Update 12/3/2019: After suspending business operations a month ago, the Arena Football League filed for bankruptcy last week, a final nail in the coffin for a league that has faced financial turbulence over the past several years.
Commissioner Randall Boe said the efforts to save the league weren’t enough in his official statement.
“We all love the game and tried very hard to make it successful, but we simply weren’t able to raise the capital necessary to grow the League, resolve the substantial legacy liabilities and make it financially viable,” Boe said.
While the Washington Valor will be no longer, D.C. football fans will soon have another team to root for. The D.C. Defenders will kick off the new XFL League in February 2020.
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The Arena Football League, amid lawsuits and financial difficulties, announced this week that it will be suspending local business operations in all of its market cities.
The Washington Valor and Baltimore Brigade, both under the management of Monumental Sports and Entertainment, the same company that owns the Wizards, Mystics, and Capitals, are among the league’s six teams affected by the suspension.
The league’s official statement said the closures were “direct consequences of the current financial restraints facing the AFL.” The statement referred to “extensive legacy liabilities” and a multi-million dollar lawsuit facing the league. The National Union Fire Insurance Company sued the AFL earlier this month, alleging that the league owed more than 2.4 million dollars in over-due premiums and payments related to worker’s compensation during a three year period from 2009-2012.
This is not the first time the AFL has suspended operations. Owners also canceled the 2009 season, pending an agreement with its player’s union.
In a last attempt to save the league, the AFL is considering different business models to expand to new cities across the country, according to the league commissioner Randall Boe.
Boe tells DCist that one of the AFL’s biggest problems was an inability to keep teams in the league. Team owners often lacked resources compared to other prominent sports teams in their cities, and ended up folding or switching leagues after a few years, he says.
“Any league is only as strong as its weakest ownership group,” Boe says. “All of the ownership groups we attracted didn’t have the resources to stay with it.”
This past spring, the AFL shifted their business model to solve this problem. In the place of individual owners or ownership groups, the league itself now owns the teams, and previous owners and third party companies like Monumental Sports and Entertainment became shareholders in the league.
But when the lawsuit hit earlier this month, the league could no longer keep operating, Boe says. “That really put a pretty substantial set of handcuffs on us in terms of what we can do,” he says.
Following the league’s statement, Ted Leonsis, founder of Monumental Sports and Entertainment and the man responsible for the Valor’s presence in D.C., posted a response on his LinkedIn page, expressing his disappointment in the decision.
“Monumental is proud of the work that we did to generate passion and excitement for the AFL amongst our employees, our fans, and for our local AFL teams,” Leonsis says in his statement. “We did something brave, innovative and fun.”
The Washington Valor came to D.C. in 2016, only months before the league downsized dramatically, with the folding or departure of five different AFL teams. Despite Leonsis’ status as an icon in local D.C. sports and the team’s home field at the Verizon Center, the AFL struggled to gain popularity in the District. The league, with its half-sized field and fast-paced play, was meant to attract a younger audience.
As the AFL considers permanently withdrawing from its local markets, a new professional indoor football league, the XFL, is set to begin play in February 2020. D.C. will be represented in the eight-team league by the D.C. Defenders.
Going forward, Boe said the AFL is investigating a “touring model,” much like the one used by the new Premiere Lacrosse League that began its inaugural season this past June. According to Boe, the new model would keep the same six teams in the AFL, but divide the league into three regions. Two games would be played in each regional location, and the remainder of the season would be spent touring the country.
“It’s less expensive, its more efficient, and it allows us to create a national footprint much faster the process of building up markets,” Boe said. “We think we can start generating fan support in a lot of different areas across the country by bringing the game to them.”
Boe said the league plans to make a final decision regarding its next steps during the upcoming week, and the they’ll try everything to keep the AFL alive.
“We love the game. The fans are fantastic, the players I have so much respect for,” Boe said. “It has a real hold on people and we would love to find a way to continue operating the league.”
