better move they could’ve made, Fisher, with his experience and passion was the best move to keep the league afloat.

Fisher wasted no time getting to work, getting rid of league owned teams that were going to be a liability to the league. Fisher wanted only the strong teams that would be able to survive the season, and ushered in a 10 team league that would be far more stable than before.

• Albany
• Washington
• Orlando
• Billings
• Nashville
• Wichita
• Southwest Kansas
• Salina
• Rapid City (later folded)
• West Texas (later folded)

The AFL would also continue to schedule games with the Oregon Blackbears as a traveling squad, though they wouldn’t last on the schedule through the season.

With Jeff Fisher as the commissioner, not every team would be able to last through the entire season. Oregon was removed from their scheduling agreement late in May, and forced the Cedar Rapids River Kings to play in their stead. Rapid City was unable to overcome the labor issues the team was facing and ultimately had to fold. West Texas continued to have problems, firing their coach inexplicably just weeks before folding.

However, the problems with those teams still stemmed from the Hutton era. Jeff Fisher had successfully restored stability to a league many had thought was dead in the water. The league entered a period where the focus could finally be on the field and not all the surrounding drama.

One of the big steps forward was the revival of the AFL’s social media presence. The AFL was able to get games to be broadcast on league YouTube channel, eventually phasing out the Vyre network and moving to the larger platform. Bringing the product to a place where the fans could easily watch the games was a huge step forward, and getting the social media up to professional standards was huge for the league.

Ultimately, the league still had issues, but it made it through the remainder of the season without many major problems that looked league threatening. The turn-around from Lee Hutton to Jeff Fisher gave fans hope that the AFL wasn’t going to die before the championship game.

The Arenabowl in a shopping mall

Eventually, the new-look AFL found a home for the championship. They landed the Rink at American Dream Mall in New Jersey. This may have been one of the most polarizing decisions made by the league amongst fans of the league.

One one hand, the game was being played in a mall, where seating would be limited, where the game would be in the same building as random storefronts, the game looked to be a weird novelty from one point of view- not exactly the greatest look for a championship game of one of the premier leagues of the sport.

On the other hand, the league was willing to do something loud, new and exciting. The Rink at American Dream saw a large number of extra visitors during the game, and a large number happened to come from Albany to see their Firebirds. Despite the poor camera angles, the game was still well-broadcasted by CBS Sports Network.

Did I mention that the league picked up CBS Sports Network for the playoffs?

Yeah, the league seemingly dead in the water by week 3 managed to pick up CBS Sports Network to broadcast their playoff games. It may not have been the NFL Network deal we were promised, but it was a well executed deal that brought the game to a much larger audience.

Ultimately, the Billings Outlaws took the crown as ArenaBowl champs over Albany in an exciting contest where after a 3-0 lead in the first quarter blossomed into a much larger lead, the Outlaws held on and won 46-41.

While the game received mixed reviews from fans, it was overall a success for the league for the game to simply be played. This ArenaBowl was unlike any other, but it also marked the end of the most chaotic season played in AFL history. Now the league must look forward to the future, because there is lots of potential in this version of the AFL- despite what it looked like to the casual eye looking in on the league’s faults.

So where to now?

The league is in a strange place. Coming off a season as chaotic and insane as their first season was, the AFL has a lot of growing to do. As of writing, Fisher and his team have been hard at work preparing for the next season. In fact, we are nearing some large announcements that could be incredibly exciting for fans.

The league has a lot of work to do, and they have a lot of lessons learned from the Hutton regime. If a team doesn’t have proper money behind it, it would make an awful lot of sense to not allow said teams to drag the league down. The league needs to keep a proper image up for the fans, especially on social media. Proper YouTube pages running games, assuming there’s no TV deals, is key to providing games to fans as the IFL and NAL have been doing for years. As well, maintained social medias run by people who know what they’re doing to promote a professional league.

And despite the chaotic launch, this league is far from dead.

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