The Indoor Football League Is A Weird, Wacky, And Financially Strapped Circus

Next season, IFL will stand for “In Financial Limbo”

The Indoor Football League is a a group of arena football teams that operates largely under the radar for typical sports fans outside of Terrell Owens getting cut stories. Turns out, they may want to try and jump up above the radar, because the league is hurting for cash. A few weeks ago, the IFL’s playoffs got started with one of the qualifying teams, the Omaha Beef, declining their playoff bid because they didn’t feel like paying to send the team to South Dakota to play.

Last weekend, the playoffs came to a head in the United Bowl, the IFL’s championship game, where the undefeated Sioux Falls Storm beat the Tri-Cities Fever and were congratulated by…well nobody. The league didn’t send anyone from the IFL front office to the game, citing financial difficulties keeping them from traveling to Sioux Falls. Now, practically that entire Storm team, who went undefeated and won their second straight championship, has been cut. Don’t worry though, this isn’t for money reasons.

From KELO:

Teams have until July 31 to commit to playing next year in the IFL and (Storm owner Todd) Tryon says the Storm roster, as it stodd, may have caused teams to consider dropping out of the league.

“I  just want them sitting back wondering ‘What the heck is Sioux Falls doing?” Tryon said. “They do not appreciate how hight we have set the bar. There are teams that, if we have our roster intact, that will not commit to play next year.”

Yes, the team who ran roughshod over the league released their entire roster just to be fair dicks to the rest of the league, so they didn’t give up and quit the league. That’s a finger-licking-good brand of trolling.

As of now, the team has just three players still under contract for next season. After the July 31 deadline, if the Storm decide to come back, and if the rest of the league doesn’t decide it’s not worth taking on Sioux Falls (a mecca of football dominance throughout history), then the team will start re-signing players to fill out the roster. And I’m sure Todd Tryon will make sure they’re mediocre enough for the rest of the squares in the IFL to keep up.

So, to the rest of the Indoor Football League, Tryon has one question for you: What are you, chicken or just broke? Probably broke.

(pic via)