A Fresh New Take, or Overkill?
It’s probably too much of a good thing.
Even as a variation of the now-defunct Arena Football League is making plans for next year – yes, a team is scheduled to play in Salt Lake in 2010 – another league is starting up, too. The United Football League played its inaugural game, last week, and the results were underwhelming. Only 14,000 fans attended the San Francisco at Las Vegas game, and only 146,000 watched on TV.
To put that into perspective, 14,000 is maybe what you’ll see at a Utah State football game and 146,000 is what you’ll see attending a Michigan home game, combined with attendance at a Utah game.
That’s not much for a supposed national audience.
Then there’s Arena Football 1. The new Salt Lake team is the former Utah Valley Thunder, which plans to move its operations to the E-Center. The Thunder has been playing in the American Indoor Football Association.
The question is whether there actually is too much football available. Considering that ESPN is showing college games almost every night of the week – and pro football is on TV the other nights – it’s hard to imagine anyone drawing many fans out into the stadiums and arenas for something new.
My skeptical side tells me neither of these leagues is going to work. My optimistic side says, hey, you take a proven product and tweak it, like Papa Murphy’s Pizza did. Wasn’t there already a proliferation of pizza places when it came along?
Still, I’m sticking with my skeptical side.
What do you think? Is there too much football? Would you attend pro football like AF1 on a regular basis? Or is there enough football with the local college teams and TV games to keep you happy?