Last Edit: Sept 14, 2010 1:10:11 GMT -5 by Banana Cat
"Minor league pro football is a weird universe filled with bounced checks, unpaid bills, empty promises, out-right lies, empty arenas, endless women, endless booze, occasionally drugs, endless trips on rented buses to towns on the outskirts of the Big Time and, for one night a week, a football game." -- Bill Shea
Post by Banana Cat on Sept 14, 2010 17:47:00 GMT -5
Saginaw Sting named 6th and final team for UIFL, 2011 Season now Set for Kick-Off
CANTON, OH—September 13, 2010 – The Ultimate Indoor Football League (UIFL) competition committee has named the Saginaw Sting as the 6th and final franchise for its Inaugural 2011 Season. The move now completes the membership and the 2011 schedule will be announced soon.
“We are thrilled to welcome the Saginaw Sting to our league and we look forward to the opportunity this presents our other members, stated Andrew Haines, league co-founder”. The addition of the Sting now helps the UIFL move forward in other duties to prepare for the 2011 season.
The Sting, which had played in the IFL and CIFL, made the move to the UIFL and brings with it a new ownership group. The Saginaw Sting will play all of its home games at The Dow Event Center, which seats roughly 6,000.
The Saginaw Sting will announce the new ownership group, Head Coach and unveil their new team logo on September 27. The team has begun season ticket sales and sponsorships are now available for the 2011 Season.
All teams in the UIFL will play a 14-game season, 7 at home and 7 on the road over the course of a 15-week season. The league will kick off Week 1 on February 18, 2011.
"Minor league pro football is a weird universe filled with bounced checks, unpaid bills, empty promises, out-right lies, empty arenas, endless women, endless booze, occasionally drugs, endless trips on rented buses to towns on the outskirts of the Big Time and, for one night a week, a football game." -- Bill Shea
Yesterday afternoon I heard a rumor there was a problem regarding the UIFL's Saginaw Sting. Following up on the rumor I learned the ownership and GM have been removed from the league. Originally I heard the head coach had also been removed, but later found out he's still on the payroll for now. I was told that all monies running through the Sting organization now will go through SMG, management which controls the venue in Saginaw. UIFL Commissioner Phil Esposito may step down and assume the GM role in Saginaw. Time will tell if the UIFL dodged a bullet and made the right decisions to keep the team afloat and moving forward. Now two of the league's six teams are controlled by the league itself.
"Minor league pro football is a weird universe filled with bounced checks, unpaid bills, empty promises, out-right lies, empty arenas, endless women, endless booze, occasionally drugs, endless trips on rented buses to towns on the outskirts of the Big Time and, for one night a week, a football game." -- Bill Shea
Cloud of uncertainty hangs over new Saginaw Sting indoor football team
December 12, 2010 Kyle Austin | The Saginaw News
SAGINAW — Andrew Haines approached the podium at The Dow Event Center in late September, smiled, and spoke about the future with a green Saginaw Sting backdrop behind him.
As the co-founder and public face of the new Ultimate Indoor Football League, Haines is helping restart the Sting a year after the franchise closed up shop — the latest entrepreneur hoping to break a long business losing streak by minor professional franchises in Saginaw.
“Andrew and the people involved in his league do have experience with putting on successful leagues prior to the UIFL,” said Event Center General Manager Matt Blasy at the Sept. 27 press conference, citing conversations with other arena general managers who he says have had positive experiences with the leagues.
But Haines’ history with indoor football teams and leagues, along with other minor league sports ventures, is marked by failed startups, litigation, and some creditors and employees saying they went unpaid.
Haines has been involved in the management of three leagues prior to the Ultimate Indoor Football League, in three sports, according to published reports and people involved in each league. Combined, they have lasted fewer than three seasons. Haines spent two seasons in charge of his own previous football venture, and his two leagues since haven’t finished a season.
“Sometimes it takes learning the hard way to learn something,” Haines said. “It really does. I’ll be the first to admit it.”
Haines said that Saginaw’s Sting franchise, which is owned and operated by the league, will be here for the long run.
Complaints
Haines started his first minor professional league, the American Indoor Football League, in Canton, Ohio, in 2005.
It operated for two seasons before John Morris and Michael Mink, who co-owned the Montgomery, Ala., franchise, formed a new league that absorbed the existing franchises, according to The Charlotte Observer, while Haines was in the midst of a lawsuit.
The second league Haines founded, the Mid-Atlantic Hockey League, ceased operations part-way through its first season in February 2008. Haines sold it six months later.
In June 2009, Haines founded the Global Professional Basketball League, which has yet to operate. Haines said he sold it. California businessman Rod Myers confirmed he purchased the basketball league this year and said he later sold it to a businessman from Illinois.
The hockey league was sold to an investment group and later merged with the All-American Hockey League, which is functional and includes the Lapeer Loggers. Both the basketball and hockey leagues originally were based out of Canton, Ohio.
One of Haines’ sports business ventures landed him in civil court.
