A Minor League That Wants To Be Major League But Acts Like A Bush League.

They're back but they're acting just like they did before. Anyone who has never dealt with the Arena League (AFL or AF2) doesn't understand what I'm saying but veterans do: they wait until the last moment to release a schedule and a lot of times, you don't find out that your favorite team has folded until the schedule is released. Want to know about your favorite team during the off-season; you'd have better luck getting news about the KGB because there is no free flow of information until the very last moment. If you're team is about to move, you might hear some rumor about it but for the most part, the deal is already done by the time that happens and you have no way of fighting for your team.

Oh and don't even think about criticizing them because they'll do everything in their power to get you removed from any message board that they can influence. Not only do they not encourage criticism or free thought but they will stalk you to make sure that you don't say anything bad about them and they'll try to get you banned if you do (I had a moderator here who was deleting messages from a critic of the Avengers and I had to nip that one in the bud because they were doing the same thing at the Arena message boards).

The guys at the Arena League need to grow some thicker skin and work with their fans more but so far, I don't see that happening because I was banned from their AF1 forum simply because I thought they should have went with ESPN and not the NFL Network. But, you'll never see the message that got me banned because they deleted it and most important, they refuse to answer my queries about why I was banned and so, that's why I've written this and I'm going to point this message out to all the major sports news broadcasters so that they can tell everyone how "professional" the NEW Arena League has become when compared to its former self.

BTW, not only did they purge the message that got me banned but they purged all my others. However, here are two that others replied to that didn't get purged:

Jesus, why don't you boobs just sign up with Versus, if you're not going to get serious about getting exposure. The league needs MORE eyeballs but NO, you put yourself on a digital tier instead of trying to work a similar deal with ESPN to put your games on ESPN2. BTW, who do you think is going to be playing your highlights after the games - ESPN or NO ONE? I'll give you a hint: ESPN doesn't run the scores of sports that they don't televise on their crawl, unless they're part of the Big 4. When the Senior Bowl was run, they ran X-Games results but NOT the Senior Bowl. We all know that before they televised the Arena games, they didn't run Arena scores or did their highlights except on rare occasions, so what makes you geniuses believe that it will happen now. Nothing has changed with you geniuses

Oh and here's the one BEFORE my "offending" message that got me banned:

I don't mean that they should be talking to Versus, I mean that the NFL Network is as USELESS as Versus.

BTW, do you guys know ANYTHING about TV? Friday Night is considered the DEAD NIGHT for TV. It's where netowrks send their shows to die UNLESS the demo of the show skews older because most of the younger people, whom advertisers are looking for, are out doing other things. That means that the not only are the people locked out by not having the NFL Network, they have are also, most likely, going to be out doing other things and TIVO/DVR ratings mean NOTHING to the advertisers. Seriously, at your age, I did a lot of things on Friday night that had NOTHING to do with TV. NFL Europe posted dreadful ratings on the NFL Network and they reach only 55 million of the 115 million households, which is actually worse than Versus.

Oh and for those of you who hate M&M, it's NOT going to get any better with the NFL Network. What the AFL needs are THEIR people. They need a guy like Eli Gold to either do the games or to do the studio. They need REAL AFL announcers, who can appreciate the game and who have been doing games long enough to actually know the nuances of the game.

The response from another poster that led to the "offending" message was:

Hockey and Basketball games are on Friday nights. Why are they broadcast? I watch TV Friday nights. I have heard that NFLN is going to use experienced Arena announcers.

BTW, the "offending" message went on to talk about how the games on Friday weren't the desirable match ups that you find on Sunday and Monday (As I said, they call it "Big Monday" NOT "Big Friday."). Of course, since the NHL doesn't have any NATIONAL games on Friday that non-digital viewers can't watch, it wouldn't matter what games they broadcast. Hell, I guess I'm going to be hearing it from the NHL next...