Arena football is a sport invented by Jim Foster, a former executive of the United States Football League and the National Football League. While attending an indoor soccer game in 1981 at Madison Square Garden, he conceived the basic rules of the sport. Over the next five years, he continued to modify the rules, and play some test games, until he was ready to launch the Arena Football League in 1987. The league spawned a minor league called af2 in 2000. Other people have started their own indoor football leagues. These leagues do not technically play arena football, however, because of the patent on the rules that Foster obtained in 1990.
Rules of the game
Arena football is very similar to American football, so only the important differences between its rules and those of the National Football League are articulated here. In addition to differences relating to the reduced field size, other rule changes were intended to make the arena game faster-paced and higher-scoring.
The field
Arena football is played exclusively indoors, in arenas usually designed for either basketball or ice hockey teams. The field is the same width (85 feet) as a standard NHL hockey rink. The field is 50 yards long with 8-yard end zones. Depending on the stadium in which a game is being played, the end zones may be rectangular (like a basketball court) or curved (like a hockey rink). There is a heavily padded wall on each sideline, with the padding placed on top of the hockey dasher boards. The field goal uprights are 9 feet wide, and the crossbar is 15 feet above the playing surface. Taut rebound nets on either side of the posts bounce any missed field goals back into the field of play. The ball is "live" when rebounding off these nets or their support apparatuses.
A player is not counted as out of bounds on the sidelines unless they are pushed into or fall over the boundary wall.
The players
Each team fields eight players at a time from a 20-man active roster. Prior to 2007 players played both offense and defense except for the quarterback, kicker, an offensive specialist (Wide Receiver/Running Back combination) and two defense specialists (Defensive Backs).
