As of yesterday, the Arena Football League will return in 2024 with 16 teams playing weekly games. For those of you who don’t remember, this is the league where wide receivers sprint from 5 yards behind the line of scrimmage on every play. If that doesn’t jog your memory just think of football in a hockey rink.
This new league could be an opportunity for retired football players to get back on the field and get some more of that good old-fashioned CTE. Some fans are even hoping for a possible TB12 revival. The AFL went as far as to tweet at the guy. I mean at least give the guy a few weeks; he’s freshly divorced and in Tampa. Talk about an absolute setup.
With the attempted revival of other leagues like the XFL and Fan Controlled Football failing, people are speculating that this will be just another flop. The league released a statement on Twitter saying that the new and improved version of the AFL will have “components of modern-day business-streaming, betting, technology, virtual reality, and immersive fan engagement mixed with good old-fashioned iron-man football.” So basically they’re just doing the same thing every other professional sports league is doing. I’m pretty excited for what the future of this league has to offer. After all this the place where a player launched a helmet and nailed a fan in the face. Philly fans deserve it though.