By Gregg Hoffmann
WisBusiness.com
LA CROSSE – The La Crosse Center continues to attract the interest of sports franchises and leagues, despite the rejections last year of minor league basketball and hockey.
The Great Lakes Indoor Football League, a first-year, six-team league that is based out of Canton, Ohio, has expressed interest in putting a team in La Crosse as part of its 2007 expansion plans.
Eric Spitaleri, one of the league’s owners, visited La Crosse last week and met with La Crosse Center director Art Fahey, inspected the arena and toured the city. The GLIFL is interested in expanding in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa, Spitaleri said.
After rather extensive studies, the Center Board decided not to entertain a USHL hockey franchise or a minor league basketball team last year. Board members cited the cost of fitting the Center with ice and refrigeration equipment as one factor in their decision on the hockey franchise.
Conflicts of dates between the two winter sports and conventions also influenced the decisions. Motel owners in the city maintained conventions bring more people into town, who spend more money, than sports events, which primarily attract people already in the area.
But, the indoor football season is played in the summer, when the convention center is not as booked. La Crosse also has a track record in indoor football. The now-defunct La Crosse Night Train, a one-time member of the National Indoor Football League, averaged 4,349 fans in their final season (2003).
Spitaleri said the league would want local ownership in La Crosse. It costs $15,000 to join the league in 2006, Spitaleri said, but that number will be somewhere between $20,000 and $25,000 in 2007. Operating costs would be about $275,000 to $350,000 the first year.
Players in the GLIFL make around $200 per game and an extra fifty bucks per player if they win.
The GLIFL will implement a 7-on-7 format — a quarterback, three down linemen, two receivers and a running back. One of the down linemen can be eligible to catch passes. The NIFL uses an 8-on-8 format.
Fahey told the La Crosse Tribune last week that talks with the GLIFL were in their “infancy” and that no formal proposal was ready to bring to the Center board at this time.
