The 2024 Arena Football League season came to an conclusion at a shopping mall in New Jersey on Friday night when the Billings Outlaws defeated the Albany Firebirds in ArenaBowl XXXIII. Yes, you read that correctly.
A team from Montana defeated a team from upstate New York inside of a literal mall in the Garden State.
Arena Football’s (not-so) triumphant return was rather chaotic. It got off to an extremely hilarious start last August when locations were revealed as a surprise to the cities that were selected for a team. It was not as funny in May when teams were forced to fold before the first month of the season was complete.
Eight AFL organizations cancelled games on short notice, failed to pay its players, owed tens of thousands of dollars to the facilities that housed them, and shut down. Some of them blamed league management for not following through on its promise for uniforms, footballs, travel costs, etc.
The Arena Football League also lost its broadcast partnership with NFL Network and was extremely close to a total collapse very shortly after its official revival.
Despite all of the early-season issues, the season continued. Albany, Billings, Nashville, Orlando, Salina, Southwest Kansas, Washington and Wichita managed to survive.
ArenaBowl XXXIII was played at the American Dream Center in East Rutherford on Friday and marked the conclusion of the Arena Football League’s first season back.
Arena Football League played its championship game at a mall!
American Dream Center is the second-largest shopping mall in the United States. It also features an indoor skiing and snowboarding park, a waterpark, a Nickelodeon-themed amusement park, and an ice rink.
The ice rink became an Arena Football field for the ArenaBowl.
To say that the venue was unique would be a major understatement.
Scenes were… something!
As weird as it might’ve looked, credit to the AFL for trying to be creative and innovative. The ArenaBowl actually ended up being kind of cool and an 87-point game was decided by just five. That’s intense!
Lost in all of the chatter about the mall was perhaps the most interesting story of the entire season. Albany’s kicker joined the team on three days notice. He works as a mechanic in Florida, last kicked overseas and had never played Arena Football before the championship game.
It doesn’t get any more Arena Football than that!