Salt Lake City got its first live look at arena football Saturday night with 16,705 people showing up at the Delta Center to watch the Utah Blaze fall 56-53 to the Dallas Desperados.
It wasn’t just the attendance that impressed commissioner David Baker. It was that 3,500 fans were so eager to see their new expansion team they bought all the bad seats in the building for the privilege.
Because of poor sightlines at the arena, Blaze officials originally had decided to limit seating at home games to 13,200. But after selling 10,000 season tickets for the home opener after an impressive 48-35 victory at San Jose, the remaining 3,500 bad seats were put on sale at a discount.
“I’m told we had a full house,” Baker told the Deseret Morning News. “We consider ourselves the most fan-friendly league in sports, so we’re very pleased with the enthusiasm the fans in Salt Lake have shown.”
The Blaze is the ninth team added by the 19-year-old league over the past five years, a growth spurt that has produced television contracts with NBC and FSN and a 43 percent increase in league-wide attendance.
“In the past few years, we’ve been expanding like no other league in the country,” Baker said. “Whether it’s through adding expansion teams, through increasing attendance or through creating a larger fan base, we’re getting to be more and more prominent.
“We’ve been able to last for so long because we aren’t trying to compete with 100-yard football. We think of ourselves as a complement, not an alternative. The people around here can root for BYU or Utah and still be fans of the Blaze.”
Footnotes
With a victory over the Georgia Force on Sunday, Crush coach Mike Dailey has 90 wins in his nine-plus seasons in the AFL. He is only the fourth coach in league history to reach that number. The other three are still in the league: Tampa Bay’s Tim Marcum is tops at 177, followed by Utah’s Danny White at 142 and Chicago’s Mike Hohensee at 95. … The Crush tried out another quarterback last week, but Dailey is in no hurry to sign a backup for John Dutton. “We’re not interested in having a two guy that doesn’t have experience and wouldn’t be in a position to help us, but we’re keeping our eyes open,” Dailey said.
Joseph Sanchez can be reached at 303-820-5458 or jsanchez@denverpost.com.
