It lasted for more than 30 years. Now, the Arena Football League is no more.
The 50-Yard Indoor War on the Floor, which first arrived in 1987, announced Wednesday that it will file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy (i.e., the bad kind) and cease to exist.
“We’re all disappointed that we couldn’t find a way forward and we wanted to thank our fans, our players, coaches, everyone who loved the Arena Football League,” AFL Commissioner Randall Boe said in a statement. “We all love the game and tried very hard to make it successful, but we simply weren’t able to raise the capital necessary to grow the League, resolve the substantial legacy liabilities and make it financially viable.”
The league had suspended all local operations last month. It had been considering the possibility of continuing as a traveling league.
The AFL survived plenty of struggles and iterations, with expanstion and contraction and a team owned by the founders of KISS and a bankruptcy that knocked out the 2009 season and most recently a six-team league.