The summer nights in the Natural State are long, often times dull and always hot. These days if you're looking for entertainment in the central Arkansas area, particularly of the sporting kind, your only option is to attend an Arkansas Travelers game; the Travs are a Double-A minor league baseball team that plays out of the Texas League and has done so since 1966. Their continued success can be much attributed to the grass roots that the sport baseball has had on American culture since the late 1800s and onward. The long standing success and support for the Travelers is nothing short of miraculous when you consider the sporting history of the state of Arkansas-or lack thereof. For decades, semi pro teams have and gone in Arkansas like a flash of light-often times with vast majority of the public not even noticing. Don't believe me? Here's just a FEW "noticeable" ones:
The Arkansas Diamonds (Continental Football League 1968-1969) Overall Record: 7-17
The Arkansas GlacierCats (Western Professional Hockey League 1998-200) Overall Record: 69-56
The Arkansas Rimrockers (American Basketball Association 2004-2005: ABA League Champions Record 28-5)
(NBA-Developmental League 2005-2007 Overall Record: 40-58)
Never played.
Quite honestly, their are countless of more teams. However the one particular franchise I'd like to examine in this blog is the Arkansas Twisters. Currently the second longest semi-professional team that operated in the state (Northwest Arkansas Naturals are still another four years behind before tying) the Twisters played ten seasons in North Little Rock. As founding members of the AF2 league, the Arkansas franchise first played in 2000 and continued fielding play all the way to 2009, when their big brother league the Arena Football League folded, and the AF2 became the current incarnation of the AFL. Though the Twisters had an opportunity to be apart of the league, the owners instead moved the team to the lesser known Indoor Football League, where they became the 'Arkansas Diamonds' and after one season of play, moved to their current location in Allen Texas. (Where they have since changed team names two more additional times). These highly questionable moves stunned Twisters fans: why not stay in the newly formed AFL? why change your team name? Perhaps more importantly, why leave? The team fielded impressive attendance averages their first couple of years and though they did wane eventually, still held solid averages. The Twisters maintained an overall winning percentage and the team was popular enough to have a booster club started as a full sign of local support. The questions can hopefully be answered by examining their history from the beginning:
It was announced in 1999 that arena football would be coming to Arkansas. The Arena Football League had decided to launch it's own "minor league" and announced the creation of the Arena Football League 2-or AF2 for short. The city of North Little Rock seemed like a very obvious location to award a franchise, mostly due to the then newly constructed Alltel Arena and the idea of most AF2 teams being located in "Mid-size cities." The team was owned by an organization called the Arkansas Sports Entertainment LLC, who's CEO was an individual by the name of Dave Berryman. A year before, his company had brought hockey to the North Little Rock area when he was awarded a franchise in the East Coast Hockey League (the Arkansas Riverblades). However, attendance quickly faded with the hockey organization, dropping from an average of 3, 976 in their inaugural season to just over 3,400 in the 2000-2001 season. Berryman had numerous experiences with semi-professional teams in the past, most notably operating the surprisingly successful minor league hockey team, the Louisiana Icegators, in Lafayette, Louisiana. With his past experiences, as well as his seemingly deep commitment to bringing vast array of sports to central Arkansas, it was a bright moment for sporting fans.
2001-2002: High Hopes, Low Results:
2002-2003: Post Season Action, Championship Play
The 2003 season started off sluggish, with the team sitting at 4-4 at the halfway point of the season. No one thought the Twisters had a remote shot of getting back to the playoffs, let alone the AF2 championship. However, Arkansas not only secured another playoff bid, but hosted their first playoff home game, defeating the Bakersfield Blitz 36-28. Though many were pleasantly surprised by the win, many more would be shocked when the Twisters headed to Moline, Illinois to upset the top seeded Quad City Steamwheelers, 63-61, handing Quad City their second defeat of the season. The miraculous run was short lived however, when once again Arkansas was ousted out of contention for the arenacup by their rivals, Tulsa, losing in the National Conference championship game, 63-52. The bitter defeat would sting even after the game as the Talons would go on to win their first arenacup championship that same season.
2004-2005: The Slump Era
Twisters and the Twister faithful were riding high on the improbable 2003 season, with the average attendance increasing from 7,189 in 2003 to almost 8,700 in 2004. Arkansas started the season with a victory on April 3rd, before a crowd of 10,552, their highest attended game since July 12, 2002. However the victory would be short lived as Arkansas would go on to lose 10 straight games, not winning again until July 2, when they defeated the Bossier-Shreveport Battlewings, 67-61. They would win only two more games that season, ending the 2004 campaign at 4-12, their worst season in the team's history.
2005 was another clunker year, only winning one more game than the previous season, and the attendance dropping significantly from 8,691 to 6,751.
