Talons gone: What next?

Well it came across the wire over the past 24 hours that the Talons are leaving for San Antonio... Here is the letter I got as a season ticket holder:

It is with great anguish I write this letter to you today to inform you the Tulsa Talons franchise will be relocating and will begin play in March of 2012 in San Antonio as the Talons. It was an extremely tough decision, but the owners of the Talons felt it was the best decision from a business perspective.

Off the field, the Talons’ players have been a big part of the Tulsa community for 12 years with many former and current players now calling Tulsa home. On the field, these same players entertained all of us for years. It was the tremendous support they received from the Tulsa community that kept them coming back and in some cases, keeping them here. That support starts with the “life blood” of all sports franchises, the season ticket holders.

Without our season ticket holders, the Tulsa Talons and our 141 regular season victories (most all-time), 9 division championships, 2 conference championships,10 straight playoff appearances and 2 arena cup championships would not have been.

On behalf of the Talons ownership, staff and the players from the last 12 years, I want to thank each of you for your unwavering dedication and support.

So with that, a storied franchise is left to another city. But now the question for me, and the blog, is "what next?"

The way I see it, I have a few options:

1. Try to find a fan in San Antonio that wishes to continue the blog.
2. Just go dormant until, or if, Tulsa gets a new team and rename accordingly.
3. Rename the blog to "Man without a Team" and continue to post about the AFL in a general manner.

Everyone let me know what you think I should do now!

San Antonio to obtain an AFL franchise... but it's not the Talons?

The newswires were all a buzz on Tuesday after reports surfaced that San Antonio will be home to an AFL franchise next year. It's expected than an official announcement of San Antonio's status will be announced today. For weeks (maybe even months) rumors had it that the Tulsa Talons would be sold and moved to San Antonio, so it stunned the AFL nation when Talons owners came out and the Tulsa World today reported:

It is unclear whether the new franchise would be an expansion or relocated team, but rumors have swirled for months that the Talons would be sold and moved to San Antonio.

"More power to San Antonio, but that's not us," Talons co-owner and managing partner Paul Ross told the Tulsa World on Tuesday.

Ross insisted the team has not been sold.

He admitted the team is "looking at (two) opportunities outside of Tulsa," but he insisted there are no definite plans.

He said he and the other owners - Henry Primeaux, Michael Johnson, Bill Cameron and David Box - are still expected to meet next week to decide the team's fate.

However, there was more bad news when it came out that a group headed by former Drillers owner Chuck Lamson pulled out of negotiations to purchase a share of the Talons.

The good news today is that, for the time being, the Talons remain in Tulsa.

What will the AFL look like next year?

Well the ArenaBowl is over, and congratulations to the Spokane Shock; even if I did pick against you. Now comes the offseason, a horrible 7-8 month wait till the next kickoff. At least in the mean time I have NFL, NCAA, and NBA to keep my busy. But also, we have AFL speculation to keep us busy as well. As of this morning there are a lot of rumors for shakeups for AFL franchises.

First off, we know the announced expansion teams will be around:

Philadelphia Soul
San Jose Sabercats
Kansas City Brigade
and as of last night, the Pittsburgh Power

But where does that leave the other 15 franchises? For some it may mean relocation.

The Alabama Vipers:
Late last night it was announced that the Georgia Force may be returning. But they may not be an expansion team. Instead it has been rumored that the Alabama Vipers will be relocating and rebranding as the Force. This season Alabama played in the smallest arena in the AFL. They could only max out at around 7,000 fans. That heavily limited the amount of income the team could bring in, both is tickets and in sponsorship. That combined with higher costs could be too much for the owners to handle.

The Bossier-Shreveport BattleWings:
It has been rumored for weeks, since their owner registered aflvoodoo.com, that the BattleWings could be relocating to New Orleans and rebranding as the VooDoo. The BattleWings never pulled a large crowd, even in their time in the af2. The difference was that in the af2 the loss on the owners was acceptable, in the AFL its much larger. This could spell doom for the BattleWings.

The Oklahoma City Yard Dawgz:
The Yard Dawgz were a decent team this year. They pulled decent crowds as well. However, they still were loosing money, and have been since at least the time the Thunder came to town. That combined with the new AHL Hockey Team (Barons), could mean the owners aren't willing to try to compete with other sports in town. Instead they could take their team elsewhere and try to turn a profit. The rumored location? Seattle. Yeah, another Seattle/OKC team swap. Very Ironic, but could happen.

As for the rest of the league nothing seems likely to change. The only team with light rumors is the Milwaukee Iron. The Iron have had issues with an ownership group and attendance. However, for the foreseeable future they will probably remain in the league.