New Season - New Structure - Are you Ready?

Article by Linda Lane

As the Arena Season for 2016 draws closer with teams in Camp, fans will see many noticeable changes before kick off on April 1. There will be 16 games for each team and 2 Bye Weeks for each team with the Universal Bye Week for the Week of the July 4th.

No More Cats - Champions have left the League

No longer with the League are the 2015 Arena Bowl & Pacific Division Championship San Jose Sabercats (17-1 Season), the Las Vegas Outlaws (5-12-1), the New Orleans VooDoo (3-14-1) and the Spokane Shock (7-11).

There is as of now a total of 8 teams. This will mean 2 Conferences with a total Of 4 teams in each. 

In the National Conference you will find Western Divisional Champs the Arizona Rattlers (14-4), Cleveland Gladiators (8-10), LA Kiss (4-14) and the Portland Thunder (5-13).

In the American Conference there will be Arena Bowl runner up for 2015 The Jacksonville Sharks (10-8), Southern Division Champion Orlando Predators (12-6), the Eastern Division Philadelphia Soul (15-3) and the Tampa Bay Storm (7-11).

There will be 2 teams having to look for special venues for their home games this year as their regular venues will be playing host to the Democratic Convention (July 25-28) in Philadelphia, and the Republican Convention (July18-21). Both teams will be announcing changes soon.

The League announced that due to there being only 8 teams there will now be only 2 Conferences as listed above but each team will have a spot in the Playoffs and will the will look like this.

#1 v # 8, #2 v # 7, #3 v #6, #4 v #5, giving each team an equal chance at playing for the 2016 Arena Bowl, with the playoffs starting after August 1st.

Many fans many also know that all is not well with the Portland team as the League had taken over the running of the team this past November. There will be more on that later as information comes in.

CBS Sports Network & ESPN 1 & 2 will carry games this season and ESPN3 show some online. That schedule will be out as well and I will post when I get it.

During the season I will look at all 8 teams and let you know what makes each Franchise special. Their views ranging from owners, coaches, players, staff and fans.

I trust you will enjoy my updates, information and stories from this wonderful League.