Arena Football League on ABC

Background

ABC first brought the Arena Football League to a major U.S. broadcast network, airing ArenaBowl XII in 1998. Before that, the league’s biggest TV exposure came from ESPN, which showed tape-delayed games, often after midnight. For its initial run from 1998 to 2002, ABC only carried the annual championship game, placing those broadcasts under the Wide World of Sports banner. After a four-year gap during which NBC held the rights, ABC resumed AFL coverage in 2007.

That year, a five-year deal with sister network ESPN put at least 17 regular-season games and nine playoff contests across ABC, ESPN, and ESPN2. Specifically, ABC aired the season opener and the ArenaBowl; ESPN handled three wild card games, two divisional games, and one conference championship; and ESPN2 carried seventeen Monday night regular-season games, one wild card game, two divisional games, and one conference championship. This arrangement repeated in 2008, after which the NFL Network took over ArenaBowl rights for three seasons.

In 2017, the ArenaBowl aired on ABC’s Philadelphia owned-and-operated station WPVI-TV, with additional streaming on Twitter and the league’s AFLNow service. Commentators over the years included Mike Adamle, Ray Bentley, Sherdrick Bonner, Tim Brant, Ed Cunningham, Gary Danielson, Mike Gleason, Mike Golic, Mike Greenberg, Merril Hoge, Brent Musburger, Lynn Swann, Stan Verrett, Marcellus Wiley, Bob Wischusen, and Ari Wolfe.