Arena League pulls plug for ’09

NEW YORK -- Matt D'Orazio heard the rumors every year he played in the Arena Football League.

"There's always grumbling about potential teams folding or something not going as planned," said the quarterback, the league's reigning Most Valuable Player for the champion Philadelphia Soul. "But it always seems to start up and always do better than the year before."

Not this time. The 22-year-old AFL announced Monday it will cancel the 2009 season as it seeks to mold a better business model in tough economic times. The decision was pending an agreement with the players union.

League officials hope to return in 2010.

"That is the plan," said Jim Renacci, the Columbus Destroyers' co-owner and vice chairman of the AFL executive committee, who will lead the restructuring process. "Every owner is committed to coming back in 2010."

Renacci left open the remote possibility the 16-team league could play in 2009 with an abbreviated schedule.

The more than two-thirds of AFL owners needed to approve the measure voted to cancel the season during a conference call Sunday night. The league had issued a statement Wednesday that said the 2009 season had not been suspended.

"That was probably the longest part of the discussion the owners had: Can we still come back in 2009?" Renacci said on a conference call. "And I think the answer to that is it's always possible, but most likely we need to retool to be fair to fans."

The decision left clubs shedding employees and players scrambling to find work. The Cleveland Gladiators laid off six people Monday. Some players have offseason jobs, and others rely only on their AFL salaries.

Las Vegas was a central part of the AFL, serving as home to two franchises and twice being the site of the ArenaBowl.

The second franchise, the Gladiators, moved to Las Vegas from New Jersey before the 2003 season. The team played four seasons at the Thomas & Mack Center and one at the Orleans Arena before relocating to Cleveland in October 2007.

Las Vegas' first AFL team was the Sting, which played in the city in 1994 and 1995 before moving to Anaheim, Calif. The team played the 1994 season at the MGM Grand Garden Arena and the 1995 season at the Thomas & Mack.

The AFL played its first neutral-site ArenaBowl in Las Vegas in 2005 at the Thomas & Mack. The game also was played at the T&M in 2006.