Arena Football League
Arena Football League
Sport
Arena football
Founded
1987
Inaugural season
1987
No. of teams
15
Country(ies)
United States
Most recent
champion(s)
Philadelphia Soul
Most championships
Tampa Bay Storm
TV partner(s)
ESPN
Official website
ArenaFootball.com
Founder
Jim Foster
The Arena Football League (AFL) was
founded in 1987 as an American football in-
door league by Jim Foster. It is played in-
doors on a smaller field than American foot-
ball, resulting in a faster and higher-scoring
game. The sport was invented in 1986, and
patented, in 1990 by Foster, a former execut-
ive of the United States Football League and
the National Football League. Nearly two
months after the New Orleans Voodoo folded
on the league’s owners chose to cancel the
2009 season to work on developing a long-
term plan to improve its economic model.[1]
Four months after the league canceled its
2009 season for a lack of funding, the nine-
year-old Los Angeles Avengers folded, leav-
ing the league with 15 teams.
History
"Playtest"
Eventual Arena Football League founder Jim
Foster, a former National Football League
and United States Football League executive,
originally had a contract in 1983 to play an
exhibition on the NBC television network. He
The AFL logo from 1987–2002.
abandoned the plan, though, when the USFL
was formed and did not return to the new
sport until 1986. He set up a "playtest" in
Rockford,
Illinois at the (Rockford Met-
roCentre). He set up two teams, the "Rock-
ford Metros" and the "Chicago Politicians,"
made up of semi-pro and former college foot-
ball players to play against each other to see
how his idea would work. The Metros de-
feated the Politicians 30-18.
The AFL begins
The AFL was founded in 1987 as an American
football indoor league. The league’s inaugur-
al season featured four teams: the Chicago
Bruisers, Denver Dynamite, Pittsburgh Gladi-
ators, and Washington Commandos. The
teams played a six-game season, culminating
in ArenaBowl I, where Denver defeated Pitts-
burgh in Pittsburgh.
In 1990,