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The Great Indoors
Matt Purdue
06/01/2004
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With numbers like these, it should come
as no surprise that Arena Football values have expanded faster than an offensive
lineman’s waistline at the training buffet. According to AFL CFO Joe Vrankin,
nine years ago a savvy investor could have snapped up a franchise for $285,000.
The two most recent sales have rung up about $12 million (for rocker Jon Bon
Jovi’s Philadelphia Soul) and approximately $17 million (the franchise fee for
the new team in Austin, Texas). The AFL is planning to expand into Nashville and
Washington, D.C., in 2005, and Jacksonville, Fla., in 2006. Other candidates
include Boston, Cleveland, Miami, the Pacific Northwest and St. Louis.
 | | PHILADELPHIA QUARTERBACK Nick Browder passes against New Orleans. The
Arena Football League fields 19 teams. |
Corey
J. Chisnell, senior vice president of Baltimore-based investment banking firm
Moag & Co., recently brokered the Bon Jovi deal in Philadelphia. “We’re very
bullish on the AFL,” he says. “We think there’s a tremendous upside, and you’re
not going to see a tremendous upside going forward in traditional sports.”
Greedy Owners, Spoiled Players
AFL Commissioner David Baker, a former
college basketball player who stands 6 feet, 9 inches, and surpassed 300 pounds
more than a few lunches ago, credits the league’s success to one thing: the
fans. In an era when fans read about sports heroes in the police blotter as
often as in the box scores, Baker has instilled in his players, owners and staff
an almost religious reverence for AFL supporters. “During the ’80s and ’90s we
learned from people like Peter Drucker and Tom Peters that if you focus on
serving the customer, you are not only going to increase your revenue but ensure
the long-term stability of your business,” he explains. “That was true of
everything except for sports. Sports had lost its way with greedy owners and
spoiled players.”
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