NFL Network NFL Network (occasionally abbreviated on-air as NFLN) is an American sports-oriented pay television network owned by the National Football League (NFL) and is part of NFL Media, which also includes NFL.com, NFL Films, NFL Mobile, NFL Now and NFL ...

held the broadcast television rights the revived

Arena Football League The Arena Football League (AFL) was a professional arena football league in the United States. It was founded in 1986, but played its first official games in the 1987 season, making it the third longest-running professional football league in ...

from

2010 File:2010 Events Collage New.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2010 Chile earthquake was one of the strongest recorded in history; The Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland disrupts air travel in Europe; A scene from the opening ceremony of ...

2012 File:2012 Events Collage V3.png, From left, clockwise: The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia lies capsized after the Costa Concordia disaster; Damage to Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, New Jersey as a result of Hurricane Sandy; People gather ...

. NFL Network broadcast a weekly ''Friday Night Football'' package every week at 8:00 ET, with the season running from March to August. The

NFL The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the major ...

stated that unlike when the NFL last showed interest in arena football, there would be no attempts to buy into the league.

Broadcast overview

As previously mentioned, the NFL Network broadcast the regular season each Friday and went through the playoffs, culminating with the ArenaBowl. All AFL games not on the NFL Network could be seen for free online, provided by

Ustream IBM Watson Media (formerly Ustream and IBM Cloud Video) is an American virtual events platform company which is a division of IBM. Prior to IBM acquisition, it had more than 180 employees across San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Budapest offices. ...

.NFL Network Schedule News Release
/ref> NFL Network ceased airing Arena Football League games partway through the 2012 season as a result of ongoing labor problems within the league. The remaining games in the season were carried on a tape delay to prevent the possibility of the players staging a

work stoppage Strike action, also called labor strike, labour strike, or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to Labor (economics), work. A strike usually takes place in response to grievance (labour), employee grievance ...

immediately prior to a scheduled broadcast and the resulting embarrassment. Once the labor issues were resolved, the NFL Network resumed the practice of broadcasting a live Friday night game before the network dropped the league outright at the end of the season. The rights were picked up by

CBS Sports CBS Sports is the sports division of the American television network CBS. Its headquarters are in the CBS Building on W 52nd Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, with programs produced out of Studio 43 at the CBS Broadcast Center on W 5 ...

Commentators

Broadcasters included

Kurt Warner Kurtis Eugene Warner (born June 22, 1971) is an American former football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 12 seasons, primarily with the St. Louis Rams and Arizona Cardinals. His career, which saw him ascend fr ...

Tom Waddle Gregory Thomas Waddle (born February 20, 1967) is an American former professional football player who was a wide receiver in the National Football League (NFL). Waddle is currently a co-host of ''"Waddle and Silvy"'' on ''ESPN 1000'', and a fo ...

Paul Burmeister Paul Burmeister (born March 10, 1971) Paul Burmeister is an American sportscaster with NBC Sports and NBC Olympics, working primarily as a play-by-play voice and studio host across a wide range of platforms. Prior to his arrival at NBC in 2014, he ...

Fran Charles Fran Charles (born October 19, 1968) is an American television personality for MLB Network, formerly for NFL Network. Career Charles attended John Burroughs School in Ladue, Missouri; then earned a Bachelor's degree in Communication at Stanford ...

, Charles Davis, and Ari Wolfe.

Notable moments

In 2009, the

suspended operations to refinance and restructure its business plan. After a one-year layoff, the AFL and

Chicago Rush The Chicago Rush were a professional arena football team based in Rosemont, Illinois Rosemont is a village in Cook County, Illinois, United States. Located immediately northwest of Chicago, as of the 2010 census it had a population of 4,20 ...

returned in 2010 with a single entity model. On December 10, 2009, it was announced that the Rush will be returning for 2010 under new ownership as a member of

Arena Football 1 The Arena Football League (AFL) was a professional arena football league in the United States. It was founded in 1986, but played its first official games in the 1987 season, making it the third longest-running professional football league in N ...

. The ownership obtained the rights to the name after a court auction granted the AF1 control of the AFL's assets. Two months later, the AF1 decided to adopt the former Arena Football League name. Chicago returned to the field on April 2, 2010 on the road against the

Iowa Barnstormers The Iowa Barnstormers are a professional indoor American football, indoor football team based in Des Moines, Iowa. They are currently members of the Indoor Football League (IFL). They play their home games at Wells Fargo Arena (Des Moines, Iowa) ...

. The game was broadcast on the

and Chicago won 61–43. The Rush began the season 4–0 and were in first place in the division at 10–4. However, the team lost its last two games, first to the 1–13

Dallas Vigilantes The Dallas Vigilantes were an Arena Football League (AFL) team based in Dallas, Texas. Like its AFL predecessor, the Dallas Desperados, the Vigilantes played at the American Airlines Center. The Vigilantes and the Jacksonville Sharks began play i ...

and then closed out the year on the road losing to the

Spokane Shock The Spokane Shock were a professional indoor American football team based in Spokane, Washington, that played their home games at the Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena. The team was initially a member of arenafootball2 (af2), the Shock won divisio ...

. It cost the team a chance at the division title and forced the team to go on the road for the playoffs. The team ended the regular season at 10–6, and lost to the

Milwaukee Iron Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee i ...

in the playoffs.

References

{{Arena Football League on NFL Network NFL Network original programming Arena football on television 2010 American television series debuts 2012 American television series endings