When the Arena Football League kicked off earlier this month for the first time in three years, the Alabama Steeldogs were not part of the equation. In fact, since their folded from AF2 in 2007, there hasn’t even been talk of the Steeldogs making their way back in Arena Football play. The questions is: why didn’t the Steeldogs succeed as an Arena Football team. The answer, as always, is complicated, but to put it simple: money. In 2007, after a couple of years of trying to find a new majority owner, owner/managing partner Scott Myers could not find one to help finance the team. In other words: there just wasn’t enough money to keep it going.

It’s not that people weren’t coming to see the Steeldogs at the Birmingham Jefferson Convention Center when they played. Attendance was okay, though not spectacular, it just costs a good amount of money to field a sports team, even a AF2 team. When the owners didn’t have the money, they could no longer field the team. The fact that the Steeldogs did not have a winning record the last three seasons did not help things, even though they did make the 2007 playoffs. All in all if you don’t make money it doesn’t make sense to field a team.