GROWTH OF THE ARENA FOOTBALL LEAGUE

Introduction:

The Arena Football League entered into a deal at the start of the 2003 season of the football game. It was mainly done with the NBC for the broadcasting of the league games. These were again regenerated for a couple of years, in 2005. In addition to this, the beginning of the season was shifted from the month of May to the month of February, which was a week following the Super Bowl of the National Football League. Most of the games were scheduled to be held on the Sunday, rather than either Saturday or Friday as it was the earlier case. Thanks to the Stanley Cup playoffs as well as the 20th Winter Olympic Games, the coverage of the NBC was brought down from the weekly broadcast to the scattered broadcast even on the regular season. The links between the Arena Football League and the NBC was severed on the 30th of June 2006, thanks to the failure in reaching any form of new coverage deal. In his radio interview, the owner of Las Vegas, Mr. Jim Ferrao mentioned that the main reason for the failure of the deal was the fact that, the sports television ESPN denied to display even a small advert of that which was shown on NBC.

Miscellaneous:

In the season of 2006, a national cable deal of the AFL was added with the OLN, which is now known by the name “Versus” for as much as eleven games for the regular season as well as one game for the playoff season. On the 19th of December, 2006, an announcement was made by the sports channel ESPN with regards to the buying of a minority share in the AFL.  This deal comprised of the broadcast rights for the family of networks for the ESPN. ESPN has decided to televise at least 17 games, majority of them on Mondays as well as 9 games related to playoff inclusive of the Arena Bowl on ABC. This brought about an increased exposure on the Sports Center of ESPN.

Season Expansion: