I found out I was wrong about the pricing structure for season tickets in 2011.

As it turns out, it’s for nine regular-season games. Not eight regular-season and one playoff game like I originally thought.

The Arena Football League is going to experiment with a format where each of the 19 teams play each other once in 2011. This means each team will play 18 games: 9 home and 9 away. This also means that any expansion for 2011 is already finished.

According to the Orlando Sentinel in their report on Predators season tickets, average season ticket prices will go down 5% in 2011. Certainly the value is increasing, with the introduction of club services at Amway Center. I know I’d shell out $80/game for a loge box seat if I had that kind of pocket change floating around. (If they’re even 50% the value of the loge boxes at UCF Arena, where I sit at the free-admission UCF basketball exhibition games.)

But according to the story, in addition the Arena Football League has big dreams for future expansion. They see the league potentially expanding to up to 40 teams. Personally I see this as their earlier vision to restore a second division, a new af2-style league.

Maybe Huntsville won’t be without a team for long.

Even bigger news is their idea to plant a 4-team division in Europe. NFL Europa, the NFL’s experiment to play American football overseas, was not an overall success but did have its individual success stories. It was fairly big in Germany, and still growing when the NFL pulled the plug, with a per-game average of 20,000 fans in their last year, 2007. The Frankfurt Galaxy broke 30,000 per game in the final year.

The AFL hopes to run an exhibition game in Europe, and is looking at the Predators as one of the teams.

Changes continue with the Arena Football League. This time, one of the af2 teams is abandoning its home for greener pastures.

The Alabama Vipers are leaving Huntsville and moving to Gwinnet County (NE of Atlanta) to resurrect the Georgia Force.

According to the Vipers ownership, they lost money for seven consecutive years in Huntsville, even though they won the af2 Arena Cup championship in 2008. They had come to the conclusion that they just could not survive any longer in the market.

To be fair, their home, the Von Braun Center, the Vipers’ home arena, only seated around 6,000 for arena football. The team averaged around 5,000. The Force averaged 10,200 in 2008 in Gwinnet County.

The move leaves the 2011 AFL roster at 19 teams.

The Orlando Predators have officially signed a 5-year lease for the new Amway Center. They will begin play there in 2011, for the team’s 20th-anniversary season.

The press release also announces that the new Arena Football League is looking to make the ArenaBowl a neutral-site game once more.

ArenaBowl XXIII was made the right of the top team in the final; that went to the Spokane Shock. But they have an attendance limit just under 11,000. Obviously they would like larger crowds and more fan tourism opportunities, the way they did in the last four seasons of the old AFL. ArenaBowls XIX and XX were held in Las Vegas, while XXI and XXII were held in New Orleans.

Orlando is a finalist for ArenaBowl XXIV. Considering the brand new arena and the team with the grand AFL history, it looks likely we’ll win if they go that route.

Season tickets for 2011 are on sale, and the seating chart has been updated to reflect the new Amway Center. It looks like initially they will close off the upper deck end zones, leaving approximately 14,000 seats available. Season tickets range $45-$216, with lower bowl tickets ranging $144-$441. This is for eight games plus the first playoff game.

Club seats start at $720, or $80 per game, and include access to the Amway Center’s club amenities, something that was unavailable in 2010 (or any other time in Predators history for that matter). The club sections are the lower halves of the sideline lower bowl sections, plus the loge boxes on the east side of the facility. Luxury suites will also be available.

The team will also be able to boast the largest video scoreboards in the AFL.

If you’re interested in buying season tickets, you can call the Predators ticket office at 407-648-4444. If you want to renew, contact your personal representative.

The new head coach of the Lingerie Football League’s Orlando Fantasy is Doug Miller. Honestly, I don’t know who he is. I know he’s not the minor-league soccer player who is the only “Doug Miller” on Wikipedia.

He runs a ladies’ soccer team in Rochester. Totally different animal. Though judging by the success of the UCF women’s soccer team, doable here.

(You may have caught a message in my last Fantasy report, but according to league sources, Kenny McEntire was fired by the league for “inappropriate conduct”. The Sentinel only says “off-the-field issues”. I have a feeling it’s why McEntire told me, “My wife didn’t like the idea”, when I asked him about it.)

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The league has announced its first non-PPV show. LFL Friday Night Football will premiere at 11pm ET on Friday night, September 3, as a half-hour program providing highlights of the previous week’s game. The show will be produced by MTV, and aired on MTV2 in HD.

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On that same night, the Orlando Fantasy players will be engaged in a PR bar crawl in Downtown Orlando. They will begin at Wall Street Pub at 6pm, and work their way to Ember, where they will arrive at 9pm. It’ll be a great opportunity to meet the women of the gridiron in preparation of their first game, Friday, September 24.

Tickets are still on-sale through Ticketmaster, with two-game value packs also available. The 2-game value pack is available for $30 or $80 ($42 or $94 w/fees). The $80 seats are only the front three rows of club seating. You can get centerline seats for $30 for both, or $19 each.

