INSIDE ARENA FOOTBALL America's fifth major?: Arena league seeking more solid footing as new TV deal tries to quench thirst for year-long gridiron fix Game strategy: "This is not your father's football" The basics: AFL rules and regulations Standings: Keep up with all the action from the AFL  Enlarge By Seth Wenig, AP Philadelphia Soul owner and rock star Jon Bon Jovi is one of the public faces of the Arena league. More visible faces, including Denver Broncos legend John Elway and former Saints and Bears coach Mike Ditka, are taking ownership stakes in AFL teams.  PLAYERS JUST LIKE THE FANS It's true -- many Arena League Football players must work second jobs. "There are a lot of substitute teachers in this league," Philadelphia Soul quarterback Tony Graziani says. But life as an AFL player is improving. The salaries aren't dazzling, but many of them are incentive-laced. And the league provides housing for every player, pushing the average compensation package to an average of $85,000 -- for six months of work. In light of the NFL's recent, highly publicized troubles with players, the Arena League's lack of miscreants is also refreshing. Fans can readily relate to a player who experiences life's daily travails. For instance, the players still fly commercially, going through security checkpoints and agonizing through delays just like everybody else. "You get some looks when you're in the airport," Colorado Crush quarterback John Dutton says. "They see 20 big dudes in an airport terminal and wonder, 'What the heck are they doing?' We'd tell them we were Arena Football players and were met with blank stars. "After a while, I got tired of trying to explain it, so sometimes I'd tell them we were rodeo clowns."  Enlarge By Michael Perez, The Philadelphia Inquirer Says Philadelphia Soul quarterback Tony Graziani of the number of Arena league players who work second jobs, "There are a lot of substitute teachers in this league." But the signal caller says he's heartened by what he sees is growing fan interest, including fantasy leagues that surrond the AFL. Says Graziani, "Fans from other cities are getting on me for only throwing four or five touchdowns."

The football — a wheat-colored thing marked by a ribbon of blue — caroms off a receiver's hands and flies into the Wachovia Center stands. A Philadelphia Soul fan — he's a Soooul Maaan! — holds a white plastic cup in his left hand; he reaches out with his right arm and hugs the ball into his chest. He loses not a drop of his drink.

The overhead speakers thump as his friends give him a high-five. The Spalding belongs to him, an official $90 Arena Football League souvenir for free.

This is just one Thursday night in a 152-game AFL schedule, but the 19,519-seat building, although only about half full, crackles with energy. Maybe it's because of those balls flying into the stands, which sit right on top of the action. Or maybe it's because Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic, hosts of ESPN Radio's Mike & Mike in the Morning, are broadcasting the game. Or maybe it's because rock star-actor and Soul co-owner Jon Bon Jovi is watching from an end-zone suite.

Or maybe it's just that the action is so relentless — "like drinking from a fire hose," says the league's commissioner, David Baker. If you go to the bathroom, you probably will miss a few touchdowns.

"This is better than I thought it would be," says Justin Morasco, a 19-year-old from Norristown, Pa., who is attending his first AFL game. "It reminds me of playground football."

Morasco's friend, Lea Fosco, 17, chimes in, "Oh, I think it's adorable."

"Adorable" probably isn't the word Baker would prefer, but he'll take it. Because even though the AFL is in its 21st year, it still feels like a fledgling league fighting for mainstream respect.

A five-year multimedia deal with ESPN, signed in December, gives Baker new hope. ESPN now owns 10% of the 19-team AFL, making it the league's largest owner. At the end of the deal, ESPN can sell its share back to the AFL or to another investor.

"It intrigued us that ESPN would take an equity position in the AFL," says Doug Kelly, president of Russell Athletic, which signed a five-year deal to sponsor the league and become its exclusive uniform provider.

ESPN's 29-game agreement for 2007 includes 14 Monday night telecasts on ESPN2, giving the network Monday night football programming nearly 60% of the year. ESPN's inaugural Monday Night Football telecasts for the NFL were a big success, drawing an average rating of 9.9 — up 38% from the Sunday night package the network featured before the 2006 season.

"There's tremendous interest in all things football right now," says Leah LaPlaca, ESPN's vice president of programming and acquisitions. "We saw that in the growth of our Monday Night Football ratings and in our college ratings over the past year. It was intriguing for us to have football on our networks year-round, and the AFL fit that bill."

