From the Kansas City Star, it appears the Arena Football League will cancel its 2009 season.
Pete Likens, the director of communications for the Kansas City Brigade, told The Star on Wednesday that the players union agreed to the decision to suspend the season, and owners will hold a final vote on the matter, probably later Wednesday.
Barring any unforeseen circumstances, Likens said the owners will likely approve the one-year hiatus.
“It’s pretty much a done deal to suspend the 2009 season and work toward a single entity-league,” Likens said. “We plan to start up again in 2010, if the owners vote this way. We’re prepared to play this year, and/or next.”
There’s more here and a little more here.
According to the short-run shut-down condition familiar to economists, a business should shut down if it can’t generate the revenue to pay its variable costs. No need to consider the fixed costs: the business can’t do anything about them. Once demand “recovers”, the business should open again. At least according to the public pronouncements, that’s what the AFL is aiming for.
Compare that to the case of the Houston Comets, a successful WNBA franchise – successful on the court, that is – that completely ceased operations recently. This seems to be more of a case of the straw breaking the camel’s back. The Comets never did that well in the past, but with the economic outlook as bleak as it’s been in 2-3 decades, there was little hope that the Comets would ever grow sufficiently as a business. So the Comets disintigrated.