In 2006, according to complaints in a lawsuit filed by Robert W. Boyd of Pittsburgh against Haines and the league, Haines made “repeated fraudulent representations” during the process of selling the Carolina Ghostriders of the American Indoor Football League to Boyd. Haines owned the team and the league.
Boyd claims in the suit, filed in the Allegheny County, Pa., Court of Common Pleas, that Haines misrepresented the financial state of the team and the team’s assets, including equipment and a website. In addition, the team’s general manager, David E. Dix, was accused by Boyd in his suit of embezzling $38,000 from the team. Dix, who was named as a defendant in the suit, has not been criminally charged in Asheville, N.C., according to the Buncombe County District Attorney’s office. Dix has convictions in Texas for forgery and fraudulent check-cashing.
Boyd, in the complaint, said he lost $140,000 in the venture, and he sued Haines and the league after the season ended. After Haines did not respond to the complaint, Boyd was awarded a $435,000 default judgment, according to court documents.
Haines called the case a “misunderstanding” and said the matter had been “settled” but declined to say if he paid Boyd the judgment amount. Court records list the judgment as not satisfied, and a court clerk said the Allegheny County court requires parties to file paperwork if a case has been settled. The News could not reach Boyd for comment.
Brian Gratz, a coach in Haines’ Mid-Atlantic Hockey League, claimed Haines paid him $2,000 out of a $12,000 contract for the 2007-08 season. A copy of Gratz’s contract obtained by the News indicates no provisions in the event of the league ceasing operations. The contract does not contain Haines’ signature.
Gratz, who coached the Indiana (Pa.) Ice Drillers, also claimed that players were not paid for the final six weeks of the season, and the team was locked out of its rink because of unpaid bills. S&T Bank Arena Recreation Director Ryan Shaffer said that the team failed to pay more than $2,000 in arena fees. The Indiana Gazette reported players went six weeks without payment.
Hudson, Iowa, native Nick Niedert, an original goalie on the team, said he wasn’t paid over the final portion of the season and said he was left with more than $10,000 in medical bills after the season when worker’s compensation didn’t cover his medical expenses.
Haines said he sold the team to a Pennsylvania businessman midway through the 2007-08 season; he declined to share the purchase agreement. Gratz said Haines continued to function as the team owner through the end of the season and collected gate receipts, something Haines refutes.
Haines maintains he was not team owner at the time and is not responsible for its debts. teams gx.pngView full size
After the season, Haines said, the team was sold a second time, to a Texas businessman named Fidel Jenkins. The Saginaw News could not reach Jenkins.
Mid-Atlantic Hockey League players were unpaid on Haines’ Jamestown, N.Y., team, as well, said Mike Ferguson, general manager of the Jamestown Savings and Bank Arena, which housed the Mid-Atlantic Hockey League’s Jamestown Vikings. The Buffalo News reported in February 2008 that Vikings players went two months without pay. Haines acknowledges that he was the team owner at the time and that he was behind on payroll.
Gratz and Niedert said they considered filing a class action lawsuit against Haines, to be joined by members of Haines-owned Mid-Atlantic Hockey League teams, but said the complexity of teams incorporated in multiple states made it hard to find a lawyer to take the case. They ultimately decided not to sue. Haines said he is not financially liable for any debt because he no longer owns the teams.
Starting and selling
On the biography posted on the newly formed Ultimate Indoor Football League website, Haines describes himself as a businessman who specializes in starting enterprises and then selling them for a profit, having done so more than 30 times. His business, BizSellers, aims to connect business buyers and business sellers.
The 30-plus business number includes the sale of three sports leagues. Multiple people involved with the leagues, teams and arenas say they were enticed with projections of profit or payment, then left on the hook for thousands of dollars when teams weren’t profitable.
Gratz provided sample team budgets and revenue projections he said Haines gave to members of his hockey league that show a $256,000 yearly budget and revenues ranging from $308,000 in the first year to $493,000 in the fifth year.
In selling the Carolina AIFL franchise to Boyd, Haines wrote in an e-mail that “the team should be able to cover the cost of everything in year one ... you might need to put a little in just to get it going,” according to the lawsuit.
“He would incorporate a company, a team, build a website, and he would put some numerical value on it,” Gratz said of the Mid-Atlantic Hockey League. “He would create these franchises and try to sell them without any structure in place whatsoever.”
Haines said he has not misled anyone associated with his teams and said the allure of professional sports can lead to misguided notions of profitability.
“People tend to believe what they want,” Haines said. “They get caught up in the excitement in it. Our contracts state that we don’t make any promises or warranties, for that reason. We can’t control how much profit or losses a team has.”
Others said that Haines had good ideas and intentions and simply didn’t have the money necessary to operate a start-up league.
“Great ideas, horrendous execution,” said Chris Munson, director of player development for the Global Professional Basketball League. “Andrew’s heart was in the right place.”
Haines said the Ultimate Indoor Football League will be different for a number of reasons, including a more selective ownership process for the teams, lower league dues and team budgets, a philosophy of not expanding too large, too fast, and a focus on marketing.
Selling his share of the Ultimate Indoor Football League is “not necessarily our plan here,” Haines said.
