The Cheating Bastards of Arena Football

Frank Deford once said that one of these days we are going to find out that wrestling is real and that the rest of life is fake.

Obviously, I paraphrased that above. If Frank Deford were reading my column, I'd be shocked and more than a little surprised. He's a much better writer than I'll ever be and he sees things more clearly than most.

Case in point: the Philadelphia Soul won the Arena Bowl yesterday afternoon. No offense if you missed it; I only watched bits and pieces because I was super-bored. And Frank Deford probably missed it too, even though there is no way you can tell me that the league and ESPN probably were in on a fix to make sure that Philadelphia beat San Jose. I will never be convinced otherwise.

Before I continue, I want to fully disclose that I am a former AFL fan. We had two teams in Connecticut in the 1990s and my buddies and I went to every game. It was good, inexpensive fun that got at least two of us out of our homes.

As the Connecticut teams moved (the New England Sea Wolves moved to Toronto for a while), my interest waned big-time. AFL on TV is fine and all, but the AFL in person is a lot more fun. Still, because I am loyal as puppy, I soldiered on and even sort of accepted the New York Dragons as "my" team even though my emotional investment was half-assed, at best.

Anyway, in 2004, Jon Bon Jovi and some other people (human walrus Ron Jaworski amongst them) got an expansion team and put them in Philly. All of a sudden, JBJ was on my AFL TV more than the actual players. Every Soul game was carried nationally (first on NBC and now on ESPN) and the Soul were literally jammed down our collective throats by a league desperate for star-power, increasing awareness, and marketing. It totally made me sick that the old guard teams and fans were kicked aside just so NBC could show JBJ's reaction after every play on the field.

So, yeah, Jon Bon Jovi made me hate arena football.

Still, like I said, the league needed to get more eyeballs on the game and I guess they hoped that JBJ's Aquanet- and Spandex-abusing fanbase would follow him to The Fifty Yard Indoor War. Didn't work, by the way, but NBC's cameras made sure to get every shot of Jon and his friends (including a bored and popcorn-eating Bruce Springsteen) as they watched the Soul get crushed week after week. It got so bad that I couldn't even casually watch the game because I knew the same crap team would be on and the same crap owner would get more screen time than any of his players.

I wasn't alone. I called my buddy--he started watching the AFL when we were in college and the games were tape-delayed on Friday nights--and he was in the same boat I was. We were both frustrated and we were sick and tired of having the NBC hype machine force-feeding us the Philadelphia Soul. We gave up because we were throwing up.

Over the past couple of years, the Soul of the Arena football league has been handed from NBC to ESPN. We all know how ESPN can beat anything it wants into the ground so I would check here and there to see who was playing who and wouldn't you know it, ESPN was like always showing the Soul. Mike and Mike--the morning ESPN radio guys--even did the announcing for a year and miraculously would have commissioner David Baker on for a weekly spot...once ESPN was back in the AFL bidness, of course.

No one worked harder at growing the Arena Football brand than David Baker. I remember even seeing him in Hartford when the New York Cityhawks played a preseason tester game at the Civic Center. It was then that I knew that Hartford was going to be getting a team back; albeit for 2 seasons.

Anyhoo, if there was a media appearance, Baker made it. He flogged his excellent AFL Fans' Bill of Rights at every turn and was always there to talk about the league with fans, broadcasters, and anyone else who could help him spread the word. He was the kind of guy who came off as a fan first and a suit second. He also had a great way of conveying true enthusiasm in the game, the league, and it's players. (Gary Bettman would do well to take note.)

So imagine how surprising it was when David Baker resigned as the commissioner of the Arena Football League two days before the league's biggest showcase, the Arena Bowl. Strange, no?

So anyway, I'm watching the AFL and I am already convinced that there is a bit of a conspiracy by the league to get the Soul to the Arena Bowl. We'll have more on that later. But yesterday, when I first flipped on the game, the whole thing was at a halt because the Soul coach had called for the officials to review a previous play. Wouldn't you know it, the call was reversed and the Soul were given possession.

