Valor and Brigade Owner Ted Leonsis hopes more teams can join the league as early as '19WASHINGTON VALOR
ArenaBowl XXXI on Saturday night may have marked the "last night of the AFL's four-team excursion," according to Katherine Fominykh of the BALTIMORE SUN. Ted Leonsis, who owns both the Washington Valor and the Baltimore Brigade, hopes that two more teams "come into the fold" to join his clubs, as well as the Philadelphia Soul and the Albany Empire. It is possible any new teams could arrive "under the same ownership," as the Valor and Brigade did. One possibility is the Cleveland Gladiators, which spent a "season in hiatus" but will "likely return after the renovations at Quicken Loans Arena are complete, by 2020 at the latest." Additionally, the Tampa Bay Storm "might be revived once the AFL reaches calmer waters." Leonsis and AFL Commissioner Randall Boe have "vowed to expand the league next year" even if neither the Gladiators nor the Storm come back (BALTIMORE SUN, 7/30). In DC, Adam Zielonka noted one reason team owners "are serious about expanding the AFL again is because they see a built-in audience for the product." The league has "only missed one season since it was founded in 1986, and some of its fans have stuck around the entire time." Despite that, just 8,183 fans were at Baltimore's Royal Farms Arena on Saturday to see the Valor beat the Brigade, marking a "record low" for the title game (WASHINGTON TIMES, 7/29).
