The Chicago Rush Decision Thread

[Jntg4]

For those unfamiliar, they were sold to ownership by the league last off-season. The league was forced to take over the franchise due to the ownership not meeting their contractual terms. Then a separate ownership came about with the same results. The team announced that it would move two home games from the Allstate Arena in Rosemont to the BMO Harris Bank Center in Rockford. Eventually, the team was evicted mid-season from the All-State and forfeited rights to home turf for one game to the San Jose SaberCats and moved their the rest of their remaining home games to Rockford as well.

The future looks bleak, but this is the same team that average between 14,000 and 16,000 fans per game every year from 2004 through 2008. For comparison's sake, the Blackhawks averaged in the 13,000s in 2003-04 through 2005-06, and in the 12,000s in 2006-07, and then finally broke 16K in 2007-08. The Chicago Fire averaged in the 17,000s from 2004 through 2005, as well as in 2008 and in the 16,000s in 2007, but just in the 14,000s in 2006.

Obviously, this was a successful franchise in a league that admittedly was more popular at the time of these relatively great numbers, but it is disheartening that this team drew just 4,580 on average in 2013 in Rosemont and reportedly in just 3,000s in Rockford (still managed to win the division, but lost first playoff game and forfeited home turf to the lower seed).

They need solid ownership to emerge and hopefully they can work things out with the Allstate, otherwise the last hope for Arena Football in Chicago may be the very slim chance Wirtz and Reinsdorf both agree to let another tenant into the United Center for the summer months, in which case they would still likely need a different practice facility somewhere in the suburbs. Many Arena Football teams do play in NHL or NBA arenas, however.

Arizona Rattlers: US Airways Center (home of the NBA's Sun and the WNBA's Mercury)
Cleveland Gladiators: Quicken Loans Arena (home of the NBA's Cavaliers, the AHL's Monsters, and the LFL's Crush)
New Orleans Voodoo: New Orleans Arena (home of the NBA's Pelicans)
Orlando Predators: Amway Center (home of the NBA's Magic and the ECHL's Solar Bears)
Philadelphia Soul: Wells Fargo Center (home of the NHL's Flyers, the NBA's 76ers, the NLL's Wings, and part-time Villanova)
Pittsburgh Power: Consol Energy Center (home of the NHL's Penguins)
San Jose SaberCats: SAP Center at San Jose (home of the NHL's Sharks)
Tampa Bay Storm: Tampa Bay Times Forum (home of the NHL's Lightning)
Utah Blaze: EnergySolutions Arena (home of the NBA's Jazz)

That's nine of the league's fourteen teams, plus the San Antonio Talons play at the Alamodome, the former home of many major league teams.

Anyway, one week from today (so on August 17th), the ArenaBowl will take place in Orlando. Typically, the league makes most major announcements around that time, and it is expected that the league will announce expansion team for New York (Brooklyn), playing at the Barclays Center (home of the NBA's Nets and soon the NHL's Islanders) and possibly Los Angeles (Stapled Center (home of the NBA's Clippers, the NBA's Lakers, and the NHL's Kings)? Perhaps). Hopefully, some clarity towards the future of this franchise will come from it as well.

 

[Capt. Serious]

Decision thread...

 

[Jntg4]

Decision thread...

League deciding their fate, perhaps it should have been the "Fate of the Chicago Rush" thread.

 

[zack54attack]

If the Rush go down, the league will take a hit. They have already lost some of their TV contracts.

I would like them in Rockford, but they would flop in 4 years. Rockford likes Hockey, Motorcross and monster trucks. That's it. The Aviators (Frontier league) barely draw 1,000 a game. The Rockford Lightning (CBA) flopped after several years in Rockford. Heck, we even had a few minor league teams (Reds, Expos, Cubbies) but they flopped. My point is, Rockford likes hillbilly things. It's sad, but it's true.

 

[Jntg4]

If the Rush go down, the league will take a hit. They have already lost some of their TV contracts.

I would like them in Rockford, but they would flop in 4 years. Rockford likes Hockey, Motorcross and monster trucks. That's it. The Aviators (Frontier league) barely draw 1,000 a game. The Rockford Lightning (CBA) flopped after several years in Rockford. Heck, we even had a few minor league teams (Reds, Expos, Cubbies) but they flopped. My point is, Rockford likes hillbilly things. It's sad, but it's true.

Except Hockey =/= hillbilly :lol: or the NHL would be doing a lot better down south.

 

[zack54attack]

Except Hockey =/= hillbilly :lol: or the NHL would be doing a lot better down south.

Well yeah..But you should see some of the diehard Icehog fans lol

 

[Jntg4]

Basically, the league goes through a long process to get teams in New York and possibly LA (where they would be the best pro football team by default, no NFL), and I doubt that on the day the league announces 2 teams they'll want to announce that the third biggest market in the US and location of the league headquarters will be without a team.

 

[Jntg4]

2 Days left. Seems like a given NY team in Brooklyn will be one of the two teams.

 

[Jntg4]

Los Angeles (Anaheim) team announced: the LA KISS. Owned by members of the band KISS, and it isn't Los Angeles Kiss, it is literally the "LA KISS" with "LA" and all-caps.

 

[Jntg4]

Now rumors of a Portland team. Could mean many things: New York being left out, Milwaukee returning and Portland being a third expansion team, or even the Rush moving to Portland or New York, which would suck.

 

[Jntg4]

"Blogging away at the ArenaBowl as we are waiting for videos and other interviews to upload...

We've had A LOT of stuff go down over the course of the last few hours here in Orlando.

We'll start with LA. No surprises to us. The KISS are going to be playing starting in 2014, and we were able to get some great shots and an interview with Brett Bouchy that we will be uploading to our site over the course of the evening (sorry, it takes a LONG time to upload these movies!). There is certainly a lot of optimism about the KISS for next season and beyond. We'll see how things pan out in Anaheim in '14.

We also now can confirm that Portland will be a part of the league in 2014, and we are confirming as well that Chicago WILL NOT be a part of the league in 2014. However, we are hearing that the Rush are the only team to not be coming back next year. We'll have the story here in a little bit about the Rush.

I've kinda got a problem with the way that they conducted Media Day this year. It didn't seem like it was about the game at all, and that at least makes me a bit upset. I know that bringing LA into the league is a big deal and having KISS at the forefront of that is something worthwhile as well, but the bottom line is that there is a game to be played on Saturday afternoon, and it was really glossed over.

Commissioner Kurz also didn't address any of the situations that are going on in Chicago or any of the other "negatives" of the league, but he still went on for probably about 10 minutes. The truth of the matter is that Media Day itself was essentially just an hour.

But now, we have our Meet & Greet that we are getting ready for! I already apologize for uploading videos through our Meet & Greet, but we aree going to continue to try to get the information out to you as quickly as we can."

The league's official fan site... always reliable too. FUCK!