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American Football Association's "Project 2000" Announced
AFA PRESS RELEASE January 13, 2000
Media - Contact Dave Burch at AFA National Office (941)388-3510
American Football Association's "Project 2000" Announced
The American Football Association announced today the details of their
"Project 2000" plan which expands the special services, normally reserved
for dues paying members, to every semi-pro football team in the United
States. This new plan continues to focus on the AFA's efforts to bring
awareness to the more than 400 teams, 48 leagues and 30,000 players,
coaches and administrators who annually toil in the obscurity of semi-pro
football.
"We (AFA) are pleased to announce that after 20 years of dedication to our
level of the sport and monitoring the activities of semi-pro football
organizations nationwide, we have finally developed a sponsorship program
that will allow us to bring our many services to 'all' 400 semi-pro teams
without charging them an annual membership fee", said AFA President Ron
Real from the national association's Florida headquarters.
"Our new plan is simple", says AFA Communications Director Dave Burch.
"The AFA national office continues to evolve as the 'service organization'
for semi-pro football instead of a membership organization. We will
continue to expand our services and provide those benefits to semi-pro
teams and leagues coast to coast, free of charge. In addition, the AFA
will become the 'senior level' of the United States Football Federation
(USFF) and take advantage of that non-profit corporation's ability to
raise national sponsorship funds to support the AFA's services for
semi-pro football teams and leagues nationwide", commented Burch.
Semi-pro teams, leagues and fans can visit the AFA's website
(www.AmericanFootballAssn.com) to get a list of the many benefits
available to semi-pro football organizations in the United States.
Under the agreement with the USFF, the AFA will be able to pass on
pertinent information about several ancillary programs such as those
relating to General Liability and Player Accident/Health Insurance benefit
opportunities as well as special fund raising projects.
The AFA will continue to use the services of the American Football News
(www.AmericanFootballNews.com) in order to publicize the semi-pro football
'power ratings' for the coming season, but will discontinue the AFA
national rankings that was previously used as a poll to rank AFA member
teams.
After reviewing data from last season and feedback from leagues, teams and
players around the country, the AFN is proceeding with redesign of their
'power rating' system in order to establish a better strength of league
qualifier. This will involve fine tuning their current
equations/algorithms to add factors for teams playing out of their league
in pre-season games, regular season games, as well as during post season
play. The AFN staff evaluated nearly 2,000 semi-pro games last year giving
them an enormous database to work with in enhancing their 'power ratings'
for the coming semi-pro football season. In the near future, all 400
semi-pro teams across the country will be asked to declare their playing
status for the 2000 season as either AAA-AA-A for rating purposes. The
revised system will allow for teams on different playing levels of the
sport to compete in the same leagues. In the past the AFN rated entire
leagues as AAA-AA or A.
"Although most teams and leagues are enjoying the off season break, as you
can see, the AFA is busy getting ready to enter our third decade as the
national association for semi-pro football in the United States", added
Real. "Our association with the United States Football Federation will
bring more awareness to the senior level of amateur football and continue
to improve the image from the long standing negative connotation usually
associated with the term semi-pro football".
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