Tombstone
Born: July 2002 – AF2 expansion franchise12003 Cincinnati Swarm Media Guide
Folded: January 27, 20042Tappa, Steve. “Low attendance sinks af2’s Swarm”. The Dispatch (Moline, IL). January 29, 2004
First Game: March 29, 2003 (L 36-25 @ Louisville Fire)
Last Game: July 26, 2003 (W 61-59 @ Wichita Stealth)
ArenaCup Championships: None
Arena
U.S. Bank Arena
Opened: 1975
Marketing
Team Colors:
Ownership
Owner: Mark Hamister
Background
The sport of Arena Football endured a grim track record at Cincinnati’s downtown Riverfront Coliseum. The Cincinnati Rockers, an entry in the original Arena Football League that was owned by the late local “Ribs King” restaurateur Ted Gregory and featured the disgraced former Ohio State star and gambling addict Art Schlichter at quarterback, failed after two seasons in the early 1990’s. And that, basically, represented the pinnacle of the novelty sport’s success in the Queen City.
Next up was the Swarm, who arrived at the Riverfront in the spring of 2003 (by that time re-branded U.S. Bank Arena). By this time, the powers that be had relegated Cincinnati into Arena Football 2, the league’s small market developmental league, where the Swarm competed against the likes of Charleston, Green Bay, Honolulu, Peoria and Wichita.
One & Done
The Swarm posted a 7-9 record in their only season of play and failed to make the playoffs.
Team owner Mark Hamister was an upstate New York health care executive. He amassed a small collection of Arena Football clubs between 1997 and 2002, including the Buffalo Destroyers of the top division Arena Football League and the Rochester Brigade and the Swarm in AF2. He made a bid to purchase the NHL’s Buffalo Sabres in 2002. But by the end of 2003 Hamister was through with his sports adventures. He sold his flagship Buffalo Destroyers AFL franchise to Columbus, Ohio interests and folded his Rochester and Cincinnati AF2 teams in late 2003 and early 2004 respectively.
People continued to throw money at indoor football in Cincinnati. The Cincinnati Marshals of the fly-by-night National Indoor Football League, took up residence at U.S. Bank Arena in 2005 and 2006.
The Marshalls were displaced by the return of the more respectable AF2 in 2007. Local sports heroes Ken Griffey Jr. of the Reds and Sam Adams of the Bengals backed the Cincinnati Jungle Kats AF2 expansion team that summer. But, like the Swarm before them, the Jungle Kats lasted only one season before throwing in the towel.
Cincinnati Swarm Shop
In Memoriam
Swarm founder/owner Mark Hamister died of COVID-19 on August 20, 2021. Buffalo News coverage.
Links
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