Fort Wayne's indoor football future: Jeff Spitaleri

The Continental Indoor Football League technically is in its second season, but the league founded by brothers Jeff and Eric Spitaleri worked under a different name in Year 1. In three years as a league co-founder, Jeff Spitaleri has reviewed countless proposals for ownership groups, and he admitted the league has made mistakes in adding some franchises.
Here's more from Jeff Spitaleri, who spoke to me for the package on what it will take for indoor football to succeed.

What do you think are the keys to having a successful franchise?
The first key to being successful is not coming in expecting to make money right away because you're not going to do it. That's one of the things when we talk to people (who want a team). If those are the first words out of their mouth ... that's a red flag for us. The first thing really is just to understand it's a process to get to making money. After that, you understand that there is work that has to be done. People aren't just going to come to your game because you're in town. A competitive team does help, but all the other stuff is very important.
When you look at a certain ownership structure, is there one that works?
Every market is different. We made the mistake on this a few times over, but local ownership is very, very important. Obviously, we've seen the difference between a local owner and one that's not local and how that goes down. I've seen it. More and more, it comes back to who is from there understands the market and understands what needs to be done and the mentality of the people they're going to be dealing with.
What's the process when someone wants to join the league?
If they're brand-new, if they're somebody we've never met before, the first thing we want to know is background on them. Who are you? What makes you decide to get a team? Some of the people I've talked to have no business calling but just think they can call up and get a team, and that's not the case. The process really is just they call us, we get some background on them, like a phone interview. Then we've got some paperwork we send to them to fill out in regards to their market, their background, their finances. I know there are some other leagues that have like a $5,000 application fee. We don't have anything like that. Whether I have a check for $5,000 in my hand or not, I can look at it and decide, 'This person is capable of handling this team or they're not.' We base it off of that. If we turn them down, which we've done plenty of times, we tell them they're not qualified at this time. If we accept them, we tell them here's what's due.
So tell me about the situation here. Todd Ellis comes in and shows you financial statements, obviously, and you felt he was good to go. Then you kind of backtracked on that a bit, kicking him out and then re-instating him. How do you avoid that from happening again?
There were some things we may have to get into that are a little bit deeper than just reviewing paperwork. We might have to go the route of the full-blown checks, verification checks, financial checks. Anybody can put their finance report in front of you, and here's how much they're worth. But there's got to be better ways of confirming they're true.
And you're looking into those?
We've made some mistakes. I admit that. We're not perfect by any means. We learn new things every single day. ... A lot of people probably look at it and say 'it's not hard to do a background check.' I could give you a bank reference and give you a number and tell them you're calling, and all they've got to do is answer the phone such-and-such bank, active, valid and done. We'll get it. We'll figure it out. But for the time being, I know it's hard to trust people you don't know, but sometimes we have to stick to just that and taking people at their word and hoping the information they've given to us is accurate and correct. Obviously, there's cases when it doesn't happen.
Do you anticipate having a franchise in Fort Wayne next season?
I would hope so, yeah. I really feel that given the opportunity, it can be the type of market it was before, and the fans would enjoy the game.
What's Fort Wayne's status with the league right now?
It's a three-year agreement with the league. What we'd do if there were going to be new owners that would come on board, we'd want to talk to them and then go from there. Then we'd say 'yes' or 'no.' After that, we'll renew. We want to stay away from year-to-year because we want them to build something. ... We're not looking to have a new team come in and pay a new expansion fee. We want the stability factor. ... We're hoping if a new group does come in, they're not looking to play in another league. This is a pretty good fit. I hope they sit down and look and see that.

-- By Stacy Clardie, The Journal Gazette

Comments

[Josh Stein]

Certainly, on the league side of things, that is step one - admitting you screwed up. Now, the issue is that this admission is the same one made for a third consecutive season, so it's long time to get to step two - doing something about it.

Though certainly 2500 fans a game or so is a huge disappointment for the Freedom and its fans, when taken in perspective it's something to build on. Never has a team's problems been so public, and despite that the team drew like this. This may be the first time that a team with such public issues drew over 1,000 fans a game for an entire season (not mentioning the number of teams that didn't even get through the season with these issues).

Now, let's be honest. This doesn't make what happened "right." In fact, it's a further sign of the magnitude of the mistake of letting Ellis in here in the first place. Despite his best efforts (if you will), the team drew quite well for what it was. The risk was ruining a market that obviously still exists in a big way for the sport of indoor football.

It's going to take a lot of work, but this year did prove that Fort Wayne indoor football can be great again...with good ownership, it will be. I have no doubts.

[DGF]

2,500 can't pay the bills.

[true religion outlet]

The first key to being successful is not coming in expecting to make money right away because you're not going to do it. That's one of the things when we talk to people (who want a team). If those are the first words out of their mouth ... that's a red flag for us. The first thing really is just to understand it's a process to get to making money. After that, you understand that there is work that has to be done. People aasfdren't just going to come to your game because you're in town. A competitive team does help, but all the other stuff is very important.