A little later I flipped by and the Soul had won another review. I began to laugh. This was frickin' ridiculous.

The Soul had pulled out a bit of a lead so I left the game and in the surprise of all surprises, the Soul won another coaches challenge to go an amazing 3 for 3 in reviews. Has that ever happened in the NFL? Has it ever happened in the CFL? Probably not--because the odds are freaking astronomical.

And surprise, the Soul won and JBJ got to hold and show off the ugliest gumball machine-looking trophy in all of sports. It wasn't easy, however, because San Jose and QB Mark Grieg put up a bunch of points and the Soul almost gave away the game in the last minute.

During the game, I called my former AFL fan buddy and we laughed. See, a few weeks ago, I was fired up over the Soul's playoff game versus the Dragons. New York was leading and playing a weird prevent defense trying to hold onto a slim lead. With time running off the clock, Soul QB Matt D'Orazio hit one of his receivers and the receiver was trying to make the goal line as time slipped away. His knee appeared to hit the turf on or around the three yard line but he stretched and tried to break the plane of the goal line with the ball. Then he dropped the ball. So his knee was on the ground already and the play should have stopped there. He reached out to break the plane of the goal line to score and the ball tumbled from his hands. There were less than 5 seconds left and it should have been Dragons' ball.

The ruling on the field was, of course, a touchdown. The Soul were celebrating and the Dragons were livid. Eventually, they got the officials to review the play. Plain as day you see the players knee hit the deck and you also see the fumble afterward--"recovered" in the end zone by the Dragons. Who was this referee--Tim Donaghy?

The refs are checking it out in their little peep show booth as ESPN is replaying the tape. It is clear as day. In fact, I joked to myself that there was no chance that the refs were going to overturn their own call because they were in Philadelphia and probably had a strong desire to get out of there and stay alive.

And they came back and maintained that it still was a touchdown. You can see the play on all of those famous websites and on ESPN.com if you're inclined. I sent it to my Dad, who does not like Arena Football and I asked him what he thought. He said the guy had to be called down. I asked a couple of people at work what they thought and they agreed.

I'm not saying that any of us are licensed referees. All I am saying is that a handful of football fans with no axe to grind took a look at the play and figured the play had been whistled dead. When I told them that the refs gave the guy a TD, most all of them to a man (and woman) said it was messed up and hoped that nothing like that would happen in the NFL.

If you think I am making more out of something than I should, well, you're probably right. But just for a second, go to the main AFL page on ESPN.com and please notice that every picture and story there is about the Philadelphia Soul. They had their own web TV show, they have interviews with Bon Jovi, and isn't that nice, they have JBJ holding the trophy in the main story box on the front page of the AFL section. Not a player, mind you, but the owner. In fact, it's weird that Bon Jovi wasn't named Arena Bowl MVP yesterday.

Plus, let's face it, the guy who was the commissioner for twelve years quit two days before the Arena Bowl. Not afterward and not some time later this summer--he did it two days beforehand. Maybe I have been influenced by too many X-Files reruns, but after having to spin that mess with the Dragons game David Baker realized that he needed to get out before the fix was in so that he wasn't tainted professionally. Again, I am just thinking out loud.

So maybe wrestling is real and the Arena Football League has been faked worse than those XFL skits Vince used to put on during halftimes of his half-baked football broadcasts. Something tells me we will never see an Outside the Lines EXCLUSIVE INVESTIGATION because, well, ESPN is not about to blow the whistle on themselves. They've already had enough criticism in the wake of showing more AFL highlights since they bought into the league; integrity be damned!

I guess the moral to this story is, in fact, that the summer is too long and I can't wait for October. Have we hired a coach yet?

Arena Football RIP 2007

Some of the best times my buddies and I ever had together were at Arena Football games at the Hartford Civic Center. We always sat in the end zones in the 300 sections (the cheap seats) and we would root for big hits and crazy plays that you'd never see in the outdoor game. Even up there in the cheap seats, we still felt closer to the game than we'd ever be in Foxboro or at Giants Stadium--and for one heck of a good price!

