Arena Football League on ESPN
# Arena Football League on ESPN

Arena Football League on ESPN was a presentation of the Arena Football League with games airing on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNEWS, ESPN3 and ESPN Deportes. As with all other sports broadcasting on the ESPN family of networks, all Arena Football games had aired on The WatchESPN App. It was previously aired from 1987 until 2002 and then again from 2007 until 2008. When the league folded in 2019, the contract was over.

## History

### 1987–1988, 1992–2002

ESPN was the original broadcaster for Arena Football games, showing games live in the league's first two seasons, 1987 and 1988. ESPN signed a six-year contract with the AFL in 1987, but was given the option to opt out of the contract if they were not getting the rating they wanted.

Partially because of turmoil within the league itself, ESPN did not broadcast Arena Football again until 1992, when they broadcast six games and the ArenaBowl on an overnight, tape delay basis. Starting in 1993, ESPN started showing games live or at least not during overnight hours.

When ESPN2 was formed, the telecasts began to air more frequently on the new network. ESPN2 began televising a more standard schedule of Arena Football League regular season and playoff games from 1995–1999.

ESPN subsequently began televising AFL playoff games from 2000-02.

It originally had aired the inaugural ArenaBowl live in 1987, while ABC (under the Wide World of Sports umbrella) aired the ArenaBowl five consecutive years from 1998–02.

### 2007-2008 agreement

On December 19, 2006, ESPN and the Arena Football League agreed to a five-year agreement that includes extensive multimedia rights and a minimum of 26 televised games per season, beginning in 2007 and lasting until 2011. As part of the deal, ESPN purchased a minority stake, reportedly ten percent, in the AFL. The network will gain privileged financial information, but insists that it will not give the AFL more favorable coverage on shows like SportsCenter as a result. ESPN televised a minimum of 17 regular-season games and nine playoff games—including a minimum of three Wild Card games, three Divisional Playoff games, both Conference Championships and the ArenaBowl on ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC. ESPN had an exclusive window for weekly Monday night prime time games on ESPN2. Both the season opener and ArenaBowl were on ABC, where three wild card games, two divisional games and one conference championship were on ESPN and the seventeen regular season Monday night games, one wild card game, two divisional games and one conference championship game was all on ESPN2.

**2007 schedule**

* (All times Eastern)

| Week | Date | Time | Game | Score | Network |
| - | - | - | - | - | - |
| Week 1 | Sunday, March 4, 2007 | 12:30pm | Chicago Rush at Kansas City Brigade | KC 54, CHI 41 | ABC |
| Week 1 | Sunday, March 4, 2007 | 12:30pm | Dallas Desperados at New York Dragons | DAL 60, NY 7 | ABC |
| Week 2 | Monday, March 12, 2007 | 7pm | Los Angeles Avengers at Orlando Predators | LA 44, ORL 37 | ESPN2 |
| Week 4 | Thursday, March 22, 2007 | 7pm | Colorado Crush at Philadelphia Soul | PHI 71, COL 47 | ESPN2 |
| Week 4 | Monday, March 26, 2007 | 7pm | Dallas Desperados at Orlando Predators | DAL 70, ORL 42 | ESPN2 |
| Week 5 | Sunday, April 1, 2007 | 1:30pm | Los Angeles Avengers at Chicago Rush | CHI 66, LA 31 | ESPN2 |
| Week 6 | Monday, April 9, 2007 | 7:30pm | Georgia Force at Philadelphia Soul | GA 57, PHI 49 | ESPN2 |
| Week 7 | Monday, April 16, 2007 | 8pm | Philadelphia Soul at Dallas Desperados | PHI 41, DAL 51 | ESPN2 |
| Week 8 | Monday, April 23, 2007 | 7:30pm | Philadelphia Soul at Columbus Destroyers | PHI 21, CLB 44 | ESPN2 |
| Week 9 | Monday, April 30, 2007 | 8pm | Philadelphia Soul at Chicago Rush | PHI 43, CHI 54 | ESPN2 |
| Week 10 | Monday, May 7, 2007 | 8pm | Colorado Crush at Chicago Rush | COL 48, CHI 59 | ESPN2 |
| Week 11 | Monday, May 14, 2007 | 8:30pm | Chicago Rush at Dallas Desperados* | CHI 48, DAL 52 | ESPN2 |
| Week 12 | Monday, May 21, 2007 | 7:30pm | New Orleans VooDoo at Philadelphia Soul | NO 34, PHI 78 | ESPN2 |
| Week 13 | Monday, May 28, 2007 | 8pm | New York Dragons at New Orleans VooDoo | NY 69, NO 63 | ESPN2 |
| Week 14 | Monday, June 4, 2007 | 10:30pm | Colorado Crush at Utah Blaze | COL 14, UTA 51 | ESPN2 |
| Week 15 | Monday, June 11, 2007 | 10pm | Los Angeles Avengers at Arizona Rattlers | LA 55, ARI 52 | ESPN2 |
| Week 16 | Monday, June 18, 2007 | 10pm | Chicago Rush at Colorado Crush | CHI 66, COL 57 | ESPN2 |
| Week 17 | Monday, June 25, 2007 | 10pm | Dallas Desperados at Colorado Crush | DAL 77 COL 58 | ESPN2 |
| Wildcard | Friday, June 29, 2007 | 7pm | Orlando Predators at Philadelphia Soul | ORL 26, PHI 41 | ESPN |
| Wildcard | Saturday, June 30, 2007 | 12pm | Columbus Destroyers at Tampa Bay Storm | CLB 56 TB 55 | ESPN |
| Wildcard | Saturday, June 30, 2007 | 3pm | Colorado Crush at Kansas City Brigade | COL 49, KC 42 | ESPN |
| Wildcard | Monday, July 2, 2007 | 10pm | Utah Blaze at Los Angeles Avengers | UTA 42, LA 64 | ESPN2 |
| Divisional | Saturday, July 7, 2007 | 3pm | Colorado Crush at San Jose Sabercats | COL 67 SJ 76 | ESPN |
| Divisional | Saturday, July 7, 2007 | 8pm | Columbus Destroyers at Dallas Desperados | CLB 66 DAL 59 | ESPN |
| Divisional | Sunday, July 8, 2007 | 7pm | Philadelphia Soul at Georgia Force | PHI 39 GEO 65 | ESPN2 |
| Divisional | Monday, July 9, 2007 | 8:30pm | Los Angeles Avengers at Chicago Rush | LA 20 CHI 52 | ESPN2 |
| Conference Championship | Saturday, July 14, 2007 | 1pm | Columbus Destroyers at Georgia Force | CLB 66 GEO 56 | ESPN* |
| Conference Championship | Saturday, July 14, 2007 | 4pm | Chicago Rush at San Jose SaberCats | CHI 49 SJ 61 | ESPN* |
| ArenaBowl XXI | Sunday, July 29, 2007 | 3pm | Columbus Destroyers at San Jose SaberCats | CLB 33 SJ 55 | ABC |

