AFL/AF2: In Raleigh, Caulton Tudor writes that the
first-year AFL Cobras drew about 13,000 for last night's
game against the Predators (Raleigh NEWS & OBSERVER,
4/28)....In AR, Robert Turbeville noted that last Friday's
af2 Valley Vipers-Twisters game at Alltel Arena drew 15,102.
But Turbeville wrote that "as good as it was, and as good as
it may get," it doesn't "mean Arkansas will ever graduate"
from af2 to the AFL, "even if it wanted to." An AFL
franchise costs between $7-10M, while an af2 franchise costs
$300,000. A prospective AFL team owner "must show" a net
worth of $40M and "access to" $10M in operating capital
aside from the expansion team fee. Turbeville added that
the AFL "prefers to award" AFL teams to cities in the top 30
TV markets, but Central Arkansas is No. 57 in the latest
Nielsen rankings (ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE, 4/27).
NOTES: USA TODAY's Hal Bodley, on 13 MLB players and
coaches sitting out Tuesday's games in protest of the U.S.
government's handling of the Elian Gonzalez case: "Now we
have a bad precedent. Baseball's integrity, carefully
protected by every commissioner, was compromised" (USA
TODAY, 4/28)....ESPN2's Robin Miller, on the CART Rio 200 in
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and the small crowds: "The ticket
prices are insane. You hear anything from $100-175 to get
into the place" ("RPM 2Night," ESPN2, 4/27).
