Many of you might have seen the social media updates for the Colorado Indoor football team, especially the naming contest. Recently, were we able to talk to Owner and team president Mitch Bascom about what led up to the decision to bring indoor/arena football back to Colorado, and how that has gone thus far.
The team hopes to join the Champions Indoor Football League next year, here’s why they made that decision:
“It really just came down to what is it going to be able to give back to the fans the most? And based on the set up of the Champions Indoor Football, we felt that we could give the most back to the fans have a great competitive, well-balanced league, and it seems like they have a good set of where we want to go, where the League wants to go.”
Mitch Bascom
The CIF currently had 6 teams compete in the 2021 season, but have a list of 9 total. Some decided to not compete due to COVID-19 for many different reasons, one of which being travel. While they are almost centrally located in the midwest, some teams are as far south as Texas, those being the ones who didn’t play.
The league is looking to add 4 teams for the 2022 season. Other than the Colorado club, Montana, South Dakota, and another Kansas teams are expected to compete in 2022.
As for the reason why Bascom and the rest of the ownership group decided Colorado was right for another arena-style team, it came down to the void left behind from some of the other arena-style teams such as the AFL’s Colorado Crush:
“It’s really been missing the last three years of my opinion, and I really wanted to set up an ownership group that was really in-tune with what we wanted to do with making sure the fans were involved and enjoyed and entertained.”
There is a space in the Denver area for spring football, the fans have shown that they will support it, and Mitch believes it’s time for another version of that. Because he knows the community is the foundation of a successful franchise, the vision is to be as involved with their base as possible:
“My thing was I want them to be able to go to games and see that we are part of the community. We’re not just a football team. We’re structuring this team to be a part of the community. We’re going to be here a long time, building up the community, and the main focus for us to make sure we’re doing this for the fans. We’re not trying to make a buck, where we want this for the fans. We want this to be able to be an affordable family event the entire family can go to.”
Part of getting the fans involved in the naming process that began back in early summer. They’ll also have kids in the area helping design the team’s branding. This was what Bacoms said about the upcoming process, and when to expect an official announcement:
“It looks like our name team contest or final round ends on 9/10. We are going to collect the results, and we’re going to have our design team come up with logos, everything for the fans. And hopefully, by the end of September, the beginning of October will be able to unveil team name and logo.”
Part of starting a new team is making sure they have a field to play on. When asked about that, Mitch said that right now they’re plans are to play in the historical Denver Coliseum, but, things may change due to unforeseen circumstances.
“The more we talked about it, things that came down to where we wanted to play and we thought it’s been since 2009, that the Colorado Crush were there. And then we have the Denver Dynamite won the first Arena Bowl in 87. It’s a good football history anyway, with the Broncos, so we chose Denver and we ended up honing into Denver Coliseum and having a great relationship and, if I recall it was a 4-star building when it comes to sports and entertainment. Elvis and Santana played there. The Denver Nuggets played there. And the Denver Spurs (Western Hockey League) won a Championship in the coliseum back in 1971. It’s coming up on 70 years of entertainment this November. And we want to pay homage to the coliseum and everything.”
There is a setback to that though. Currently, the venue is being used as a shelter for the underserved population of Denver, so because of that, the team is looking for a backup plan. If one cannot be found, they may have to push the inaugural season back to 2023.
But for now, everything is going forward as planned, no timeframe yet as to when any workouts for players will be but looks like we are just under a month from the unveiling of the official name and logo for the new Colorado Indoor Football Team.
