Backed by ESPN, 19-team AFL kicks off
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The Arena Football League enters its third decade with a new broadcast partner that happens to own a portion of the 19-team organization.
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Willie Roaf says he's going back to school. A.J. Hawk, Vernon Davis and several other first-round draft picks are ready to start their first NFL jobs.
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Now if only the NFL can let players at the other 20 positions on the football field get involved. The league trading deadline was yesterday, and for the first time in five years, there actually were deals made. All three trades were for wide receivers.
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On Thanksgiving, the NFL will air the first of eight live pro football games on its own network. But it won't be available to many viewers across the country because the league hasn't reached carriage agreements with several major cable operators.
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As Week 17 looms, eight of the 12 teams in the NFL&#39;s playoff field are set. Heading into Monday night&#39;s Philadelphia at St.
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They have been writing checks across America for decades now: the television networks, the corporate behemoths and the fans -- each amount larger than the one before until the NFL ballooned into the wealthiest sports league in the world. Last year alone it took in nearly $7 billion in revenue.
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Several teams were slated to host season openers Wednesday night, but won't due to a labor dispute that shows no sign of ending soon.
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The NFL could be diving deeper into the television business and playing a regular-season game outside the United States as early as next season.
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On Jan. 5, two high school postseason games will be played, each intended to show off a passel of future college football stars. The Army version is in its eighth year, ESPNâs is new.
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League hosts its inaugural draft and plans to kick off later this year with televised and streamed competitions.
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By BARRY WILNER  ESPN acquired national TV rights to the Arena Football League on Tuesday and also will have a minority stake in the 19-team indoor league.  The network will have a regular Monday-night slot in which it will televise 14 games from March through June.
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A franchise long labeled a wasteland among the otherwise fertile fields of the NFL finally has a home of its own. And this is no one-bedroom fixer-upper. This is a $465 million palace.
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Initial impressions from the NFL's  first regular season game in London have been very positive and  the league is looking to stage more games in the United  Kingdom, Germany, Canada and Mexico.
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When: Tonight, 8. Where: New Orleans. TV: ESPN2. Mark Blaudschun's analysis: A pair of 7-5 teams meet in the first of three bowl games in New Orleans this season. Florida Atlantic didn't start its football program until 2001 under coach Howard Schnellenberger, who also inherited a mediocre Miami program in 1979 and turned it into a powerhouse. Owls sophomore QB ...
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During a day of new beginnings, Florida and its fired coach will each launch the start of fresh chapters today. In the same afternoon, Utah Coach Urban Meyer will meet his
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ESPN announced Tuesday that it has bought a minority stake in the Arena Football League and will televise at least 26 games a year for five seasons.
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Football Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is part of a group considering formation of a football league that would compete with the NFL for players drafted lower than the second round. The league, still very much in the preliminary stage, would play its games on Friday nights. "It's a pretty simple concept," Cuban said in an e-mail to the Associated ...