The Arena Football League (AFL) is the highest level of professional indoor American football in the United States. It is currently the second longest running professional football league in the United States, after the National Football League. It was founded in 1987 by Jim Foster. It is played indoors on a smaller field than American football, resulting in a faster-paced and higher-scoring game. The sport was invented in the early 1980s and patented by Foster, a former executive of the United States Football League and the National Football League.
The league currently consists of seventeen teams from the United States. The AFL is divided into two conferences - the American Conference and National Conference. Each conference has two divisions. The East, West and Central Divisions consist of four teams, while the South Division has five teams. League attendance has averaged between 10,000 and 13,000 fans per game.
The regular-season is a twenty-week schedule during which each team plays eighteen games and has two bye weeks. The season currently starts during the second week of March and runs weekly to late August. At the end of each regular season, four teams from each conference (the division winners and two Wild Card teams) play in the AFL Playoffs, an eight-team single-elimination tournament that culminates with the championship game, known as the ArenaBowl. From 1987 to 2004 and 2010 and 2011, the game was played at the site of the highest seed. From 2005 to 2008, the game was at a neutral site, Las Vegas and New Orleans. In 2012, the league championship returned to a neutral site and ArenaBowl XXV will be in the New Orleans Arena.
From 2000 to 2009, the AFL had its own developmental league, the af2. The AFL played 22 seasons from 1987 to 2008; internal issues caused the league to cancel its 2009 season, though the af2 did play. Later that year both the AFL and af2 were dissolved and reorganized as a new corporation comprising teams from both leagues, and the AFL returned in 2010. The Arena Football League Office has its headquarters in Chicago, Illinois.
Read more about Arena Football League: Postseason, Rules, Growth of The League, Teams, Commissioners of Arena Football, League Office Locations, League Finances
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