News - 12/10/2003

arenafootball2

Shift in operators strengthens Arena Football in California

Fresno receives relocated franchise; Bakersfield granted expansion team

LOS ANGELES – The sport of Arena Football in the state of California will be stronger than it has ever been thanks to a pair of transactions that pave the way for franchises in both Fresno and Bakersfield to compete in the 2004 arenafootball2 season.

The series of events were triggered by the sale of rights to the Bakersfield Blitz by Casey Wasserman to George Chung, which was approved by the af2 Board of Directors last week.

Chung, the chief executive officer of American Champion Sports Television, Inc., will relocate the franchise to Fresno, which has been without an af2 team since the Fresno Frenzy folded after one season in 2002. The team will unveil its new identity at a press conference tomorrow in Fresno.

The af2 Board of Directors also approved the placement of an expansion team in Bakersfield, which in all likelihood will retain the Blitz name and trademarks. That team will be operated by the same group that currently runs the Bakersfield Condors of the East Coast Hockey League.

Wasserman, the chairman and chief executive officer of the Wasserman Media Group, has owned the Los Angeles Avengers of the Arena Football League (which oversees the developmental af2 league) since 1998. He purchased the rights to operate the Blitz prior to the 2001 season and added the Frenzy a year later.

“This sale and the chain of events that followed essentially benefit all parties involved,” Wasserman said. “We have nothing but faith in George Chung’s vision for his af2 franchise and are happy to welcome him into the Arena Football family. In light of the relocation, however, we worked hard with the league to make sure that the void in Bakersfield would be filled.

“I have always looked at both the Fresno and Bakersfield markets as ones that are good for af2,” Wasserman added. “I’m extremely pleased that both cities will have teams in place for the upcoming season and that we can now focus all our energies on the Avengers. All of this bodes well for the sport of Arena Football in this state and the western region in general.”

The San Jose SaberCats, who have compiled the AFL’s best record over the course of the past four seasons, and Wasserman’s Avengers, who went 11-5 in 2003 and are now championship contenders, are the AFL’s two representatives in California and among the league’s elite franchises.

The fifth team playing Arena Football in the Golden State is the San Diego Riptide, who will be entering their third season of play in af2 this coming spring.

“If the Avengers and SaberCats continue to field quality teams at the AFL level and there are healthy af2 franchises in Bakersfield, Fresno and San Diego, you would be hard pressed to find a region stronger than ours,” Wasserman said. “At one time our thought was to try and have a direct hand in making that vision a reality. But, under the set of circumstances we were dealt at the time, it didn’t work for us in Fresno. We probably over extended ourselves and needed to scale back and focus on our first two teams (the Avengers and Blitz).

“Then, George Chung expressed his interest in the purchasing the Bakersfield team from us,” Wasserman added. “His operational group is more localized and I think that puts the team into an environment in which it can be quite successful.”