When you prepare for the next A7FL season, whether you’re a producer, analyst, host, or executive, all you have to start with is a blank piece of paper.
By Matt Ryan, A7FL Broadcast Announcer and Producer
As you get closer and closer, that piece of paper slowly but surely gets filled, whether with game notes, stats, potential sponsors, schedules, travel itineraries, anything, and everything makes its way onto that piece of paper until the moment you crown a champion and the champagne flows.
For one brief moment, you take a look at that paper, and you see everything that went right and everything that went wrong on that piece of paper. You get a feeling in your bones, at least that’s what I did on the morning of July 11th of this year when I woke up, made a cup of coffee, and realized that the 2022 A7FL Season was over.
Sitting at my desk, drinking a cup of coffee that was too hot for the summer, I stared at that piece of paper. Thinking over every broadcast, every meeting, every second I spent in a car going from my home to the venue and back again. And I smiled cause I get to do it all again in a few months.
But this isn’t a story about the piece of paper covered in ink and what most scientists believe is honey mustard but can’t really trace it, it’s about the blank one I’m staring at right now, for what lies ahead in 2023.
And while I’m not A7FL Commissioner, Ryan DePaul, I’m one of the few non-playing humans in this league who touch every aspect of what is done in the A7FL, and it gives me a unique POV on where this league is going next and my smile is getting wider as I type.
The work starts nearly immediately; sports is a 24/7, 365 proposition, especially when running a league. While the games are over, there are still mountains to climb, audiences to find, and chances to take.
For me, the path to opening day 2023 starts with content. This is why we launched the 3-on-1 podcast hosted by myself, A7FL Quarterback Cory Hammond, and 2x A7FL Champion “Big” Rob Fabien.
The A7FL broadcast team, former A7FL Player “Big” Rob Fabien, A7FL Quarterback Cory Hammond, and Matt Ryan
It’s a show dedicated to our league, players, and their combined story. These are high-level athletes who rarely get a chance to show what drives them on and off the field, and giving them that voice allows you to learn more about Sterry Codrington, who risked everything in his life to follow his dreams as a football player and travel across the world to a place where he didn’t speak the language so that he could play.
There are HUNDREDS of stories like that are echoed from every single player who stepped onto the field to prove they could bring it on Sunday.
Our goal is to give everyone who takes part in our league the opportunity to showcase themselves, whether it be on the field, on the microphone or utilizing the written word.
This blank piece of paper allows for so many things for the A7FL, first and foremost being expansion.
In 2022 the league grew by nearly twice its size, adding Cincinnati, Los Angeles, Nevada and Washington DC.
In 2023, we will finally see our brand of football in Boston as the area of Belichick, and Harvard Football will get a taste of our brand and fall in love with it the same way they did a late draft pick from the University of Michigan.
Not only will Boston be the newest home of the A7FL, but I do believe we will see new additions in Nevada, as the Vegas teams deserve some in-state rivalries that we get in New Jersey, Maryland and California. Whether it be the Reno Wranglers, the Silver City Stampede or the Carson City Crusaders, the opportunity to see our Nevada teams follow up their epic 2022 campaign is something that will delight not only viewers but investors.
I also predict that the A7FL will gain a foothold in a college football stronghold.
While all of our markets are currently traditional pro football strongholds or markets (two of which featured the two teams battling in this year’s Super Bowl), the A7FL is underrepresented in the college towns that helped induce the birth of American Football in the late 19th and early 20th century.
With towns across the country featuring a passion for football but unable to get an outlet that expands the confines of bowl season, the A7FL is a perfect league to come to a town like Ann Arbor, Michigan, Columbus, Ohio, or Austin, Texas.
And with this expansion and the continued evolution of the talent and style of football we play, it only seems like a matter of time before we see multiple locations broadcasting A7FL games, starting as early as 2023.
With the teams in Nevada and Ohio showing that they have the athletes and passion to square up with the legacy teams from New Jersey and Maryland, while Florida’s teams were less than a minute away from making the final four in an epic game of the year candidate against the Baltimore Rare Breed, the time is here for the world to see what these teams do every single week.
No matter where these games are held next year, Rob Fabien, Cory Hammond, our intrepid production crew, and I will be there to bring you the games. We can only hope you join us as an investor to not only help us reach these heights but for everything that comes after this because we’re just getting started, and you don’t wanna miss what we do next.
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