Editor's Note: I've had this blog in my drafts for a couple days now (wrote it on Oct. 10th). I've hesitated to post it because it bums me out to see this potentially happen, but this is the unfortunate nature of indoor football -- it's a tough business. But there have been some rumors swirling, so I figured I might as well post it.
Before we dive into this, I want to clearly state that this is not an announcement of anything, nor am I claiming to be breaking any news. This is just my perception of how things are playing out and what may be on the horizon (and now based on some rumors that I have been seeing.)
There's isn't one singular thing that is on the surface that led me to this blog, but rather a culmination of a several things. Quite frankly, things have also been calm for farrrrrrr too long in the arena and indoor football landscape.
We're due for a landmine to go off at any moment, so let's peel back the onion layer by layer:
Social Media
In this 2024-25 arena & indoor football offseason, most teams have been able to stay relevant with social media activity. You'll get the occasional "Which seat are you taking?" post (there's 2 wrong answers btw), you'll get the "Hey our coach is coming back!" post, and lately we've been seeing an uptick in the "Guess who's back?!" player signing posts (we love those, even if they spell the name wrong.)
But sometimes the silence from other teams can be deafening.
Enter the Duke City Gladiators.
Now, a team being bad at social media is not necessarily a death sentence (although sometimes it feels like it should be in this day and age). I don't drop the d-word often, but there are signs indicating that the Gladiators might be going dormant in 2025.
What We Know:
2024 was a rough year for Duke City -- both on and off the field.
On the field, Duke City was 3-13 thanks to extremely inconsistent play at the QB position. Defensively the team was pretty good, but was just constantly put in tough spots by their offensive (in both meanings of the word) counterparts.
The below tweet was back in April and it rang true for 3 MORE MONTHS.
But having a rough season doesn't automatically nominate you for dormancy (otherwise Tucson would be in a lot of trouble right now.) But off the field, it wasn't much better for Duke City:
There have been 0 new articles or press releases from the team since February 15th 2024.
They reused a lot of the same B-roll on their broadcasts from previous years -- which consistently showed players no longer with the organization. (hand up this one might be nitpicking but it is noticed!)
The in-arena experience for fans took a hit this year -- with no mascot and no dance team as there was in previous years.
Social media hasn't been touched since their season ended in July.
This indicates to me that the team is either short-staffed or ill equipped to meet what should be league-wide minimum expectations. The team simply has not been carrying themselves to the standard of the rest of the IFL -- which really isn't been that high of a bar to begin with.
At the time of this blog (10/11/24 - 7PM ET), the most recent roster displayed on the Duke City Gladiators' website is the 2023 team.
checks calendar
confirms we are nearly in 2025
That means we played an ENTIRE 2024 football season without the Duke City franchise updating their team's roster on their website. To put it simply, that can not happen if the IFL and Duke City want to be taken seriously as professional football organizations.
"But Off The Wall, how did you jump to this conclusion that they may be going dormant? You said being bad at social media isn't a death sentence"
Great question, and it is one that I certainly don't take lightly. There's always rumblings and rumors floating around constantly about different things, but hear me out on this.
The Aaron Jackson Signing
This signing was announced earlier in the week. But why is a free agency signing for an entirely different team a sign of potentially bad things to come for Duke City? (congrats to Aaron by the way!)
Well, I recently had Aaron Jackson on the podcast, where he talked about this Duke City franchise and he mentioned he was coming back to Duke City, but was just waiting to hear who would be joining him. Aaron was very passionate about this Duke City team in our conversation and getting a chance at redemption for how the 2024 season played out (both on and off camera).
He was signed on and READY for a 2025 redemption tour - but then suddenly he's the first signing in Fishers Freight franchise history? I know that Indoor & Arena ball can be a fickle game, especially when it comes to contracts, but something is off here.
IFL Transaction Page
According to the IFL's transaction page, there are only 3 teams that have made 0 signings in this offseason (so far):
Frisco Fighters
Quad City Steamwheelers
Duke City Gladiators
Again, this by itself is not necessarily mean dormancy from the jump. But when paired with everything else (the AJ signing/interview situation, social media disarray, overall franchise perception, etc) it makes you start to connect the dots and put two and two together.
Domino Effects
What does this mean for the rest of the league? Would we see Tulsa or Frisco potentially shift over to the Western Conference to balance them at 8 in the East & 8 in the West?
Do we see other teams follow suit? Do we see teams from other leagues try to jump ship to the IFL? Will we ever have a normal offseason or is arena & indoor football forever stuck in a cycle of birth, death & re-birth?
I really hope this doesn't happen because Duke City has such a unique history and had one of the stronger brands before the 2024 season. Dormancy often equates to to a death sentence in indoor and arena football, so if the team is truly going dormant, we might have seen the last of the Duke City Gladiators.
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