Reports: AFL will cease operations (ESPN.com)

The lack of communication from the AFL itself has been surprising and perhaps part of the problem.  Word broke that they would suspend the 2009 season, they denied that report and then suspended the 2009 season.  Then nothing was heard from the league for months until they announced a new CBA with the players in April.  The nothing was heard until this news surfaced today.

Too bad, really.  I can't say that I was a fan, but with the economy the way it is and ticket prices to the major sporting events being what they are, this would have been the perfect time for a league like the AFL to make some inroads.

Do you mean like this?

The United Football League (www.ufl-football.com)

The nice thing is that are former NFL coaches and office types involved.  It's already being touted as a place that Michael Vick may go to if he can't catch on with an NFL team. 

As for the AFL, they weren't quite the sort of fly-by-night operation you make them out to be, they were around for 20+ years.  The crazy thing, really, has been the chaos.  Even after the on again, off again talk of suspending the 2009 season reports were few and far between.  Now there are various reports that they've folded, but the owner of the Kansas City team says they've just suspended operations indefinitely (admittedly, a fine hair to split) and the owner of the Arizona team says that they'll be back - although they may join the AF2 league.

I think this all part of their plan.  If they had been playing all along, I doubt we'd care this much.  I know I wouldn't be trying so hard to keep up with it...

The AFL is Arena Football.  It's played indoors on a smaller field but is otherwise very similar to "regular" football - the American kind at least ;-)

Fans of arena football will tell you that the smaller field (and some other subtle differences that it would be hard to get into without knowing American football pretty well) leads to a more exciting game and the scores ARE typically higher.  The game is typically faster-paced.

As for quality, the AFL is (was) a place for the guys who couldn't make it to the NFL a place to ply their trade and there were players (most notably Kurt Warner) who were discovered in the AFL by NFL teams.