rumorray
Cleans the Towels
The Baltimore Mariners Won Back To Back AIF Championships in 2010 and 2014 ( LONG STORY )
Posts: 2
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Post by rumorray on Jun 17, 2014 15:08:27 GMT -5
New to the site however I noticed not many people are on this board. That seams to be the issue with "Pro" Indoor Football ... Plenty of teams and leagues however No Fan Base!
I noticed the biggest issue the sport has is way to many Leagues that do not "vet" the owners to make sure they have the working capital to last a couple years to even start to build a fan base.
The Arena's that have the height for kicking field goals and kick off hold way to many people and the teams can not afford pay the rent. These teams draw at best 1,500 fans and are trying to pay the rent on arenas that hold 7,000 - 12,000 fans. That is the issue in Baltimore when you have a very loyal fan base of 600 fans however your paying $13,000 game in rent and making $6,000 at the gate. The arenas that hold 600 and less fans are created for ice hockey or indoor soccer and limit the kicking game however they are way more affordable.
I also notice that the amount of players that really get a pay check is so low that they should call most teams "semi pro".
The truth is the games are far faster paced then the NFL and I enjoy the show way more, however the fact that teams come and go so fast makes it hard for a fan base to even get started.
Wishing the Baltimore Mariners all the luck to make it to the 2015 Season after winning the AIF 2014 Championship. The game was down to the last 2.5 seconds and was won with a touch down making the lead of 1 point! EXCITEMENT
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Post by Banana Cat on Jun 17, 2014 16:46:39 GMT -5
All traffic moved to the facebook group about a year ago, located here: www.facebook.com/groups/indoorfootballforumFacebook reaches a wider audience, but myself and a few others still post sparingly here. There is still a lot of good info in past posts here. I don't expect facebook popularity to die off anytime soon, but if it does maybe things will revert back to here, or to wherever the next popular messageboard system pops up. The problem with this sport is there are too many scam artists who run leagues (currently AIF, X-League), too many untrustworthy people across the board, too many owners that think that they can just start a team and put on a game and sponsors and fans will come flocking with no marketing or real money backing them whatsoever. When the sponsors and fans don't materialize, they realize they didn't have enough capital to start with and can't pay the arena, staff, players, etc, and quickly fold up shop. Some leagues do better than others as far as letting more qualified ownerships into their leagues (IFL, CPIFL, PIFL, LSFL) and they learned those lessons the hard way. The CIFL and UIFL still let questionable ownerships into their leagues and so continually face major problems. That's just a short summary, I'm more verbose in the facebook group. The AIF is the league you seem to be following. John Morris runs the league and will basically let any team in that can afford to pay his league expansion fee and monthly dues. You saw what the result of that was this year. Terrible arenas with low ceilings, ownerships losing the right to play in their arenas because they didn't have enough money to pay them, not enough money to play players (which results in many teams playing non-pro players), etc. There is no long term thinking done by anyone in the AIF, it's all live in the moment and hope for the best. Only John Morris is the one laughing, while depositing money in the bank given to him by people with gigantic ego's and unrealistic sports dreams. Good luck to the Baltimore Mariners if they decide to return next season. I hope they can shore up their ownership and get more investors. They definitely need to market better, which is only done effectively by hiring competent staff with experience in marketing.
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rumorray
Cleans the Towels
The Baltimore Mariners Won Back To Back AIF Championships in 2010 and 2014 ( LONG STORY )
Posts: 2
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Post by rumorray on Jun 18, 2014 19:02:38 GMT -5
Banana Cat,
Thanks for the reply. Yes the AIF is a nightmare of a league. I blame both the league and the current owner for the issues of the Mariners. First off the AIF should have never allowed a man with no capital (or limited) to start a team and then Tom the owner should have did his homework and he would have learned more history then he ever wanted to know about the issues the three former owners had. The sad part is the Baltimore has a Arena that works well for indoor football and has a very loyal fan base for Pro Football (Ravens) however they have never marketed to the correct crowd. We tried to help the owner of the team reach the masses of real football fans however he ran out of money before we even got a chance to start the program and now just owes more debt.
I would love to see the team move to the PIFL and play some solid teams that can finish a full season.
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Post by Banana Cat on Jun 19, 2014 23:33:46 GMT -5
Agree.
It would be tough for them to move up to the PIFL without investors though (current ownership can't handle it).
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