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Arena Football History
Arena football is an indoor football sport which was invented by Jim Foster, who was one of the ex executives of the National Football League and the United States Football League. He conjured up the common rules of the sport during an indoor soccer game in 1981. Since then he made some modifications in the rules and arranged a few test games and finally after five years he introduced the Arena Football League in 1987.
Arena Football Rules
The Arena Football sport is almost like the American Football other than some major differences in the rules. Other than that, arena football is played in a smaller field and the game is more higher-scoring and faster-paced.
Arena football is strictly an indoor sport and is usually played in arenas where ice hockey or basketball is played. The field is 85 feet wide and 50 yards long and has 8-yard end zones. The field is heavily padded in the sidelines which are positioned on the hockey dasher boards. The crossbars are positioned 15 feet over the playing surface with the field goal uprights being 9 feet in width. The surroundings of the posts are netted with taut material which rebounds any field goals that have been missed into the playing field. Each of the teams is allowed to play eight players from a roster of 20.
Arena Football 2
The Arena Football 2, otherwise known as the Arena Football 2 is a minor league of the Arena Football League and was launched in 2000. The Arena Football 2 has the same rules as the Arena Football League and the season starts off in April and ends in July.
The Arena Football 2 has been intended to develop amateur football players as well as the development of pace and style of arena football in young players. The Arena Football 2 is played in the smaller venues in small cities and the salaries in the Arena Football 2 minor league are also lesser than the Arena Football League. In Arena Football 2, a player earns $250 each game.
The Arena Football 2 has a seasonal championship game known as the Arena Cup. It is held every year around August. During the first five years of the Arena Cup, the cup finals were staged at the arenas of the higher seeded team but from 2005, the Arena Cup is being held in neutral venues such as the Bossier City Arena, Louisiana.
The Arena Cup is also broadcasted in television and it was telecasted all over the nation by Fox Sports in 2005 and Comcast Sports Net the following year.
Arena Football Timing Rules
During the game, the clock is stopped during certain events, such as for out-of-bound plays, sacks, incomplete passes, injuries, penalties or timeouts. The timing is also halted whenever there is a change in possession until the ball is ready for play.
While the last minute of the fourth quarter is played, the clock is halted if the attacking team takes the lead and is unable to push the ball over the line of scrimmage. This rule averts the offensive side from running the other players in the field whose sole purpose is to kill the time left by not advancing with the ball across the field. In case of overtime, both the teams get a possession to score. After this, if one of the teams has a higher score than the other, the team wins. Even after this, if the teams are still tied, the winner is decided through sudden death. The overtime period has duration of 15 minutes.
Arena Football Video Game
The Arena Football game had been released by Electronics Arts under EA Sports. The game was released in February 2006 and is available in both the Play Station 2 and the Xbox console. The game enjoys the high quality rendering similar to all the other EA's sports simulation games and has a gaming style which mimics the aggressive and faster paced Arena Football action. The game features all the rosters, teams and the rules that are there is the AFL season.
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