Florida Bobcats

Florida Bobcats
Year founded	1992
Year folded	2001
Prior names	Sacramento Attack, Miami Hooters
Divisional championships	{{{divisional}}}
ArenaBowl championships	none

History

Sacramento Attack (1992)

The Sacramento Attack was an Arena Football League team that competed under that name in the 1992 AFL season only. The team was originally supposed to play in Los Angeles as the Los Angeles Wings ^[1].

Miami Hooters (1993-1995)

The Miami Hooters were a relocation of the Sacramento Attack Arena Football League team which had competed in the 1992 season. For the 1993 season the team was relocated to Miami and renamed the "Hooters" in an unusual marketing arrangement with the Florida-based restaurant chain which was ordinarily more noted for its buxom waitresses than feats of athletic prowess. Naturally, the team adopted the restaurant's owlish logo and trademark colors as its own for three years, until this unusual arrangement terminated after the completion of the 1995 season. Desirous of staying in the general South Florida area, the team relocated to West Palm Beach as the Florida Bobcats. Subsequent linking of team names with products was to occur, notably the AFL's own New Jersey Red Dogs and the Toronto Phantoms (named for Phantom Industries, a manufacturer of women's hosiery), and the Detroit Neon of the Major Indoor Soccer League. Originally the team was to be named the Miami Toros or Miami Bulls, with a similar logo for each name having been created.

Florida Bobcats (1996-2001)

The Florida Bobcats were an Arena Football League team from 1996 to 2001. When the Miami Hooters team discontinued its connection with the Hooters Restaurant chain after the 1995 season was completed, it developed both a new identity (the Bobcats) and a new color scheme involving teal and black as opposed to the former orange and brown associated with the restaurants. It also moved north to West Palm Beach in an attempt to reduce overhead. This proved to be a mixed blessing at best, however, as the relatively tiny seating capacity of the West Palm Beach Auditorium (ca. 4000) made profitable operations essentially impossible. In the 1997 and 1998 seasons the team played a total of five official league games (and several exhibition games as well) at what were charitably called "neutral sites", lesser venues in what were at best secondary markets, where, however, even a less-than-capacity crowd could result in greater revenues from ticket sales than would a home game sellout — were there to be one. This development led to them being referred to by some of the league's pundits as "America's Team", a not-unironic comparison to what was then the National Football League's premier organization, the Dallas Cowboys. This situation was used to an advantage by the league to determine support for the sport in parts of the country where it had previously had little exposure, and should be credited at least in part for the development of the sport's minor league, af2.

In 1999 the Bobcats moved into the far more spacious confines of the National Car Rental Center, now the BankAtlantic Center, also home to the Florida Panthers of the National Hockey League. They remained there until the team was folded after the completion of the 2001 season. One of the notable facts about this team is that they were quarterbacked through the majority of their existence by Fred McNair, the original "Air McNair" and older brother of 2003 NFL co-MVP Steve McNair. An attempt was made in the 2001 season to sell the team to various prospective owners, including Mark Cuban who later bought the Dallas Mavericks, but nothing came of the deal. The team subsequently folded having the distinction of holding the AFL record for the lowest single-game attendance for a regular season game when they drew 1,154 fans against the Los Angeles Avengers on May 3, 2001.

Season-by-season

Main article: List of Florida Bobcats seasons

AFL Hall of Famers

• Joe March

• Jon Roehlk

• John Corker

References

1. ^ "Miscellany". May 7, 1992. http://www.google.com/search?q=Los+angeles+wings&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a#sclient=psy&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=Y0I&rls=org.mozilla:en-US%3Aofficial&tbs=cdr:1%2Ccd_min%3A1990%2Ccd_max%3A1994&tbm=nws&source=hp&q=%22Los+angeles+wings%22+%22sacramento+attack%22&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=35b681d3d593e7c&biw=998&bih=558. 

External links

• AFL Official Website
• Sacramento Attack at ArenaFan.com
• Miami Hooters at ArenaFan.com
• Florida Bobcats at ArenaFan.com