Arena Football League on television
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Historical breakdown
1980s
ESPN was the original broadcaster for Arena Football games, showing games live in the league's first two seasons, 1987 and 1988. ESPN signed a six-year contract with the AFL in 1987, but was given the option to opt out of the contract if they were not getting the rating they wanted.[2]
The
1990s
Partially because of turmoil within the league itself, ESPN did not broadcast Arena Football again until 1992, when they broadcast six games and the ArenaBowl on an overnight, tape delay basis. Starting in 1993, ESPN started showing games live or at least not during overnight hours.
When
.It originally had aired the inaugural
.2000s
The year 2000 brought a heightened interest in the AFL after Kurt Warner, who spent three years as quarterback of the AFL's Iowa Barnstormers, rose to fame as starting quarterback for The Greatest Show on Turf, the Super Bowl-winning offense of the then-St. Louis Rams. While many sports commentators and fans continued to ridicule the league, Warner's story gave the league positive exposure, and it brought the league a new television deal with TNN, who would televise regular season games live on Sunday afternoons.
The TNN deal coincided with the league's emergence as one with a major presence on the North American continent. Major markets such as Chicago, Detroit, Dallas, and Los Angeles, each of which had lacked franchises for many years, returned to the league, it received its first and only franchise in Canada (the Toronto Phantoms), and teams in smaller markets such as Albany and Iowa were relocated. In 2001, the league peaked at 19 teams.
Included in the deal for the league was the right to broadcast the
ESPN subsequently began televising AFL playoff games from 2000-02. TNN's coverage of the AFL also ended after the 2002 season. TNN itself was moving away from live sports, at the time transitioning to a network named Spike TV.
The
The regional Chicago telecasts went to Comcast SportsNet. From 2001 to 2008, the Rush games were broadcast by
The AFL comes to NBC
In
NBC's coverage received sharp criticism from some longtime AFL fans and owners such as Jon Bon Jovi.
FSN would carry more than 100 telecasts in
In addition, FSN would continue producing and televising AFL WEEKLY, a weekly magazine program that premiered on the network in the previous season.
The Fox Sports Networks agreement had some of the revenue-sharing aspects in common with the two-year deal that the AFL had with NBC. FSN, like NBC, didn't pay rights fees to carry the games. The network instead, split ad revenue with the AFL; NBC split ad revenue 50-50 with the league, and the Fox deal was similar but apparently not 50-50. The agreement calls for FSN to produce the game telecasts, and both the AFL and FSN will work together to sell advertising inventory. Once FSN reimbursed for its production costs, the two organizations would share ad revenue. The agreement, combined with individual team broadcasting agreements, increased the number of AFL non-NBC games on television from 39 in 2004 to more than 120 in 2005. Most FSN regional telecasts took place on Fridays and Saturdays, and were in addition to the AFL's exclusive Sunday afternoon national window on NBC.
For the
In 2006, due to the
NBC's broadcast of ArenaBowl XX in 2006 earned NBC a considerably disappointing 0.7% of the U.S. households; the small audience for the 2006 ArenaBowl was the culmination of a season that earned NBC 0.9% of the U.S. households. This was down from the inaugural 2003 season of The AFL on NBC, which earned a 1.1% share;[7] in contrast, even at its lowest, the XFL, which aired in 2001, was drawing 1.6% of U.S. households for its NBC broadcasts.[8]
On June 30, 2006, the Arena Football League and NBC Sports failed to reach an agreement to extend their broadcasting contract, ending the network's association with the AFL after four years. League commissioner David Baker said regarding the end of the partnership, "NBC has been a great partner. We are forever grateful to them for exhibiting our game with the utmost respect and integrity. We wish them well, but are also excited to begin a new chapter that will continue our unprecedented growth." NBC Sports president Ken Schanzer responded, "Unfortunately we were unable to reach an agreement. We've enjoyed our partnership with the Arena Football League. It's a great game with great people. We wish them all the best." In an interview with The New York Times, NBC spokesman Mike McCarley stated, "we gave Arena Football our best effort, with top production and significant promotion, but the ratings never grew."
During an August 2006 segment of Larry King's interview with owner Jon Bon Jovi, a new deal was hinted at being in development, one that would be superior to its previous agreement with NBC. In December 2006, a deal was struck with ABC/ESPN to broadcast AFL regular season and playoff games.[9] ESPN also assumed partial ownership of the league itself. Las Vegas Gladiators owner Jim Ferraro stated during a radio interview that the reason why a renewed deal with NBC failed was because ESPN refused to show highlights of the games or even mention a product being broadcast on NBC.