*Schedule change

**2007 schedule**

**Controversy**

Some AFL fans complained that the TV schedule “inequitably favored teams” such as the Philadelphia Soul, Chicago Rush, and Colorado Crush, teams whose ownerships include, respectively, Jon Bon Jovi, Mike Ditka and John Elway. 14 of the 17 ESPN games had at least Chicago, Philadelphia or Colorado playing. The Soul (whose part-owner and team president is former AFL on ESPN analyst Ron Jaworski) have appeared in seven of the 17 regular season games on ESPN platforms, more than any other team in the league. This criticism was also present when NBC went out of their way to not let some teams appear on their schedule. In 2008, the Chicago Rush have nine regular season games on ESPN and ABC, while the 2007 Arena Bowl Champion San Jose SaberCats have just one, week one against the Chicago Rush, and the New York Dragons had 1, a 10:30 game versus the Colorado Crush. Other criticism includes the scheduling of games on various days and times, as opposed to a weekly AFL gameday.

### 2015–2019

ESPN returned to the AFL (in 2014) as broadcast partners, with weekly games shown on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNEWS, and all other games available live and free on ESPN3. ESPN Deportes and ESPN Latin America had broadcast AFL games in Spanish from 2016 to 2019, when the league folded.

## Personalities

Former broadcasters of the AFL on ESPN and ABC included Mike Gleason, Gary Danielson, Brent Musburger, Merril Hoge, and Holly Rowe.

### 2007

Early on, ESPN said they would use "some prominent faces in the broadcast booth" and ended up going with the duo of Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic from ESPN Radio and ESPN2's Mike and Mike in the Morning for their number one team. The second team will consist of NFL Live's Trey Wingo and Mark Schlereth with the third being Ron Jaworski and Merril Hoge. On May 2007, Mark Jones replaced Jaworski, who focuses on his new Monday Night Football role. Jay Rothman, producer of Monday Night Football, and Bryan Ryder will also produce the Monday night Arena Football games on ESPN2. The announcements were made on January 16, 2007.

| Team | Play-by-play | Analyst(s) | Producer(s) |
| - | - | - | - |
| 1 | Mike Greenberg | Mike Golic | Jay Rothman Bryan Ryder |
| 2 | Trey Wingo | Mark Schlereth | Jay Rothman Bryan Ryder |
| 3 | Mark Jones | Merril Hoge | Jay Rothman Bryan Ryder |
| 4 | Dave Pasch | Ray Bentley | Jay Rothman Bryan Ryder |

The other play-by-play announcer used on playoff games is Bob Wischusen.

### 2008

Pasch, Wischusen, and Bentley returned to their respective roles while Marcellus Wiley and Shaun King joined as color commentators. The tandems of Greenberg-Golic and Wingo-Schlereth would not reprise their roles as play-by-play men in 2008.

The replays of classic Arena Football games that had aired on ESPN Classic in 2007 would also be dropped in 2008.