Even after the Hartford teams folded, I continued to follow the league as it "grew up" and got major TV deals with NBC and now, ESPN. With growth, any business risks losing their core fans--the ones who stood by them as the league evolved from something on the outskirts or respectability to trying desperately to be accepted. With the NBC deal, the AFL bent over backwards to accommodate the network. The changed the ball; some rules; and even when the season started. Instead of a summer-league to fill empty rinks, the AFL began right after the Super Bowl, when the sports landscape is pretty busy. Right there I thought the move was kinda shifty--like the league just bowed to pressure from the network or something. Of course, every league bows to every network--or "broadcasting partner" in the words of the day.

Arena football was more fun for me when it was something I pretty much had to myself. When NBC began showing the games, the promotional machine geared up and pretty soon there were AFL commercials during "Friends" and stuff. That was a bit jarring. Somehow I never associated the people who care about whether Ross and Rachel would get back together or not as being potential fans of "The 50 Yard Indoor War."

Network exposure meant new investors for the AFL. New investors of the AFL + NBC = Jon Bon Jovi. Yes, the Philadelphia Soul games were played over and over and over and Bon Jovi's hair was on my TV more than the actual players on the Soul roster. NBC tried to sell Soul QB Tony Graziani as some kind of AFL freaking genius even though he was hurt all the time and by the way, most people knew he flamed out with the Falcons in the NFL. And yet, NBC on the east coast treated the Soul like they were the home team all the time. Jon would be up in the owner's box watching the game and the NBC peeps would cut to him to see his reaction after every play.

Yes, the Arena Football League got sucked into the whole celebrity culture when they were striving for acceptance--and the two should never, ever meet! JBJ would be at the game with...Tim Robbins or Bruce Springsteen or somebody else! Let's cut to another reaction shot! Oooh, Jon looks like he didn't like that last play call. Either that or he had some bad chili fries!

I can't tell you how many of my friends have been so turned off by the Jon Bon Jovi AFL. (Alright, it's me and one other dude.) The spandex chicks with the big hair who worship Bon Jovi are not watching the games and would never watch the games anyway. Besides, most of those spandex chicks are in their late-30s now and they all married into the NASCAR family. They're gone now; groupies for some dude who turns left all the time and doesn't even change his own oil. (Not that I can change my own oil either, but you know what I mean.)

The AFL tried to expand and with it's own scorched earth policy, they have turned their old school fans against them. The latest ploy for acceptance is to get in bed with ESPN. By the way, now that ESPN is a half-owner of the AFL, have you noticed more AFL highlights on Sportscenter? How about more promotion? ESPN Radio talking more about the AFL? I thought so. If the league had called ESPN before this deal trying to lobby for more highlights on Sportcenter, they'd probably be laughed off the phone. Cut into NBA highlights for Arena Football? Are you serious? We have to run a story about people being preoccupied with a horse like Barbaro who died like a year ago! We need to have Kobe in the Budweiser Hotseat! We need to---wait. We just signed on with the AFL? OK, then! We'll run Colorado Crush highlights right after the first break! Then we will cut to Mike and Mike for their live wrap-up from the game! We love the AFL here at ESPN!

It's just so disingenuous. ESPN caters to whatever ESPN can show. I am
a MLS fan (it's the only sport I break my ESPN Embargo for) and even I have noticed more MLS scores on the ticker at the bottom of the screen. ESPN covers hockey now like it is a stepchild that no one wants to claim. It used to ignore the AFL and MLS until the powers that be signed contracts that paid money to the leagues to put their games on ESPN. Am I saying ESPN is evil? Well, I don't want to sound like some crackaloon conspiracy theorist so I won't come right out and say it. Read between the lines. And don't call me some crackaloon! It's a word I think I just made up.

So, now the Arena Football League is dead. It wasn't killed by NBC or ESPN but by their own expansion plans and a desire to become big league. The days of having a little side game to be interested in during the long summers without hockey are gone. Long live the Connecticut Coyotes. Long live the New England Sea Wolves. But rest in peace AFL.