Arena football is a game I could easily be a huge fan of because the offences roll and games take on a near basketball ebb and flow in terms of scores.
However, it has been years since the Toronto Phantoms were in the Arena Football League from 2001-2002.
The team was short-lived and now the AFL is essentially on life support with only four teams playing this past season. The league seems to have been one that grew too quickly and likely spent too much on talent to sustain itself based on its core audience.
While the most notable arena league appears on its death bed, the sport is still alive.
There are actually a plethora of indoor football leagues stateside. They seem to pop up and disappear practically overnight when you delve into the sport just a bit. Stability seems to be the elusive element for the sport to find.
Last spring I happened on the Indoor Football League with its game available weekly on YouTube.
The league includes the Sioux Falls Storm based in South Dakota, so I tuned into a few games as late-night entertainment.
The league had six teams this past season but that was down from 10 teams in 2017.
Yes, the league has been a bit of a yo-yo in terms of its make-up.
In fact, going into the 2018 season, the Bloomington Edge and West Michigan Ironmen had announced they would join the IFL, moving over from the Champions Indoor Football league.
Ah, but that didn’t make the CIF happy so they headed to the courts and had a temporary injunction to prevent the move.
It’s so much like a game of whack-a-mole. The Omaha Beef recently posted a video where they announced they would be staying in the CIL for 2019. You would not see that in most leagues. Imagine the Calgary Stampeders making a formal announcement they were stay in the CFL not moving to the soon-to-appear (and no doubt soon-to-fold) XFL part two.
It suddenly became a soap opera that I find myself intrigued to follow.
The story of the IFL has continued to be almost like some 1920s barnstorming baseball league.
Cedar Rapids changed its name from Titans to River Kings, a minor move set against what has rolled out in recent weeks.
The IFL accepted an expansion team in Tucson which soon after announced it would be called the Sugar Skulls, which might be the most unique team name in sports.
The Quad City Steamwheelers were then announced to be joining the IFL, again a team moving from the CIL.
The Bismarck Bucks have since followed the Steamwheelers over from the CIL, which of course leaves me wondering if another court challenge is pending.
The Bucks moving does mean anyone in our area intrigued by indoor football can motor less than six hours to see a love game.
It also means the league grows closer to Canada, which could one day mean a team on this side of the border, although among a myriad of rumours about more IFL expansion, and there are probably a dozen cities in the rumour mill, none are on this side of the border.
Watching the storyline of the league play out is almost mesmerizing. The list of teams, what cities they call home, and the leagues they play in change like the fabled shifting sands of a desert.
The sport would benefit from the IFL and CIL joining into a single entity that would boast 20-plus teams allowing for divisions to be established so teams could save on travel, yet have the larger league as a foundational support.
But alas it is unlikely those behind the two league are on each other’s Christmas gift lists. The time may come when they make the move for the good of the sport, but I don’t have the feeling it will be anytime soon.
In the meantime this has become my ‘sports opera’ of choice to follow via the ‘Net, for the simple craziness of the off field wranglings in a sport that is still a lot of fun to watch.
