In recent years, the Arena Football League has been looked at as the little brother of the National Football League. The small-time league is known for employing former NFL players on the tail-end of their careers or players who never made it to the bigger football stage.
The AFL consists of 13 individual teams that play in 18-game seasons, compared to the NFL’s 32 teams and 17-game regular season.
The newest team to the AFL is Los Angeles Kiss, competing in the West Division in the National Conference. Their first season concluded in July.
“I have always wanted to go to an AFL game just because of the Los Angeles area and how fast-paced the games are played,” said Ruben Rangel, sophomore kinesiology major.
For five years, LA was without an AFL team. However, in August 2013, Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley, members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame band Kiss, announced that they were planning to bring arena football back to the city.
“I used to enjoy arena football as it brought lots of excitement and highlight plays due to how small of a field they played on,” said Hamadi Williams, sophomore exercise science major.
Even though they are a new team, LA Kiss is forming a fanbase by having a TV crew follow them through the ups and downs of their first season. The show began filming as soon as word got out that Simmons and Stanley wanted to create their own arena football team.
“4th and Loud,” the name of the team’s reality TV show, plays on American Movie Classics Network. The show’s first season debuted in August and will end Oct. 17.
Simmons and Stanley are well-known fans of the AFL, and they now co-own the team along with band manager Doc McGhee. The season began in March.
