Do you have an agent?You may or may not be aware of this, but yesterday, the San Jose SaberCats (no space = dynamic!) bested the Columbus Destroyers in a 55-33 rout to win their third ArenaBowl (meme alert) title in six years*. The ArenaBowl, apparently in its twenty-first (!) edition, serves as the championship for the Arena Football League (this AFL, not that AFL), a football...league that plays its season during the spring and summer in indoor venues. Essentially, it operates under the twin premises that a) there is a segment of the American population so starved for football that they'll watch anything approximating the game during the NFL and college offseasons, and b) this population segment is large enough to sustain a spring/summer league playing a bastardized version of football in arenas built for hockey and basketball. Since the AFL is still kicking, one must assume that these assumptions have been borne out to a significant degree.
A further boon for the AFL and its acolytes is that ABC/ESPN/Disney/Whatever owns a substantial slice of the league, guaranteeing television exposure for events like ArenaBowl XXI. (That's right: ArenaBowl = ESPN; Stanley Cup = Versus). Whether this is a plot by the World Wide Leader to get in on the ground floor before Arena Football becomes yooo-ge (Mike Francesa style), or plug that Saturday afternoon hole in the ABC schedule is unclear. What is clear is that you and I did not watch ArenaBowl XXI - you because you've never heard of Arena Football, and I because a) I am still pissed off about the New Jersey Red Dogs, and b) I was busy watching MLS highlights.
Now it would be easy to just trot on over to ESPN.com and check out their recap of ArenaBowl XXI, but can we truly rely on the AFL's house organ to give us the inside dope? F**k that s**t. From the New York Times' extensive and ArenaBowl coverage:
San Jose Wins Third Title
by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: July 30, 2007
Mark Grieb completed 24 of 29 passes and threw four touchdown passes to lead the San Jose SaberCats to a 55-33 victory against the Columbus Destroyers in the ArenaBowl title game in New Orleans yesterday. The SaberCats (16-3), the most successful Arena Football League franchise this decade, capped a three-and-a-half-month winning streak with their third Arena League championship in six years. The Destroyers (10-10) won three consecutive road games to get to the final.Apparently, Arthur Sulzberger Jr. himself vetoed the special pull-out ArenaBowl XXI Commemorative Section w/ Gold Foil Hologram Cover, asking rhetorically "what do you think this is, the Major League Lacrosse All-Star Game or something?" Indeed.
*Indeed, winning ArenaBowls has apparently become so commonplace in San Jose that as of this writing, the SaberCats' WebSite had still not been UpDated with the news.
