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2010 San Jose Wolves Innagural Season
By Eric Thurow posted on Sunday, June 13, 2010 @ 9:30 PM - (General)
After missing one year of having any type of arena/indoor professional football, the San Jose Wolves came to being the team to try and fill the void. The void would be extremely tough as the previous league established for 15 years in San Jose had been well established and recognized by the fans. The new league trying to take form in the San Jose Bay Area is a league that know one has really heard of and were skeptical.
After the first introduction game, the pre-season game, the San Jose Wolves were officially introduced to the San Jose Bay Area. The crowd for the this game was decent for the first showing of over 3,500. Now maintaining a high attendance would become a tough challenge to acheive. One of the challenges is the fact the San Jose Wolves were not playing in San Jose, but in Daly City a nearly 40 minute drive (depending on traffic) north. The second challenge would be playing in a much older and out-of-date facility Cow Palace, as compared to the new updated HP Pavilion at San Jose.
For the league like the American Indoor Football Association (AIFA), the Cow Palace is a pretty good facility no matter the age. The Cow Palace can seat nearly 11,000 for a indoor football game and is among the biggest facilty in the AIFA. For a new team to come into an area and wear the city name of a city that has a long history of success with the sport of arena/indoor football, it was going to be very difficult to get the people to make the switch. Not knowing anything about the league, the San Jose Wolves brought a lot of familiar faces to the forefront of the gameday experience.
Bringing the familiar faces to join the Wolves organization was a key attempt in attracting fans from the past into the present. This factor would be key to help out the second challenge the Wolves face and that's the commute up to Daly City from San Jose and the surrounding areas. The gameday entertainment throughout the season with music and contests were like from the past team and then slowly transitioned into entertainment to define the Wolves. Also another gameday entertainment familiarity was the dance team. Eventhough all of the members of the dance team, except one, are not from the past, the outfits worn were similar in design and the activities were similar, including the end of 1st quarter dancing at midfield.
Now that the home games are done for the San Jose Wolves, the overall success of the Wolves to attract fans to attend the games and keeping them coming in the doors of the Cow Palace was extremely tough. As fans have shared with me throughout the season, the main reason the Cow Palace never reached 60% compacity was for the fact they are not playing in San Jose. Afterall, the team is named the San Jose Wolves and not Daly City/San Francisco/Bay Area Wolves. Fans expressed, since the team bears the San Jose name, they should play in San Jose and the HP Pavilion at San Jose. People simply did not want to commute up to Daly City. Eventhough there were still some simply put, die hard arena/indoor football fans, that did make it to all 8 home games for the 2010 season.
In concluson, I beleive that the Wolves attempts to win over the fans with a high caliber team was successful. But the actual attendance, one could say was less then desirable. The Wolves have three more games left in the 2010 AIFA regular season. All the Wolves have to do is win one more game and they clinch a playoff berth in their innagural season. When or if they clinch their playoff berth, the San Jose Wolves will be playing the Wyoming Cavalry who will host the game in Casper, Wyoming at the Casper Events Center. For more information on the San Jose Wolves and the American Indoor Football Association (AIFA), log onto http://aifaprofootball.com.
After the first introduction game, the pre-season game, the San Jose Wolves were officially introduced to the San Jose Bay Area. The crowd for the this game was decent for the first showing of over 3,500. Now maintaining a high attendance would become a tough challenge to acheive. One of the challenges is the fact the San Jose Wolves were not playing in San Jose, but in Daly City a nearly 40 minute drive (depending on traffic) north. The second challenge would be playing in a much older and out-of-date facility Cow Palace, as compared to the new updated HP Pavilion at San Jose.
For the league like the American Indoor Football Association (AIFA), the Cow Palace is a pretty good facility no matter the age. The Cow Palace can seat nearly 11,000 for a indoor football game and is among the biggest facilty in the AIFA. For a new team to come into an area and wear the city name of a city that has a long history of success with the sport of arena/indoor football, it was going to be very difficult to get the people to make the switch. Not knowing anything about the league, the San Jose Wolves brought a lot of familiar faces to the forefront of the gameday experience.
Bringing the familiar faces to join the Wolves organization was a key attempt in attracting fans from the past into the present. This factor would be key to help out the second challenge the Wolves face and that's the commute up to Daly City from San Jose and the surrounding areas. The gameday entertainment throughout the season with music and contests were like from the past team and then slowly transitioned into entertainment to define the Wolves. Also another gameday entertainment familiarity was the dance team. Eventhough all of the members of the dance team, except one, are not from the past, the outfits worn were similar in design and the activities were similar, including the end of 1st quarter dancing at midfield.
Now that the home games are done for the San Jose Wolves, the overall success of the Wolves to attract fans to attend the games and keeping them coming in the doors of the Cow Palace was extremely tough. As fans have shared with me throughout the season, the main reason the Cow Palace never reached 60% compacity was for the fact they are not playing in San Jose. Afterall, the team is named the San Jose Wolves and not Daly City/San Francisco/Bay Area Wolves. Fans expressed, since the team bears the San Jose name, they should play in San Jose and the HP Pavilion at San Jose. People simply did not want to commute up to Daly City. Eventhough there were still some simply put, die hard arena/indoor football fans, that did make it to all 8 home games for the 2010 season.
In concluson, I beleive that the Wolves attempts to win over the fans with a high caliber team was successful. But the actual attendance, one could say was less then desirable. The Wolves have three more games left in the 2010 AIFA regular season. All the Wolves have to do is win one more game and they clinch a playoff berth in their innagural season. When or if they clinch their playoff berth, the San Jose Wolves will be playing the Wyoming Cavalry who will host the game in Casper, Wyoming at the Casper Events Center. For more information on the San Jose Wolves and the American Indoor Football Association (AIFA), log onto http://aifaprofootball.com.
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