It was time, time for the Barrels’ season to end, which it did mercifully Saturday in the first game of the Arena Football One playoffs in Saginaw, Mich.
That’s where the reshuffled Barrels finished with their fourth straight loss, falling, 70-36, to a Michigan Arsenal team they’d beaten, 34-26, in the regular season’s first game way back on April 12 when the Barrels were the Barrels.
But as they ended the season with four losses, three in the regular season and one in the playoffs, the once 7-2 Barrels were barely a shadow of the 7-2 team that had reached the No. 2 spot in the league while inflicting the lone loss on the league’s No. 1 team, the 11-1 Nashville Kats.
But three trips to the West Coast, two to Duluth, Minn., and no home games since May 17 had taken their toll of a once solid defense, especially at home, where they allowed just 36.8 points a game.
But that was then, before a player rebellion over a contract dispute about additional money for the unexpected road games, shattered the roster. The now for these Barrels is a team that this past week, just days before the playoff game at Michigan, had to sign 17 new players on a 24-man roster according to the AF1 Transactions Updates, while suspending one – the league’s leading sacker, former NFL player Ezekiel Rose.
So no surprise there. Lots of things for the Barrels to fix. Lots of lessons learned from their first season in an Arena Football One league that may likewise not be ready for prime time.
Some thoughts here for what the Barrels need to do in the offseason:
• Hire a professional media person. Talk to the local colleges. Find a promising student assistant and turn them loose on the entire media/information/game/season stats operation. The last entries on the Barrels’ official team website under NEWS are from June 19/20. The roster has almost no information on the current players much less photos. There’s lots of work to be done here.
• As for marketing, and some of this they’re going to do according to owner Corey Cunningham, is to start by re-working the ticket prices. No more in the $40 to $60 dollar range. Cunningham thinks they can work with tickets at $15 and $20.
• Figure out how to connect with younger fans the way the Y’alls have in baseball. How about an NKU night for students and employees on campus where Truist Arena is located. How about connecting with the local high school football community the way the Barrels do so well with their postgame autograph sessions for the fans. How about maybe checking with the BLDG branding consultancy folks in Covington who have done such a good job with the Y’alls and the Frontier League’s re-branding and identifying marketing opportunities.
• As for Truist Arena, make sure the league comes through with its promise to have the schedule finalized early enough to lock in home dates at Truist so no more two games in Minnesota or a road playoff game when you’ve earned one at home.
• And get it in writing from the league that never again will a team be sent to the West Coast three times – especially if that team is the Barrels. And never again will a team get such a back-loaded road schedule that they are away from home for the last nine weeks of the season. No marketing genius in the world can make up for that.
Contact Dan Weber at dweber3440@aol.com. Follow him on X @dweber3440.