Arena Football

Arena football is a variety of indoor gridiron football played by the Arena Football League (AFL) and China Arena Football League (CAFL). The game is played indoors on a smaller field than American or Canadian outdoor football, resulting in a faster and higher-scoring game. The sport was invented in 1981, and patented in 1987, by Jim Foster, a former executive of the National Football League and the United States Football League. The name is trademarked by Gridiron Enterprises and had a proprietary format until its patent expired in 2007. Due to the patent, other indoor American football leagues that launched following the popularity of the original AFL developed variants on the arena rules. Three leagues have played under arena football rules: the AFL, which played 22 seasons from 1987 to 2008 and resumed play under new ownership in 2010, AF2, the AFL's erstwhile developmental league, which played 10 seasons from 2000 through 2009, and the CAFL, which began play in 2016 but is not directly affiliated with the AFL.