2006-2009: Redemption Years and the Last
After two, terrible seasons of pitiful play, Arkansas came storming out of the gates, winning four of their first five and ultimately winning more than the past two season combined. With a strong, consistent performance by the offense the Twisters stormed their way through the playoffs, sweeping both Oklahoma teams, on the road, in back to back weeks and advanced all the way to the National Conference championship again, but once again came up short in the big moment, losing to the eventual ArenaCup champions the Spokane Shock, 48-30.
Over the course of 2007-2009, the Twisters played fantastically throughout the regular season, compiling an overall record of 34-14, and hosting a first round home playoff game two out of the three years, with 2009 being the only time they had to play on the road. However, Arkansas lost all three games. A startling trend that began during this era was the steadily decline in attendance, despite the success the Twisters were having on the field. Starting in 2007, the average attendance was 5,238: in 2008 it dropped to 5,218: finally in 2009, it dramatically plummeted to just 3,703. We'll examine the possibilities for these figures later on in the blog.
In April 2009, the Arena Football League suspended the 2009 season in order to "create long-term plan to improve its economic model" (as quoted from their offical press release). Ultimately the league filed for both Chapter 11 & 7 bankruptcy and in essence, the league was dead. However, the AF2 was virtually it's own league and was shockingly stable; it was quickly announced that the AF2 acquire the entity and all the property rights of the former arena football league and at first would become the "Arena Football League 1."
With the addition of the remaining AF2 teams (Arkansas being one of them), many former AFL teams would join this new entity, ranging from Dallas, Orlando, Chicago, San Jose, and much more. The recently named new owners of the Twisters, Jim Smith and Jeff Everett were initially excited for the recent developments. Yet, both soon grew concerned with league's original idea of having a "higher tier teams(the former AFL teams located in the bigger market cities) playing only against each other while the "lower tier teams" (Arkansas, Tulsa, Oklahoma City) would play one another. On top of that, the lower tier teams would essentially be like "farm teams" where the higher tier teams could pluck players from them at any time throughout the season. The dislike of this format was understandable; however without any sudden warning abruptly withdrew from the AF1 and joined the upstart Indoor Football League. The Arena 1 league informed both owners they could no longer be known as the 'Twisters' as this was still owned by the AF1.
With that the Twisters were dead and thus became....
However, before the newly named Diamonds even took the field, they updated the logo to this:
Despite the promise of the owners that their would still be "excitement" and "fireworks" on and off the field, nothing about the team remained. Former players that had become stables on the roster for several years, including Johnathan Schoonover, Kevin Williams, Robert Kilow, Robert Johnson, David Carlton and many more quickly abandoned the team.
The Sirens were gone....
In September 2010, Jim Smith and Jeff Everett announced they were moving the team to Allen, Texas where they became the Allen Wranglers.
The Arkansas Twisters were officially dead and gone.
One point I'd like to share: the "AF1" after some legal wrangling renamed itself the arena football league. The originally planned "upper division, lower division" scheme was scrapped and all teams played at the same level. Teams that the Twisters used to play often in the AF2, Tulsa and Oklahoma City, went on to play in the newly formed Arena Football League. The OKC Yard-dawgz eventually folded, while the Talons moved to San Antonio. The
League is still playing to this day, and recently announced a new TV deal with ESPN to begin airing games this spring.
LASTING LEGACY AND FINAL THOUGHTS
For some, the Arkansas Twisters were merely an afterthought; others were die hard, fanatic fans. For ten years the Twisters offered fast paced, high scoring show; in their existence they played in a league that saw over 20 teams come and go and yet, they withstood. Overall, they had a 53% winning average and more importantly, saw over 600,000 total spectators watch them play, with a lifetime average attendance of 7,344. I bet many of you didn't even realize that they were actually a playable team in the PS2 "Arena Football: Road To Glory" video game?!
Can Arkansas ever support a professional team? Highly doubtful.
However, I think the Arkansas Twisters showed that with the right, SMART ownership, that a semi-pro league other than baseball can be sustainable and rather successful in the Little Rock metro area. They were proven winners: they offered a winning program for a public that for the majority of its existence, showed up to watch. With less games, a shorter season and less history than the Travs, the Twisters still outdrew the Travelers. The Twisters were pretty much gutted and mutilated because of jumpy leadership; they moved to a sub-par indoor league and tried to push an unfamiliar product to a public that simply refused to accept them. Even the short lived Rimrockers were at one time wildly popular and successful; they're still to date the only other semi-professional team to have won a league championship (excluding the Travs and Naturals of course). Again, poor ownership decisions moved them to the NBA-DL, where the talent was far more superior to the Rimrockers and after two horrifc seasons, moved to La Crosse, Wisconsin.
I sincerely hope North Little Rock/Little Rock gets any legitimate semi-pro team. Hell quite honestly I'd really enjoy seeing another arena football team back in Verizon someday. There's a hungry fan base waiting to watch balls bounce off rebound nets and to sing "Twist and Shout" with every touchdown.
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