THE ATLANTIC COAST FOOTBALL LEAGUE REVIVAL....SIMPLY A minor league
The ORIGINAL Atlantic Coast Football League (ACFL) was a minor league football league that operated from 1962 to 1973. In began with six teams fromed the league, the Providence Steam Roller, Patterson Minors (later the Newark Bears), Portland Sea Hawks (later the Springfield Acorns, Stamford Golden Bears (later the Hartford Knights), Ansonia Black Knights and the Frankfort Falcons). Until 1969, many teams had minor league working agreements with NFL and AFL teams. The league paid a whopping base salary of $100 per game and had 36 players on each active roster. From 1962-1966 Joe Rosentover served as league president and was replaced by Cosmo Iacovazzi in 1967. In 1965, four of the ACFL franchises (Hartford, Newark, Springfield and Providence) joined six teams from the United Football League (Philadelphia, Toronto, Wheeling, Richmond, Fort Wayne and Charleston WV) to create the Continental Football League (CFL). After only 2 seasons teams began leaving the CFL until it folded in 1969. From 1966-1969 the ACFL created a merger with the remaining CFL teams (Hartford, Newark, Springfield, Providence, Jersey City, Wheeling, Norfolk, Richmond, Harrisburg and Mohawk Valley) to revive the ACFL. The league would go on until 1973 but lost teams each year due to the upstart of the NFL-AFL merger. In 1987, Cosmo Iacovozzi was inducted into the American Football Semi Pro Football Hall of Fame. Now it become apparent that it’s impossible to succeed with a football league not called the NFL (many like the WFL, USFL and XFL have tried). The only possibility was to form a true minor league football league. This could be accomplished using the old ACFL (Atlantic Coast Football League) with several of the FACs listed below. This will be that fantasy minor league and my ideas of what this league would look like. The OLD ACFL folded after the 1973 season. Now it is 50 years later in 2023 and we are going to present what it takes to form a NEW minor league football league system.
The 2024 ACFL will have 9 of the 2023 franchises plus 3 expansion teams along the Atlantic Coastline itself with Providence RI, Springfield MA, Hartford CT, Portland ME, Newark NJ, Mohawk Valley Region NY, Harrisburg PA, Wheeling WV, Richmond VA, Lehigh Valley PA, Willmington DE(formerly Jersey City NJ), and Norfolk VA
What it takes in order to make ACFL Minor League Summer Football will succeed:
(1) NO franchises in cities that already have an NFL, USFL or XFL teams, preferably 50 miles or more away from any NFL team
(2) Choose cities of 100,000+ populations and/or a large surrounding metro area of 300,000+.
(3) DO NOT compete with the NFL in the Fall or the UFL (XFL and USFL) in the Spring.
(4) SUMMER LEAGUE beginning in early June and ending in early September before the first NFL weekend.
(5) The league will operate with 3 divisions, 4 teams per division, play a 12 game regular season with playoffs weeks 13 and 14
(7) A MINOR LEAGUE football leage with stadium capacities between 7,500 – 15,000
2024