Arena Football League on ABC

Arena Football League on ABC is the de facto title for broadcasts of Arena Football League (AFL) games on the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) television network. ABC was the first major television network in the United States to give exposure[1][2] to the Arena Football League. Prior to 1998,[3][4][5] when ABC televised ArenaBowl XII, the most exposure that the league would receive was on ESPN, which would air tape-delayed games, often well after midnight.

Arena Football League on ABC
GenreAmerican football telecasts
StarringMike Adamle
Ray Bentley
Sherdrick Bonner
Tim Brant
Ed Cunningham
Gary Danielson
Mike Gleason
Mike Golic
Mike Greenberg
Merril Hoge
Brent Musburger
Lynn Swann
Stan Verrett
Marcellus Wiley
Bob Wischusen
Ari Wolfe
Country of origin United States
Original languageEnglish
No. of seasons6
Production
Camera setupMulti-camera
Running time180 minutes or until end of game
Production companiesABC Sports
ESPN
Release
Picture format480i (SDTV),
1080i (HDTV)
Original release
  • First run: August 23, 1998 (1998-08-23) – August 18, 2002 (2002-08-18)
  • Second run: March 7, 2007 (2007-03-07) – July 77, 2008 (2008-07-77)
Chronology
Related showsArena Football League on ESPN
Wide World of Sports

Background

ABC's coverage of the AFL was usually relegated to solely the annual championship game, the ArenaBowl. From 1998-2002, ABC's ArenaBowl broadcasts were aired as under the Wide World of Sports[6] anthology umbrella.

Following a four year spell with NBC, coverage of the AFL would resume on ABC in 2007. As part of a five year deal with sister network ESPN, a minimum of 17 regular-season games and nine playoff games—including a minimum of three Wild Card games were televised. Also televised were three Divisional Playoff games, both Conference Championships and the ArenaBowl on ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC. To clarify, both the 2007 season opener and ArenaBowl were on ABC, where three wild card games, two divisional games and one conference championship were on ESPN and the seventeen regular season Monday night games, one wild card game, two divisional games and one conference championship game was all on ESPN2. This particular arrangement with ABC was again in place in 2008 before NFL Network took over the broadcasting rights for the ArenaBowl for the next three seasons.

In 2017, the ArenaBowl was televised by WPVI-TV,[7][8][9] ABC's owned-and-operated station in Philadelphia. The game was also streamed on Twitter and AFLNow,[10][11] the league's streaming service.

Commentators
See also: List of Wide World of Sports (American TV series) announcers, List of ArenaBowl broadcasters, and Arena_Football_League_on_ESPN § Personalities

See also

References
  1. May 13, 1998 - That experimental air continues even as ABC is preparing to give this August's season ending ArenaBowl its first network television coverage and NFL owners consider making the indoor game a developmental league in Europe. For this reason Bruce Frey of Palm Beach Gardens has been ...
  2. Aug 19, 1998 - ABC'S OF EXPOSURE The Arena League is expected to get a boost when ABC Chs 28 and 40 in the Tampa Bay area televises the ArenaBowl live at 1 pm Sunday It will be the first Arena game televised on a major network although Storm coach Tim Marcum recalls when he was in Detroit and a ...
  3. Feb 5, 1998 - The league is also expected to announce that ABC will broadcast the championship ArenaBowl on Aug. 23. Vallozzi also said he and the Mustangs are trying to work out a deal with the Green Bay Packers to have the Mustangs' training camp, which is April 9-24, at the Don Hutson Center.
  4. Feb 21, 1998 - The Arena Football League took a prime step forward with the announcement of a new television agreement that will put the championship game, Arena Bowl XII, on ABC and eight regular-season games into live, prime-time slots on ESPN2. The two- year contract extension calls for 20 games on ...
  5. Aug 24, 1998 - COMMISSIONER C. DAVID Baker said that while he hoped ArenaBowl XII would get a decent rating on ABC-TV, he was "not too worried about that." He added that he questioned the ABC decision of delaying the telecast 21/2 hours on the West Coast, saying: "That puts our game against the NFL ...
  6. Nov 20, 1999 - The AFL has had regular season games televised on ABC ESPN in recent years For the last two years ABC has shown the ArenaBowl live on Wide World of Sports a breakthrough for the ever growing AFL. SCOTTSDALE Ariz The Phoenix Coyotes traded Mikhail Shtalenkov the NHL's player of the month in ...
  7. "ArenaBowl XXX Matchup Set; Philadelphia Soul to Host Tampa Bay Storm". arenafootball.com. August 14, 2017. Archived from the original on August 15, 2017. Retrieved August 15, 2017.
  8. "AFL to Offer Complimentary Access to AFLNow During Playoffs and ArenaBowl XXX". arenafootball.com. August 11, 2017. Archived from the original on August 12, 2017. Retrieved August 12, 2017.
  9. "WPVI TV 6 to broadcast Philadelphia Soul in ArenaBowl XXX". pressofatlanticcity.com. August 14, 2017. Archived from the original on August 15, 2017. Retrieved August 15, 2017.
  10. "Arena Football League and Twitter Partner to Stream Five Regular Season Games in 2017". arenafootball.com. June 1, 2017. Archived from the original on August 12, 2017. Retrieved August 12, 2017.
  11. "AFL to Offer Complimentary Access to AFLNow During Playoffs and ArenaBowl XXX". arenafootball.com. August 11, 2017. Archived from the original on August 12, 2017. Retrieved August 12, 2017.
  12. Aug 21, 1999 - For the second straight year, the ArenaBowl will be carried by ABC. It will be seen locally on WTEN (Ch. 10). Mike Gleason and Merril Hoge, who called last Saturday's semifinal game between the Firebirds and the Arizona Rattlers on ESPN2, will call the game. ABC will use between 12 and ...
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