The Arena Football League is in season award mode, and began today by announcing its All-AFL teams (Adobe Reader required).

Defensive backs Rayshawn Kizer and Kenny McEntire were named to the All-AFL First Team, while kicker Carlos Martinez made the Second Team.

The greatest team in af2 history, the Spokane Shock, faced the greatest team in AFL history, the Tampa Bay Storm, at Arena Bowl XXIII last night.

The af2 won.

Spokane beat Tampa Bay, 69-57, to take their first Arena Bowl title and third championship overall.

Tampa Bay scored first and had a 7-6 lead going into the second quarter, when Spokane finished off a three-TD run. The Storm re-took a 28-27 lead with :15 to go in the first half, but the Shock answered back with :10 to go, then scored another two TDs to start the second half and take the lead for good.

Spokane played keep-away until the last 9 minutes, when they scored 2 TD to take an insurmountable 28-point lead with 1:24 left in the game. Tampa Bay scored two more TDs, but ran out of time.

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The AFL is continuing its rebuilding in 2011. They already have concrete plans to add three more old-guard teams–the San Jose Sabrecats, Kansas City Brigade and Philadelphia Soul (sans Jon Bon Jovi, he’s “too busy touring” to own a team)–and one expansion team, the Pittsburgh Power.

Interestingly enough, the Tampa Bay Storm were the Pittsburgh Gladiators before moving to Tampa in 1991.

There are also rumors of the return of the Colorado Crush and New Orleans VooDoo. The league currently has 19 teams confirmed for 2011, including the 15 that played this year. That would match the largest the old AFL ever got. But it’s also possible that some current teams may fold in the interim.

But folding is not likely for the Orlando Predators, who averaged 11,204 fans for the season. That’s about 1,000 fans fewer per game than 2008, but not bad considering the year off. The new Amway Center, combined with the playoff run this year, should provide a bit of a bounce in 2011.

The Florida Tuskers today announced the addition of placekicker Carlos Martinez to the roster.

The article refers to him as “formerly” of the Orlando Predators, but it is unknown if he will continue his arena football career next year, so I wouldn’t go that far yet.

But still, the addition of Martinez is a very wise one. Last year the Tuskers’ primary weakness was PKs. Matt Bryant was coming off a leg injury, which was the whole reason he was cut from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the first place.

With Martinez, the Tuskers have a long and accurate leg for field goals. When I saw the Preds in action this year, I saw Martinez in practice easily hitting 50+ yarders, and this with the narrower target in the indoor game. It bodes well for translation to the outdoor game, especially with the Tuskers playing on artificial turf this year.

In-game, Martinez finished 2010 with a league-high 13 field goals, and a long of 55 yards. He also made 91% of his PAT attempts, a total of 104.

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In his column today, Orlando Sentinel columnist Mike Bianchi gave a warning about practicing during the heat of the afternoon with the unusually hot summer. He used Tuskers head coach Jay Gruden as an example of a coach dealing with the heat, showing how the Tuskers practice in the morning before the worst of the afternoon heat arrives.

The Orlando Predators will continue their road to the Arena Bowl this Saturday night when they face the Tampa Bay Storm. The game will be at 7:30pm on Bright House Sports Network (BH channel 47) and 740 the Game (104.1 FM HD-3).

Tickets are still available. And will you look at that? Ticketmaster finally put their fees in the price dropdowns, so you don’t have to wait until you get to the checkout counter to find out how badly you’re getting hosed. Prices w/fees are $26-$139.

The prices still don’t include shipping (and TicketFast really ought to be free) or the order processing fee. So you’re still paying a premium of twice the price for the cheapest tickets just for the honor of ensuring you don’t get sold out on.

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Sorry for short notice, but I only found out last night. We’re getting together for the U.S. Soccer friendly (soccer term for exhibition game) against Brazil tonight at Buffalo Wings & Rings in South Orlando. Mark Dillon of the Orlando Pro Soccer franchise will be in attendance. So if you have any questions about our coming USL-1 franchise, I’m sure he’ll be able to tell.

With an appeal to his suspension forthcoming, Bobby Sippio did take the field for the Orlando Predators last night.

He scored 6 touchdowns (4 pass, 2 rush), including the final one with 8.7 seconds to go, sealing a 73-69 victory and leaving the Jacksonville Sharks at home to ponder what went wrong.

He must’ve read where I said his absence wouldn’t matter.

It was a true back-and-forth affair. The largest lead Jacksonville ever had was 7, on the opening touchdown. An early blocked FG was the beginning of their undoing as the two teams pretty much exchanged scores the rest of the way, with only the Preds scoring consecutively, leading by as much as 10 at one point.

T.T. Toliver also completed a TD pass, and James Lynch rushed for the other two. Carlos Martinez scored the only field goal, and converted on all ten of his PAT attempts., Whereas Paul Edinger (Sharks kicker) missed three of his eight PATs (one block, two no good).

The Preds will face the winner of the Tulsa/Tampa Bay game tonight. In the National Conference, the Spokane Shock beat the Arizona Rattlers, 57-49 to advance to their final.