Last Friday, Amy & I, along with my parents, attended the home opener of the Chicago Rush. Yes, Arena Football season is back.
Did you see us on TV?
We attended only a few games last season, which marked the return of the AFL after the 2009 season was cancelled. Needless to say, 2010 was a mess, in my mind, regarding the Chicago Rush, who are under different ownership with this rebooted AFL.
Rush sporting black uniforms celebrating their 10th season
After a while, I decided that it just wasn't good value to attend. The production of the game from start to finish was inferior and amateurish when compared to the previous standards set by the Rush. Infuriatingly so, this new version charged the same prices for tickets.
Amy & Steve at the game
With a complete offseason to properly ramp up operations, we thought we'd give the team another shot. A lot of changes took place since 2010, including Chicago's head coach moving on to another team (Mike Hohensee to Philadelphia), former player and coach Bob McMillen becoming the new head guy, many players shifting around the league, and a lot of staff changes in the Rush front office.
Decent crowd considering lame ownership
The Rush started the season with a win on the road in Milwaukee, with this, their home opener, taking place in Week 2 against the Philadelphia Soul… yes the team that was now coached by their previous coach and staffed by quite a few ex-Rush players. The NFL Network broadcast the game and played up the new rivalry.
Dad & Mom
Once again we bought tickets in the cheap seats, upper level East Endzone. I wasn't quite convinced that I needed to spend more than $10/seat on this team. To help ramp up the crowd noise, we were given inflatable Thunderstix upon entry. In the end, it was the highest attended Rush game since 2008 (the last year of the "old AFL") with 10,582 posted. Granted, a lot of those were freebies, but at least it was butts in the seats. In 2010, the Rush were lucky to break 8,000 a game.
East Endzone attendance check: 10,582 was the reported attendance
It looks like the Rush have landed quite a few new sponsors as well, which we'll cover in a future update, per tradition here on our blog. (It was also interesting to note who they LOST as sponsors as well.)
Yes, it was a blowout!
I had anticipated a pretty tight game with the Rush losing to the more experienced team and coach. But surprisingly, Chicago dominated and won easily by the score of 62-28. It's always easier to tolerate incompetent ownership when your team is winning.
Kudos to the merchandising folks for this shirt
Overall, and I know this is very unlike me to say, I had a fun time! I'm not totally on board with the team ownership or they way they run things, but watching this first home game of the season gave me hope that things were on a better track vs. the trainwreck of last season. We'll see, as we're heading to another game this Friday. Was all this just "opening game hype" or are we on an upswing? Stay tuned!
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