Post by Banana Cat on Mar 23, 2011 2:28:32 GMT -5
From Oursportscentral:
Over a Cup of Coffee
by Jerry Hewitt
March 21, 2011
We who have been around the indoor football world for awhile have learned one thing: when we are told to expect more, we will be getting less. That's not just idle talk, but a rule that's been reinforced by fact upon fact ever since the sport first appeared in 1998. This is not a perfect world, and in indoor football that is very evident. This year's version of the Southern Indoor Football League (or is it the AIFA reborn with the SIFL moniker?) is the latest example of the sport's imperfection.
I have heard the excuses from the SIFL every year about why this or that happened and the vows that mistakes would not be repeated. But they are, and every year it's the same tired, old story. Every season the league has had one team fold just short of the season starting. True to form, right before this past weekend's games, the Lafayette Wildcatters announced they would not be playing. Every season we have a team with no valid venue lease in hand as the season kicks off or a team with a less than suitable venue. This time around, the Houston Stallions didn't have a lease, and their first home game wound up being played in Corpus Christi. The Stallions will reportedly play the rest of their home games roughly 60 miles away from Houston, at a venue in Winnie, Texas.
It may be new for the SIFL to have a team not keep stats, but that's old hat for the AIFA, the SIFL's new dance partner. That's apparently what happened at the Fayetteville game this past weekend. This team should be above the rest as it is owned by the same person who also owns the Trenton team and by the same person to now apparently hold the majority of league ownership. We should expect more, but we know that isn't going to happen, especially in this new SIFL.
Let's be honest for once. It has been heavily rumored that this new SIFL is destined to become the new arenafootball2, the AFL's minor league. In fact, one article recently said that the SIFL was already the developmental league for the AFL. I would think those who are pulling the strings in the SIFL would understand that to even get the AFL to take more than a passing look at this SIFL, they'd have to put on one very professional show, not the second rate carnival so far.
And while we're at it, what about this Fanteractive thing? The league expects fans to pay fifty bucks for all the inside info that other leagues provide in one form or another for free. Checking the Fanteractive front page today, the news on that site was about a week out of date and didn't feature reports on any of this weekend's games.
One former league employee cautioned me to take a wait and see attitude some months back and I heeded his advice to some extent, but I see nothing I've written previously that says I was wrong to not have waited. It all appears to be just a house of cards, a league built by those who expect nothing more than to make a few bucks, yet seemingly don't realize that in order to make those few bucks you actually have to put on a show that somebody will pay money to go see.
I have been told that I should expect the league's media relations to be very professional as they brought back the person who had handled things for the SIFL in its inaugural season. In the first year of the SIFL I was very impressed with his efforts, but now he returns and I see the SIFL as maybe the least media friendly league of them all. This isn't the preseason any longer. It's time for the SIFL to step up its game and give us the quality we should expect of a professional organization.
Last, I want to know how difficult it is to provide scores on game nights, even supply live scoring. All the other leagues currently playing have a central spot on their web sites where fans can check out the scores and even stats on game nights, even during games in progress. Yet to find scores from SIFL games this past weekend, one had to scour Facebook, Twitter feeds and other unofficial sources to get caught up.
Why has the SIFL decided to put this sport back a few years when doing the little things really isn't that hard?
by Jerry Hewitt
March 21, 2011
We who have been around the indoor football world for awhile have learned one thing: when we are told to expect more, we will be getting less. That's not just idle talk, but a rule that's been reinforced by fact upon fact ever since the sport first appeared in 1998. This is not a perfect world, and in indoor football that is very evident. This year's version of the Southern Indoor Football League (or is it the AIFA reborn with the SIFL moniker?) is the latest example of the sport's imperfection.
I have heard the excuses from the SIFL every year about why this or that happened and the vows that mistakes would not be repeated. But they are, and every year it's the same tired, old story. Every season the league has had one team fold just short of the season starting. True to form, right before this past weekend's games, the Lafayette Wildcatters announced they would not be playing. Every season we have a team with no valid venue lease in hand as the season kicks off or a team with a less than suitable venue. This time around, the Houston Stallions didn't have a lease, and their first home game wound up being played in Corpus Christi. The Stallions will reportedly play the rest of their home games roughly 60 miles away from Houston, at a venue in Winnie, Texas.
It may be new for the SIFL to have a team not keep stats, but that's old hat for the AIFA, the SIFL's new dance partner. That's apparently what happened at the Fayetteville game this past weekend. This team should be above the rest as it is owned by the same person who also owns the Trenton team and by the same person to now apparently hold the majority of league ownership. We should expect more, but we know that isn't going to happen, especially in this new SIFL.
Let's be honest for once. It has been heavily rumored that this new SIFL is destined to become the new arenafootball2, the AFL's minor league. In fact, one article recently said that the SIFL was already the developmental league for the AFL. I would think those who are pulling the strings in the SIFL would understand that to even get the AFL to take more than a passing look at this SIFL, they'd have to put on one very professional show, not the second rate carnival so far.
And while we're at it, what about this Fanteractive thing? The league expects fans to pay fifty bucks for all the inside info that other leagues provide in one form or another for free. Checking the Fanteractive front page today, the news on that site was about a week out of date and didn't feature reports on any of this weekend's games.
One former league employee cautioned me to take a wait and see attitude some months back and I heeded his advice to some extent, but I see nothing I've written previously that says I was wrong to not have waited. It all appears to be just a house of cards, a league built by those who expect nothing more than to make a few bucks, yet seemingly don't realize that in order to make those few bucks you actually have to put on a show that somebody will pay money to go see.
I have been told that I should expect the league's media relations to be very professional as they brought back the person who had handled things for the SIFL in its inaugural season. In the first year of the SIFL I was very impressed with his efforts, but now he returns and I see the SIFL as maybe the least media friendly league of them all. This isn't the preseason any longer. It's time for the SIFL to step up its game and give us the quality we should expect of a professional organization.
Last, I want to know how difficult it is to provide scores on game nights, even supply live scoring. All the other leagues currently playing have a central spot on their web sites where fans can check out the scores and even stats on game nights, even during games in progress. Yet to find scores from SIFL games this past weekend, one had to scour Facebook, Twitter feeds and other unofficial sources to get caught up.
Why has the SIFL decided to put this sport back a few years when doing the little things really isn't that hard?