Using platforms such as TV, radio and the Internet, ESPN is throwing an all-out assault to promote the league. "We've been very pleased with the success to date," LaPlaca says. "We're really jazzed up about it."

While ESPN will use its multiple platforms to promote the AFL, it won't be an easy task. NBC held TV contracts with the AFL from 2003 to 2006 — an initial two-year deal followed by two one-year deals — and could never gain an audience. NBC's average ratings fell every season, from 1.1 in 2003 to 1.0 in 2004 to 0.9 in 2005 to 0.8 last year.

Going from a mainstream network to pay cable, the AFL figured it probably would see an initial ratings drop. For its first three dates on ESPN2, the league pulled a 0.3, 0.2 and 0.2, compared with 1.2, 1.2 and 0.9 on its correlating NBC broadcasts one year earlier.

"It's a great sport on-site," says Terry Lefton, editor-at-large with SportsBusiness Journal and SportsBusiness Weekly. "The question is can you get anybody to watch it on TV? So far, the answer has been no."

Lefton is interested to see how the sport grows on ESPN because, he says, "If it doesn't work there, it never will."

Russell Athletic's Kelly believes ESPN can grow the product but it will take time. The big advantage it has over NBC, he says, is consistency of programming.

"With the NBC deal, the game was on, then it would be off for a few weeks. With ESPN, it will be on every Monday night through July."

If it's any solace, the NBA also hit a new TV low, posting a 1.0 for its Sacramento Kings-Phoenix Suns game March 25.

The AFL has strategically altered its 2007 calendar; it now avoids overlaps with the Super Bowl and ensures the Arena Bowl isn't competing with the NBA and NHL playoffs. Last season began at the end of January; this season began March 1. The league played last year's Arena Bowl — won by the Chicago Rush — on June 11; this season ABC will telecast ArenaBowl XXI from New Orleans on July 29 — about the time NFL training camps begin.

The plan is clear: For NFL fans, the AFL provides an offseason football fix. "People don't stop being NFL fans when the Super Bowl is over," Baker says. "They're year-round fans."

But the league's real draw remains the live experience. The Soul listed attendance for its Thursday game with the Colorado Crush at 14,721. While that figure seems like a stretch, it was a solid turnout considering the NCAA men's basketball East Regional was being played about an hour up Interstate 95 at the New Jersey Meadowlands.

The reigning champion Rush averaged 14,500 fans last year at Chicago's 16,000-seat Allstate Arena. Overall, the league averaged 12,378 fans a game during the 2006 regular season and a record 12,872 in 2005. Those are respectable numbers compared with the long-established NHL (16,907 so far this season) and NBA (17,704).

One of Baker's biggest challenges is winning over football traditionalists.

But several NFL owners are now involved, including the Denver Broncos' Pat Bowlen (Colorado), the Dallas Cowboys' Jerry Jones (Dallas Desperados), the Atlanta Falcons' Arthur Blank (Georgia Force), the Tennessee Titans' Bud Adams (Nashville Kats) and the New Orleans Saints' Tom Benson (New Orleans VooDoo).

Country music star Tim McGraw joined the Nashville ownership group in 2004; former NFL star Deion Sanders became part owner of the Austin Wranglers in 2006.

"That was another thing that attracted us to the league," LaPlaca says. "We have a great relationship with the NFL, and there are a number of NFL owners involved. They've recognized this opportunity, as we have."

Kelly also took notice, and that made his decision to sponsor the league easier. "The number of NFL owners wouldn't be involved," he says, "if they didn't think it was going to move forward and prosper."

Old-school players such as former Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Ron Jaworski, former Broncos quarterback John Elway and Hall of Fame tight end and former Chicago Bears and Saints coach Mike Ditka have also signed up in ownership roles. While Jaworski, the Soul's president, will have to juggle his new role as Monday Night Football's analyst, his AFL love song gushes forth like an American Idol ballad.

"I started watching Arena ball in 1991 on some midnight replay game," he says. "As a former quarterback, I thought, 'That is really cool!' No free safety, man-to-man (coverage), high emotion? It's a quarterback's dream, and I fell in love with it."

For a decade, when franchises were going for $250,000, Jaworski tried to buy a team. "I had to do it in Philly. I live here, and I work here," he says. "I could have had a team. But there were so many events going on in the Spectrum, I had nowhere to play."

Jaworski understands that while the league features gimmicks that might offend a purist, it's still football.

