We are just over a week away from the start of the Indoor Football League season south of the border.
Now, I am aware many of you are aware I never watch the National Football League, so why am I even aware of the start-up of the indoor season?
Well, in terms of the outdoor version of football I am partial to the Canadian game, and between college and the Canadian Football League probably see about 100-games a year, so my taste for outdoor football is well satisfied.
The indoor game is a sort in miniaturized version of football, with the smaller field and fewer players creating a more vibrant offensive game. I generally like offence in sports, so indoor football intrigues me. Every year its siren call is heard, and I find myself watching a few games.
The flirtation tends to be fleeting. I watch some games online, like what I see, but as playoff races in sports where I have favoured teams to follow, indoor football drops off the watch list. There are no Canadian teams in a league I am aware of, so there is no team to really dig in and become a fan of.
The indoor game actually exploded several years ago with the AFL having teams across the US, with a short try at a team in Toronto. That success led to issues in over expansion, unprepared owners, salaries probably getting too big for the market for the game, and the AFL imploded with teams falling away until one season there were only four left. The league finally succumbed completely following its 2019 season.
That has left a vacuum of sorts at the top of the heap among a bunch of indoor leagues that still exist, although the Indoor Football League looks to have ascended to the top of the pile, at least in the west.
The IFL doesn’t go farther east than Columbus, scheduled to join in 2022.
The east has the National Arena League.
Obviously the two leagues joining forces would create a national league, and while there is a fear of travel costs, baseball once did not have the AL and NL crossing paths in the regular season, and the same could apply for indoor football.
The game is one, that if it ever expanded north with a team, or two, could be must see.
I will say in general I need ‘a horse in the race’ as they say, to really get into a sport—rugby being an exception in that I can watch any game I come across.
That was why I recently found a tidbit online that had me smiling.
The Australian Football League is another sport that is fun to watch, but with random games of the week you just never get to know players very well, and again no team to really follow.
The article online tidbit suggested some effort taking place to find a locale in Los Angeles to host an AFL game, with just a hint that enough interest could lead to a team in the city as part of the AFL one day. I’ll admit that is a long-shot, and likely years away, but it would bring a team a little closer to home, and one might dream Vancouver would be next, such is the increasing trend of leagues going bigger on an international scale, but that is a topic for another day.
