New Orange Crush Set To Enter Denver Market; af2 Attendance
Denver's AFL team announced it will be known as the Colorado Crush. The team will begin play in February with home games at the Pepsi Center. Crush President & CEO John Elway, on receiving more than 9,000 entries for the name-the-team contest: "I have always known that the football fans of Colorado are the best around, but we were overwhelmed by the incredible response to this contest" (ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS, 7/6).
DOWNSIDE: In FL, Jeff Walker noted attendance for 18 of the 24 current af2 franchises that "existed last year ... is decreasing." The league's average attendance is down from 5,193 last season to 4,945 this season. But af2 Exec Dir Jay Marcus said, "We hit our 1-million mark this year in overall attendance quicker than we have before, and I think our better months are ahead. We've got four weeks remaining and in many of those markets there are heated playoff races that should increase excitement" (TIMES-UNION, 7/5).
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