He notes Philadelphia has three former NFL players on its offensive line: Martin Bibla (Atlanta), Phil Bogle (San Diego Chargers) and Mike Mabry (Cincinnati Bengals and Atlanta practice squads). Wide receiver Rashied Davis played four years in the AFL before signing with the Bears last season. And Jaworski talks about Kurt Warner — the former AFL quarterback who famously went on to win two NFL MVP awards and a Super Bowl MVP award while leading the St. Louis Rams to their Super Bowl XXXIV crown — and how the NFL holes "looked so big" to Warner in comparison to the AFL's quick pace.

And while some might say the league is "adorable," the AFL remains a contact sport. In such a confined space, players collide — often with devastating force.

Two years ago, Los Angeles Avengers defensive lineman Al Lucas tried to make a tackle on a first-quarter kickoff and died from blunt-force trauma to his spinal cord. Lucas, 26, was a 6-1, 300-pounder who previously played two seasons for the NFL's Carolina Panthers.

In his honor, the AFL created the Al Lucas Hero Award for the player who makes the most significant contribution to his community and the game of Arena football.

Violence will always remain indigenous to football, but Baker tends to eschew that angle. Instead, he promotes the AFL as "the most fan-friendly league in America," a place where families can have a good time at an affordable price.

No major sports league is more accessible. In the NFL, the front row of the stadium is thrust a minimum of 32 feet from the sideline — and often much farther. In the AFL, a front-row fan can literally lean into the field of play — at the risk of being charged with fan interference.

"Those seats aren't like being on the sidelines of a 100-yard game," Baker says. "It's like being on the hash mark."

That's exactly what appeals to Charles Howdeshel, 52, of Telford, Pa. "There seems like an invisible wall between the NFL and the fans," he says. "The NFL players are like untouchables; you can't get close to them. This sport breaks down that wall."

ESPN viewers can enter the football players' world, listening in as quarterbacks call plays, coaches jump on officials and coaches give locker room speeches.

"The AFL is working on us to give something you just don't get in other sports," LaPlaca says. "It allows fans the kind of inside access we're all craving."

The average ticket price across the league is $22. But there is always a ticket somewhere in the building that costs the same as going to a movie. Soul season tickets start as low as $96, and buyers receive various goodies, including a media guide, souvenirs and a season-ending party.

The front-row seats fetch a little more — in Orlando, they cost $200; in Los Angeles, $185. But while they're the most expensive seats, they're also the first to go.

"It's almost cost-prohibitive to take a family to an NFL game. But look around here," Jaworski says, sweeping his hand across the sea of Wachovia Center seats. "If you go to an NFL game, you won't see this many young fans."

By luring today's children, Baker hopes to grow his future because "one day that kid is going to bring his kid to the games."

Linn Coyle, a single mother from Philadelphia, came to her first Soul game because she wanted to see Bon Jovi in person — but the game ended up hooking her.

"The ticket prices are reasonable, so I can bring my kids," she says. The Monday night games don't thrill her, but, she says, "The weekend games are great."

As the AFL strives to find its niche in America's sports pantheon, more fans are beginning to recognize opportunity for themselves as well. If you dress up in a cape and electric-blue wig and call yourself "Captain Soul," ESPN's cameras will come right to your seat and put you on TV and the Internet.

And, like dessert or a good movie, the AFL saves its best for last, guaranteed as part of Baker's "Fan's Bill of Rights," a first among professional sports. (The rights include "a wholesome environment," a "respect for the game," a pledge to give "our very best effort on a consistent basis," at an "affordable cost," giving fans "fast, accurate and complete information about our players, coaches, league, games and performance," with a league "comprised of gentlemen and ladies ... free of physical violence, drugs, alcohol and gambling abuse.")

And best of all, the rights promise "that every fan is entitled to interact with and have access to players and coaches for autographs and conversation in recognition of their support at every game."

The league makes good on that promise. When the Philadelphia-Colorado game is over, players and coaches linger on the field for as long as an hour, mingling with fans, signing autographs or — get this — having actual conversations.

Crush quarterback John Dutton, 31, is in his eighth AFL season. "This is the coolest thing about the league — seeing the kids looking up to you," he says, signing hats and shirts despite his team's 71-47 loss. "A lot of them have never seen a professional football player up close. A 10-year-old doesn't care if I'm in the NFL or AFL; he sees me with my shoulder pads and helmet on."

