Arena Football comes to Atlantic City
By Eric Conklin
Eager football fans are ready to cheer on their Atlantic City team. They just need the name.
Members of the community had the opportunity to submit their idea for the name of the new Arena Football League heading to Atlantic City, and vote on the top names chosen.
Those names include the Gamblers, Royals, Blackjacks, Jackpot, and High Rollers. The organization plans to announce the team name, along with revealing uniforms and launching a website, says Trifecta Sports & Entertainment Owner George Manias.
Manias’s company also owns two additional AFL teams, the Albany Empire and the nearby Philadelphia Soul. Manias is thrilled to bring professional sports back to Atlantic City, and wanted to make sure that the new team was embraced by the community by allowing it to choose the team name.
“The team is about the community for us,” said Manias regarding his company. “We’re bringing a team here because we are active in our community, we’re a part of our communities. The thought process is we’re going to do that and be that, so let the community decide what the name of the team should be, not us.”
“I wanted it to be apart of the community and we want to be apart of the community as we enter the market, and this helps us do that,” Manias added.
Atlantic City has had an extensive history of professional sports franchise set up camp in the town in the past, notably being the Boardwalk Bullies of the ECHL and the Surf of the Can-Am Baseball League. After the 2005, the Bullies left for Stockton, CA to become the Thunder, who are now based out of Glen Falls, NY as the Adirondack Thunder. The Surf never received a home stadium in another city after their franchise folded in 2009. City officials are still trying to bring professional baseball back to town.
Other franchises in Atlantic City include the Seagulls of the former United States Basketball League.
Atlantic City has also had its own football team in the Cardsharks, who also played their home games at Boardwalk Hall for one season while members of the National Indoor Football League.
During an introductory press conference on Feb. 21, Manias, Head Coach Ron James, AFL Commissioner Randall Boe, and Co-Owner Ron Jaworski all spoke about how they want to leave a footprint in the community. They talked new plans for community outreach with the team, and said that they want to build a fanbase through that outreach.
“We want to be apart of the community and the fabric of Atlantic City,” said Jaworski during his speech at the conference at Boardwalk Hall.
Jaworski and the group have brought Arena Football to Boardwalk Hall before, as the Philadelphia Soul played the Las Vegas Outlaws for one game at the arena in 2015.
Jaworski says he and his partners evaluated Atlantic City about two years ago as a potential suitor for an expansion team.
He also said that the group felt that a new team in Atlantic City would be a fit with gaming and the addition of sports-betting, which would create an extended fan experience.
“I was really really fired up when the Soul played Las Vegas here,” said Jaworski. After the game between the Soul and Outlaws, Jaworski began to think that if one game was successful, that a whole season with a new team be equally successful.
“It was really at that point during that game I said, ‘we could put a team and it would really work.’ Now, we’re going to find out,” Jaworski added.
Eric is a graduate of Rowan University, and has a passion for radio and journalism.