Haines said he is not a majority owner in the league; he declined to say how large his share is. The person Haines said is his partner in the league, Michael Taylor of Tampa, Fla., could not be reached by The Saginaw News for comment.
“This isn’t my source of income,” Haines said.
Haines used previous indoor football connections to find an owner for the Sting in Atlanta businessman Tony Stewart. But Stewart, along with would-be general manager Andre White, backed out of the arrangement in early November after running the team for a month.
Stewart said in an interview with The News that he was stretched too thin between the Sting and other business ventures.
Haines said the league will not actively look for independent ownership before or during the regular season, but rather will run the Sting itself.
“I don’t think it would be a good fit,” Haines said of having an independent owner. “We’re better off working with the arena the way we were planning to.”
Standing at the lectern in Saginaw during the introductory press conference, Haines said the venture is not meant to be short-lived.
“We’re really focused on trying to make the team successful,” Haines said. “We’re not in it for a quick money grab.”
The Haines file Age: 32
Education: 1997 graduate, Lampeter-Strasburg High School, Lampeter Pa.
Hometown: Lancaster, Pa.; now lives in Canton, Ohio
Professional past:
2001-04, involved in the ownership of two semi-professional football teams, in Florida and Pennsylvania, and an American Basketball Association team in Maryland, according to several newspaper reports; 2004-09, started three minor professional sports leagues, involved with the Atlantic Indoor Football League for two seasons and the Mid-Atlantic Hockey League for one. Haines also owned several teams in those leagues, including an indoor football team in Canton, Ohio, and hockey teams in Pennsylvania and New York. April 2010, started the Ultimate Indoor Football League; September 2010, added the Saginaw Sting franchise. Haines announced last week he will launch the Ultimate Baseball League in Canton next year.
Political past: November 2010, unsuccessful bid for the Ohio State Assembly as Democrat
Legal past: June 2010, federal tax lien filed against Haines for $15,299, Stark County (Ohio) recorder’s office records show; also June 2010, state tax lien of $7,991 filed, Stark County Court of Common Pleas records show; 2008, default judgment of $79,000 issued against one of Haines’ companies, AG Sports Management, Stark County court records show. Haines said the tax issues are “getting resolved” and the case with the default judgment is not resolved.
"Minor league pro football is a weird universe filled with bounced checks, unpaid bills, empty promises, out-right lies, empty arenas, endless women, endless booze, occasionally drugs, endless trips on rented buses to towns on the outskirts of the Big Time and, for one night a week, a football game." -- Bill Shea
Administrator: #LFL-US Pacific Cup: Seattle Mist 27, Los Angeles Temptation 25 (FINAL) #IndoorScores
Dec 7, 2013 2:03:30 GMT -5
Banana Cat: This board was revised and updated on 7 December in preparation for the 2014 season. If you have any suggestions, let me know.
Dec 7, 2013 6:38:21 GMT -5
Banana Cat: LFL-AU kicks off inaugural season; New South Wales Surge 44, Queensland Brigade 6 (FINAL)
Dec 7, 2013 7:47:46 GMT -5
Banana Cat: LFL-AU: Victoria Maidens 32, Western Australia Angels 26 (FINAL)
Dec 14, 2013 21:58:09 GMT -5
Banana Cat: Seattle Seahawks vs Denver Broncos for the Super Bowl. Who will win?
Jan 22, 2014 22:00:38 GMT -5
CF4L: Grand Island is up 13-0 early on over Lincoln
Feb 10, 2014 20:24:08 GMT -5
CF4L: 19-0 GI after a quarter.
Feb 10, 2014 20:38:55 GMT -5
Banana Cat: Did you go to the game CF4L?
Feb 17, 2014 11:34:51 GMT -5
danger10: Watching first night of IFL Regular season lets go Danger!
Feb 21, 2014 21:21:56 GMT -5
BNDC: Football bandits.
Mar 2, 2014 17:26:50 GMT -5
dubyaessoh: Sure is quiet in here this year!
Mar 14, 2014 19:15:50 GMT -5
halaroo: Does anyone know where I can watch away games for the AIF online?
Mar 22, 2014 9:53:41 GMT -5
Doom: this shoutbox at the bottom noone really sees it is prolly why its always quiet
Apr 12, 2014 19:11:41 GMT -5
Banana Cat: Everyone's on the facebook group now too, which makes it even more quiet. This shoutbox was quiet when it was at the top this past year, so maybe I should just shut it down.
Apr 14, 2014 20:55:38 GMT -5
Bring Back CFL to KC: so what are the guess about chances for indoor football back in kc
Sept 8, 2014 20:19:30 GMT -5
superpicker: Merry Christmas to all.
Dec 25, 2014 9:29:43 GMT -5
superpicker: Happy New Year 2015 to all fans, friends, players, owners, coaches and anyone else involved with the great sport of Indoor Football.
Jan 10, 2015 12:00:39 GMT -5
superpicker: Happy 2016 to all fans, friends, players, owners, coaches and anyone else involved with the great sport of Indoor Football.