AFL Commissioner Jim Drucker will step down when his
contract expires to spend time developing an expansion team.
Drucker said he will spend the next few months evaluating
potential expansion sites and hopes to have a team that will
begin play for the '98 or '99 season. When Drucker became
Commissioner in June of '94 he received an option to buy an
expansion team, which he can exercise as of October 1, '96.
Drucker noted that since '94, the price of an expansion team has
increased from $250,000 to $1.5 million. Drucker: "My option has
become a very valuable property and I want to take advantage of
it now." Under Drucker, the league expanded from 11 to 17 teams
and regular season attendance increased 62% to 1,132,688 this
season. Drucker also negotiated the AFL's new two-year deal for
ESPN and developed the league's national sponsorship program
(AFL).
AND PROOF? Today's N.Y. TIMES profiles the AFL under the
header, "A Summer League Thrives, Indoors." Charlie Nobles
writes the AFL "succeeded by embracing downsizing before it
became a corporate cliche" (N.Y. TIMES, 8/23).
