Tombstone
Born: January 2019 – Arena Football League expansion franchise
Folded: October 29, 2019
First Game: April 27, 2019 (L 48-41 @ Philadelphia Soul
Last Game: July 21, 2019 (35-28 vs. Baltimore Brigade)
Arena Bowl Championships: None
Arena
Jim Whelan Boardwalk Hall
Opened: 1929
Marketing
Team Colors:
Ownership
Owner: Trifecta Sports & Entertainment (Ron Jaworski, George Hearst III, Craig Spencer, Stewart Anmuth, Dan Nolan, Ed Swyer, Dick Vermeil, Marques Colston, Jahri Evans, et al.)
Attendance
The Blackjacks ranked 5th in announced attendance among the AFL’s six teams during their only season of play.
Source: ArenaFan.com
Background
A few years back my wife’s cousin Ted, a professionally successful and gregarious guy in his early 50’s, got a divorce. I saw him at a wedding and asked how his return to the dating scene was going. “Well…” Ted replied. “You get to be my age, there’s a lot of dented cans out there.”
A couple of dented cans is an apt metaphor for the courtship that brought together Atlantic City, New Jersey and the Arena Football League in early 2019. The fading seaside resort lost five casinos between 2014 and 20161Hetrick, Christian. “Arena Football League team is coming to Atlantic City, and you get a chance to name it.” The Inquirer (Philadelphia, PA). January 22, 2019. The AFL, for its part, shrank from 14 member franchises in 2014 to just four survivors in 2018.
Atlantic City received an expansion club ahead of the AFL’s 32nd season in January 2019. The club would be run by Trifecta Sports & Entertainment, a group fronted by the popular ESPN analyst and former Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Ron Jaworski. TriFecta also operated the AFL’s Albany Empire and Philadelphia Soul in 2019, controlling half of the foundering league’s six teams.
Place Your Bets
AFL President John Adams, the former top exec at Trifecta, cited Atlantic City’s legal sports betting books as a key reason to place a team in Atlantic City.
“Gaming and gambling are built into our game,” Adams said at the Blackjacks’ name and logo reveal in March 2019.2Staff & Wire Reports. “New arena football team in Atlantic City to be named Blackjacks.” The Inquirer (Philadelphia, PA). March 7, 2019“It’s going to be better than it ever was.”
But the AFL’s own league-wide partnership with online fantasy behemoth Draftkings in 2019 belied the quaint notion that a modern sports promotion would need to co-locate with old guard gambling parlors to pursue a gaming strategy.
For its part, the New Jersey Casino Reinvestment Development Authority (CRDA) committed $500,000 to outfit Boardwalk Hall for Arena Football. The historic building hadn’t seen a regular pro sports tenant in nearly fifteen years since the Boardwalk Bullies minor league hockey team left town. Meanwhile, the 6,000-seat Sandcastle baseball stadium, built with $11.5 million in CRDA funds in 1998, sat empty and moldering out at the old Bader Field airport site, virtually abandoned since the Surf baseball team left town a decade earlier.
One & Done
Ultimately, the Blackjacks only played six games in Atlantic City between May and July of 2019. The team went 4-8 in its only season of competition and missed the playoffs.
Top receiver Antwane Grant (72 receptions, 959 yards, 15 touchdowns) was named co-winner of the Arena Football League’s final Rookie-of-the-Year award.
At the end of the seasons, creditors forced the Arena Football League into bankruptcy. The league folded after 32 seasons of play in November 2019.
Atlantic City Blackjacks Video
Highlights of the Blackjacks’ debut game on the road against the Philadelphia Soul. April 27th, 2019 at the Wells Fargo Center in Philly.
Downloads
6-1-2019 Blackjacks vs. Baltimore Brigade rosters & depth charts
6-1-2019-atlantic-city-blackjacks-roster-depth-chart
Links
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