San Antonio is scoring some points with Arena League
San Antonio Business Journal - June 29, 2007
http://sanantonio.bizjournals.com/sa...874&hbx=e_vert
The New Orleans Saints teased San Antonio before marching back home to Louisiana. And now the Dallas Cowboys are days away from turning the nation's seventh largest city into temporary camp quarters for another market's team.
In the next few weeks, the AFL will take up the issue of expansion. It will also likely have to deal with an Austin Wranglers franchise that is contemplating ending its four-year run in the AFL.
Discussions regarding the AFL's next round of expansion "will close this summer," says Chris McCloskey, senior vice president of communications for the AFL.
A number of markets are under consideration, including Washington, D.C., and South Florida.
But the league is also interested in San Antonio. The only hitch so far: Finding the right ownership group.
AFL officials, according to McCloskey, have previously been engaged in "numerous discussions" with various prospective ownership groups, "all of whom agree that San Antonio and the AFL are a perfect fit."
To date, nothing has come from those meetings. But McCloskey says AFL officials "continue to believe that San Antonio would be a great AFL market."
Football-hungry fans
Expansion may not be San Antonio's only ticket to the AFL. Relocation of an existing team is another possibility.
The Austin Wranglers joined the AFL in 2004, drawing an average of just over 11,000 fans to its home games that inaugural season. Now the team is reportedly contemplating ceasing operations in the AFL and stepping down to the lower-level AF2.
Wranglers spokeswoman Erin Griffin says owner Doug MacGregor and his staff are now beginning the process of evaluating the team's future.
"No final decisions will be made until maybe early August," she explains, adding that, at present, there are no plans to relocate the Wranglers to another city.
Griffin does confirm that the AFL's board of governors will ultimately decide what to do with the Wranglers. Such a decision could come when the owners meet in New Orleans in late July for ArenaBowl 2007.
McCloskey, asked about the Wranglers' situation and the possibility of moving the team to San Antonio, does not address the matter.
At least one AFL owner is equally tight-lipped about the possibility of relocating the Wranglers.
Jason Jones, president of the AFL's Utah Blaze, won't comment on the Wranglers' status either.
But he is impressed with San Antonio and shares his thoughts about the Alamo City as a football market.
"We all agree that San Antonio is a great city and laden with football-hungry fans," he says.
San Antonio had a taste of the AFL in 1992. That's when the Spurs, under previous ownership, operated the San Antonio Force.
Both franchises played at the venerable HemisFair Arena, which was not designed for indoor football and offered fans poor sight lines for AFL games.
The Force won only two of its 10 games in that one-and-done season. The team also earned the distinction of becoming the first in the history of the high-scoring AFL to be shut out.
The Force did have some success at the box office, drawing an average of more than 12,000 fans per home game.
That was a different era for the AFL, which now has another 15 seasons under its belt. It also has a multi-year partnership arrangement with ESPN, which has broadcasting rights and an equity stake in the league.
Spurs Sports & Entertainment is the umbrella organization that now owns and operates the Spurs. It also owns and operates the American Hockey League's San Antonio Rampage and the WNBA's San Antonio Silver Stars.
The Rampage and Silver Stars have both struggled to build an audience in San Antonio. So one might suspect that SS&E is in no hurry to add to its sports franchise portfolio anytime soon.
But SS&E, according to Executive Vice President Rick Pych, has not ruled out making a run at an AFL team for San Antonio and perhaps another tenant for AT&T Center.
"We're always looking for opportunities," Pych says. "We will look at anything that makes sense."
Cynics will argue that San Antonio has participated in more than its share of failed start-up professional football leagues. That involvement began with the World Football League in the mid 1970s and ended with the Canadian Football League more than a decade ago.
AFL supporters contend that the indoor league is no spring chicken. They will remind the critics that the AFL is finishing up its 21st season.
San Antonio and the AFL have both come a long way since 1992. Could the two be reunited?
Says McCloskey: "Once an ownership group presents itself that we feel possesses the right commitment to Arena Football, it won't be long before San Antonio has a team."
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