In June 2004, ESPN The Magazine touted the AFL as the nation's "Fifth Major," alongside the NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL.

"I don't spend a lot of time comparing ourselves to other sports," Baker says. "It's an issue of being the best you can be."

Baker, a former UC-Irvine power forward and member of that school's hall of fame, stands 6-9 and weighs at least 350 pounds. Decked out in his black pinstripe suit, he could intimidate even Tony Soprano — except Baker is one of the nicest, gregarious people you'll ever meet.

"Commissioner Baker is a great salesman, and he totally believes in his product," Elway says. "He's the kind of man you can talk to for 10 minutes and feel like you've known him for 10 years."

Since Baker became commissioner a decade ago, franchise values have risen from $400,000 to nearly $20 million. On June 10, 2005, the Wall Street Journal proclaimed, on its front page, the AFL had "found its footing." When EA Sports introduced its first AFL video game in February 2006, the company quadrupled its projected sales of 100,000. Now it's promoting an updated game, Road to Glory.

For the first time, the AFL has a display in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. The league has franchises in major cities. There are 30 developmental teams in smaller markets, part of the AF2 league. A collective bargaining agreement runs through 2010. Even the April 2 issue of Sports Illustrated featured a two-page photo spread from the Chicago-New York Dragons game.

AFL fantasy leagues are sprouting up, Soul quarterback Tony Graziani says. "Fans from other cities are getting on me for only throwing four or five touchdowns."

But has it really become the fifth major?

"You never know when you've made it," Bon Jovi says. "On the other hand, you always know you've made it. With the band, when we played in a nightclub, we thought we'd made it. Then when we sold out the biggest stadiums in the world, we said, 'OK, we've made it.' Then when we did multiple nights in those stadiums ... you never think you've arrived, and you always think you've arrived. It's the same thing with this."

Starting its third decade, the AFL has outlived leagues such as the USFL, World Football League and XFL. What does the future hold? Is it a sleeping giant ready for ESPN to nudge it from slumber? Or is it niche entertainment on the level of, say, minor league baseball?

"The league has been around for 20 years," Kelly says, "and we think it is ready to go to the next plateau."

The league's inherent problem is that virtually every player would leave his team in an instant if the NFL called. And unlike the PGA Tour, there is no Tiger Woods-type star to sell.

The closest the league has to a dominant superstar is Colorado receiver Damian Harrell, the offensive player of the year the last two seasons.

Last year he caught 152 passes for 1,920 yards and 61 touchdowns — in 16 games. At 6-3, 182 pounds, he's rangy and has great hands.

But in the NFL, cornerbacks had no problem jamming him, and reconstructive surgery in both knees left him a little slow for a 100-yard field.

So the success of the league relies more on sports fans' seeming insatiable hunger for football.

"There's always going to be an appetite," Lefton says. "But does indoor football fill that appetite? It's not quite the same thing."

Baker envisions 28 to 36 franchises in the USA, Canada and Mexico, with divisions in Europe and Asia. He points out that traditional football abroad is played mostly in soccer stadiums, where the fields are bigger and fans are even farther removed from the action. They might welcome the AFL's intimacy.

"I think the sky is the limit," Jaworski says. "It could be a worldwide sport. In the Pacific Rim, where there are arenas with 15,000 people, there is such a passion for football. I think it could be a huge success outside of the United States.

"What's amazing to me is people ask, 'Where do the players come from?' We had a tryout camp, and 1,313 players paid $50 each to try out. There are just so many good players out there who love the game."

Bon Jovi got involved initially as an opportunity to further his charity work. While that continues to grow — he works with his "patron saint," Sister Mary Scullion, building homes for the needy — he also feels as if he's part of a mission to grow the AFL.

"That's big right there," he says, pointing to a Soul logo flashed on the flat-screen TV in his Wachovia Center end-zone suite. "They're talking about us on the local sports report — just before a story on the Eagles.

"That's the kind of thing we've been working for."

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Enlarge By Jim McIsaac, Getty Images In the AFL, a front-row fan can literally lean into the field of play — at the risk of being charged with fan interference. The average ticket price across the league is $22. But there is always a ticket somewhere in the building that costs the same as going to a movie.

		A new television deal with ESPN has given the Arena Football League a new platform to reach fans with its intimate, indoor style of the game. Says commissioner David Baker, "People don't stop being NFL fans when the Super Bowl is over. They're year-round fans." By Michael Perez, The Philadelphia Inquirer