The National Arena League’s Thursday announcement that an expansion franchise will be based in Albany, New York is exciting news the league.
It’s the fourth team welcomed into the NAL fold recently, joining additions Louisville, Baltimore and Tampa Bay.
“We’re excited to expand to this historic market and get started,” Albany co-owner Ron Tridico said during the news conference. “We can’t wait for the 2021 season.”
Yes Ron, you and everyone else associated with the NAL. That sentiment is no truer than in Wheeling, West Virginia.
The ‘friendly city’ and WesBanco Arena are home to the West Virginia Roughriders, the 2019 American Arena League’s undefeated behemoth.
The ‘Riders announced in October they were joining the NAL and were primed to make their arrival statement.
That statement should have come April 4 at WesBanco Arena. There, the league’s Kickoff Classic pitting the Roughriders against the 2019 NAL champion Jacksonville Sharks was to take place.
Sadly, we all know how that story ends.
“I’ll be honest, there’s nothing enjoyable about this right now,” admitted Roughriders owner Gregg Fornario. “Having a season that canceled just isn’t good for everything overall.
“We are coming off a championship season, which is a huge boost for promotion of your team. That last a couple months and you get ready for the following season, but then it’s canceled.
“You’re basically going 18 months without being in the regular news cycle.”
Expansion is Good
First, to the good news.
Albany gives the NAL a 10-team league for the prospective 2021 season.
More importantly, at least as far as the Roughriders are concerned, is a number of the expansion franchises are located within WV’s regional footprint.
Translation? Bus rides and not plane rides. And in all professional sports leagues not named the NFL, that means welcome cost savings.
“At the end of the day, we were kind of on an island last year according to the league, but this will help as there are some teams a bit closer to us,” Fornario said. “In arena football, it’s really rare to have multiple teams that are within a couple hours driving distance away.
“We like to keep our bus rides to six hours or less. So for us, that’s Baltimore, Louisville, Jersey and even Carolina is about five and a half hours from Wheeling.”
Albany’s actually more than eight hours travel. But, geographically, the league does have enough teams for a north and south division—five apiece—should it choose to organize as such next season.
Free Agency Approaches
The Roughriders’ roster featured a number of returners ready for the NAL debut.
Some of those were veterans down for one final season before calling it a career.
They obviously didn’t get that opportunity. But, are they willing to have a nearly two-year layoff to put their bodies through another season just to have that final sendoff?
That’s something Fornario and the WV staff will be finding out soon enough.
Players previously signed are still under contract with the team. Those contracts expire, however, on September 1, when all league players become free agents.
Then things will get interesting.
“We had a really good team in 2019 and by the time we play again, it’ll be nearly two years,” Fornario said. “It’s hard to keep guys around so that will be an obstacle for us, and the whole league, in getting everything back on track.
“We had some very good veteran players signed wanting to give it one more year. I don’t know if they are going to wait another year to give it.”
Fornario noted that football players, like any athlete, can be hurt by a lengthy layoff. After all that time inactive, can they players come back and still compete at a high level?
“We have to go back to the drawing board and evaluate our players and analyze everything,” Fornario said. “The roster is going to be completely different though. We’ll try to keep a good bit of our guys, but there very well could be another 12-15 new players in uniform.”
Replacing retired head coach Mook Zimmerman will be one of the key offseason moves for the franchise.
Looking Ahead
Another item that will need attention here shortly is the position of head coach. Successful boss Mook Zimmerman opted for retirement recently after decades of success in the sport.
The 2019 AAL Coach of the Year was a guiding force for the Roughriders, once that will be tough to replicate. That search will be exhaustive. But it’s not started yet.
“We’re not entertaining beginning that search until after Labor Day,” Fornario said. “We want to take our time and energy on this, properly evaluate and digest and see who is the right fit for us.
“We probably want to interview at least six guys.”
Given the importance of the decision, Fornario sees no need to rush. He’s expecting to announce a decision sometime in November.
While the season should commence in April 2021, there are more pressing concerns presently. The chief of which is, will the league play its season.
But even more paramount is this: Will fans be allowed and, if so, how many?
The NAL, like most arena leagues like it, doesn’t have lucrative television contracts and national corporate sponsorship.
What it does have are rabid packs of fans willing to spend their hard-earned money to see the league’s hard-hitting brand of football.
But what if they aren’t allowed?
Looking Ahead Part II
“I can make it loud and clear, we will not play football if we can’t have full capacity during the regular season,” Fornario said.
He’s not making threats. These are just dollars and cents facts. No one wants to play more than Fornario. He loves this league and loves having a team in Wheeling.
But, this is, at the end of the day, a business; and a business can’t function without money.
There has been talk about social distancing at arenas around the league and playing at less tha max capacity.
That could work at a place like Freedom Hall in Louisville, which seats near 19,000 fans. WesBanco is a lovely facility with many amenities and upgrades. But what it doesn’t have is an overabundance of seating.
You’re looking at little more than 5,000 capacity for a football game. Playing with a third or half of that for a full season isn’t financially feasible.
“If we social distance, we can seat what, maybe 1,000 fans,” Fornario pondered. “In that instance, we either have to raise ticket prices, which fans don’t like, or we can’t play, which no one wants.”
Fornario is looking at two key events to help forecast what the NAL season might look like, if at all.
First is the Nailers’ season, now pushed back to starting in December. How many fans, if any, will they be able to play with? The second, and perhaps a better indicator, is the Super Bowl.
Barring any major developments, the Super Bowl will be played. The same question remains though, how many people will be watching it live? Will it be full capacity? Half?
“The Super Bowl is really going to be the indicator, in all reality, of what arena football can do a few months later,” Fornario said.
