Announcement of canceled Arena Football League season is accidentally covered

BRISTOL, CT—To the shock and surprise of many, the announcement that the 2009 Arena Football League season would be canceled due to financial problems, was actually noted and covered by mainstream media outlets, including ESPN’s SportsCenter. The mention of the AFL on the famous sports program marked the first time the expansion league received any coverage by the network since last year’s AFL championship, in which 15 seconds of on-air time was spent showing a single play of the game, with brief mention of the final score and MVP. The brief exposé run by the famous network was well-received by its viewers, many praising the sports network for taking a few steps off the beaten path.

“I thought the AFL was canceled years ago,” said area man Trent Fisher. “But on SportsCenter this morning they mentioned them, saying their whole season was canceled. It’s good to know the Worldwide Leader in Sports is there when I need them.”

“It’s good to see ESPN return to the hard-hitting journalism that used to be their hallmark,” said Pat Ducane, rabid sports fan. “More and more it seemed like they were just becoming a tabloid-style news channel that engaged in sensationalizing pointless stories. But here they show that they haven’t forgotten about the core values of journalistic integrity, covering the stories that matter to the little guy.”

Though almost everyone was surprised that the bigwigs at ESPN even knew what the AFL was, not everyone seemed to appreciate the Sports Conglomerate’s efforts to tackle the little issues.

“Who gives a shit about the AFL?” snapped local man Eric Keggles. “I want to hear about the TO/Witten bitchfight. I want to hear about Tiger Woods’ caddie cussing out Phil Mickelson, you know, important stuff?”

“I’m not a fan of this new approach they’re taking,” admitted area woman Susan Types. “They didn’t mention Jessica Simpson at all in this episode, and they hardly focused on the celebrities at the Lakers’ game. If they continue down this road, sooner or later they would start covering hockey. I don’t think I could have any respect for them if they started doing that.”

Interim AFL Commissioner Ed Policy told SSNN that despite the troubles the league is facing, he expects the new surge in publicity to go a long way to helping the fledgling league back on its feet.

“As you all know, when ESPN covers a story, they’ll hammer away at it for the next three weeks, until every regular viewer has gotten the impression that whatever they are talking about is relevant and crucial, regardless of how much of a trivial issue or complete fabrication it really is. If the stars line up, we could very well become the lead topic on Around the Horn.”

In addition to ESPN, other news outlets that picked up the story included Reuters, the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Sportingnews.com, and the Salt Lake Tribune.

“This is fantastic exposure,” said Policy. “Any exposure this league gets is fantastic, and thanks to ESPN, this league may just be able to convince people through media manipulation that Arena Football matters, even if it’s just a few techies at ESPN who think so.”

When asked for comment, a spokesperson for ESPN told SSNN that the inclusion of the AFL in their Monday morning broadcast was due to a programming error and wished to assure its viewers that it will not mention anything other than the AFC East, the Cowboys, and Kobe Bryant for the remainder of the year.

It’s going to be tough for this sport to sweep any nations, but it’s still pretty frickin’ cool!