The end of the AFL's deal with NBC
As previously mentioned, on December 19, 2006,
Some
2010s
In 2009, the
When the Rush returned in 2010, the AFL signed its TV deal with
Chicago returned to the field on April 2, 2010 on the road against the
The NFL Network broadcast the regular season each Friday night and went through the playoffs, culminating with the
NFL Network ceased airing Arena Football League games partway through the 2012 season as a result of ongoing labor problems within the league. The remaining games in the season were carried on a tape delay to prevent the possibility of the players staging a work stoppage immediately prior to a scheduled broadcast and the resulting embarrassment. Once the labor issues were resolved, the NFL Network resumed the practice of broadcasting a live Friday night game. ) before the network dropped the league outright at the end of the season. The rights were picked up by CBS Sports.
The AFL aligns with CBS Sports
As part of a two-year agreement,[14] the CBS Sports Network aired nineteen regular season games[15][16] and two playoff games. When CBS aired ArenaBowl XXVI, it marked the first time since 2008 that the league's finale aired on network television.
Regular season CBSSN broadcast games were usually on Saturday nights. As the games were shown live, the start times were not uniform as with most football broadcast packages, but varied with the time zone in which the home team was located. This meant that the AFL may have appeared either prior to or following the CBSSN's featured Major League Lacrosse game.
ESPN would be returning to the AFL (starting in 2014) as broadcast partners, with weekly games being shown on
For the 2017 season, one AFL game per week was broadcast live nationally over CBS Sports Network. In 2017, the AFL also began streaming some games on Twitter and AFLNow, the league's streaming service.[18][19] For the 2018 season, the AFL's sole national English language telecast partner was the CBS Sports Network, but all games were streamed free online and Brigade and Valor games were available over their owner Ted Leonsis' Monumental Sports Network.
As of 2019, CBS Sports no longer airs Arena Football League games.
References
- Florida Times-Union. May 12, 2001. Archived from the originalon 2012-06-23. Retrieved August 6, 2009.
- ^ Linda Young (July 10, 1987). "Espn Holding The Line On Arenaball". Chicago Tribune. Archived from the original on December 17, 2013. Retrieved February 11, 2013.
- ^ "The complete AFL Arena Football resource | ArenaFan.com". Archived from the original on 2019-08-19. Retrieved 2019-08-14.
- ^ "Quotes from Bon Jovi about lack of league promotion". MSNBC. Archived from the original on 2012-09-06.
- Arena Football League. February 17, 2006. Archived from the originalon March 18, 2009. Retrieved October 15, 2007.
- ^ "ESPN acquires minority stake, TV rights in AFL". ESPN.com (Press release). December 20, 2006. Archived from the original on October 31, 2007. Retrieved October 15, 2007.
- ^ "AFL on NBC Television Ratings". ArenaFan.com. Archived from the original on 2019-07-17. Retrieved 2019-08-14.
- ^ "WWE drops XFL". money.cnn.com. CNN. 2001-05-10. Archived from the original on 2011-11-20. Retrieved 2011-10-03.
- ^ "ESPN acquires minority stake, TV rights in AFL - ESPN". ESPN. Archived from the original on 2016-01-11. Retrieved 2019-08-14.
- ^ "ESPN Buys Stake in the Arena Football League - 19 December 2006 11:35:00 AM - Broadcasting & Cable". Archived from the original on 28 February 2007. Retrieved 14 August 2019.
- ^ "CableFAX". Archived from the original on 2014-04-16. Retrieved 2019-08-14.
- ^ "Arenarush.com". Archived from the original on 2018-11-01. Retrieved 2021-10-22.
- ^ NFL Network Schedule News Release[permanent dead link]
- ^ "AFL, CBS Sports Network Sign Two-Year TV Agreement". Arena Football League. November 13, 2012. Archived from the original on February 16, 2013. Retrieved May 11, 2013.
- ^ McMillan, Ken (14 February 2013). "CBS Sports Net to air Arena Football League". Archived from the original on 10 March 2013. Retrieved 24 February 2013.
- ^ "AFL Announces 2013 CBS Sports Network Schedule". ArenaFootball.com. Archived from the original on 2013-07-05. Retrieved 22 May 2013.
- ^ Vaughn Johnson (December 3, 2013). "Leaked document reveals ESPN as new national television partner for Arena Football League". www.philly.com. Interstate General Media, LLC. Archived from the original on December 16, 2013. Retrieved December 4, 2013.
- ^ "Arena Football League and Twitter Partner to Stream Five Regular Season Games in 2017". arenafootball.com. June 1, 2017. Archived from the original on August 12, 2017. Retrieved August 12, 2017.
- ^ "AFL to Offer Complimentary Access to AFLNow During Playoffs and ArenaBowl XXX". arenafootball.com. August 11, 2017. Archived from the original on August 12, 2017. Retrieved August 12, 2017.