IFL Likely to Lose Saginaw

Not a huge loss, but puts Muskegon on an island.

http://www.mlive.com/sports/saginaw/index.ssf/2009/10/saginaw_stings_future_in_quest.html

A week before the deadline to rejoin the Indoor Football League, the Saginaw Sting have yet to state their intentions to the league office, raising questions about the team’s future.

IFL commissioner Tommy Benizio said Thursday afternoon that he has been unsuccessful in several attempts to contact Sting owner Mike Trumbull. The deadline for teams to join the league for the 2010 season is Thursday, October 15, and so far the Sting have not officially rejoined the league.

“Because we’re so close to the deadline and we haven’t heard from them, we feel it’s unlikely they will play in the IFL next season,” Benizio said.

Benizio said he has left several messages for Trumbull, after Sting management was not present at the league’s owners meetings in August. A message left by The Saginaw News on Trumbull’s cell phone Thursday afternoon went unreturned.

Matt Blase, general manager of the Dow Event Center, said the Sting’s lease at The Dow extends through the next indoor football league season, and that nobody from the Sting has contacted him about changing the lease.

Trumbull told The Saginaw News in late June that he planned to return the Sting to Saginaw, despite a net loss of about $300,000 in the 2009 season for him and partner Esteban Rivera.

The Sting played their first season in 2008 as an expansion team in the Continental Indoor Football League, and won the league championship. The team moved to the IFL last season, where they finished the season 3-11.

The scope of indoor football across the country has changed since the Sting played their last game. The Arena Football League suspended operations indefinitely in August, after shutting down for the 2009 season. A new league, Arena Football 1, has been formed to take the place of the old AFL, and will begin operations in March 2010.