For years, people have been begging for a pro football team to be brought back to the Los Angeles/Orange County Area, and that wish is about to be a reality.
Sure, it is not an NFL team, but the LA Kiss are going to not only bring football back to the area, but also bring an in-game experience that is like no other in the league.
“In Arena Football, the approximate game time is two hours and 37 minutes but there is only about 45 minutes of action,” said LA Kiss managing partner, Brett Buchy. “That means there is an hour and 52 minutes in between that you should be entertained. We are going to create two hours and 37 minutes of an entertainment experience.”
The team is owned in part by former members of the legendary band KISS Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons.
“One of the biggest crimes of this brand new century is that Los Angeles does not have a football team,” Simmons said. “And now it does. One of the main reasons we got involved here was we wanted to see a football team come to LA.”
Even though the team is called the LA Kiss, they will be playing all of their home games at the Honda Center in Anaheim. The move has worked wonders as far as expanding their market, and just about 35 percent of season ticket sales have come from Los Angeles County.
The team has already sold about 7,000 season tickets and their set up allows for a capacity of about 15,000 people in the Honda Center.
“These 7,000 season tickets we already sold were sold on faith. They were sold because people believe in us,” Stanley said. “Once they see that we deliver all bets are off.”
Despite being a one-of-a-kind entertainment kind of experience, the LA Kiss want it to be known that they are not using the entertainment as a way to make up a fielding a lackluster team. They also plan on competing right out of the gate and looking to make a run at The Arena Bowl.
“You will be seeing a legitimate, in-your-face style of football out of this team,” Simmons said. “One of the great parts about Arena Football is that if a player jumps up to make a catch and gets tackled over one of the boards into the crowd, that ball is still considered in play and the catch will count.”
The team just set its final roster on Sunday night and looks to have one of the more talented rosters in the league.
The Kiss will be lead at the quarterback position by four-year AFL veteran JJ Raterink, who was acquired in an offseason trade with the Iowa Barnstormers.
“I have been in the league for a few years now and have seen some exciting things,” Raterink said. “But, I think that this is going to be an experience that will trump all of that.”
He will be throwing to a talented group of wide receivers led by Samie Parker, who played in the NFL and Donovan Morgan.
Morgan was the AFL Rookie of the Year in 2008, and caught 87 passes for 1,351 yards and 29 touchdowns last season with the New Orleans Voodoo, before being traded to the Kiss this offseason.
Arena Football is played on only a 50-yard field so it is all offense. The Arizona Rattlers lead the league in scoring last year, averaging 66.8 points per game.
To put things into perspective, the Denver Broncos, last season, became the most prolific team in NFL history by averaging 37.9 points per game. The Pittsburgh Power were the worst offensive team in the AFL last year, and averaged 40.3 points per game.
“We are a team that is also putting an emphasis on defense,” said defensive back, Andre Jones. “We are going into games expecting to only give up 30-40 points. We know that if we get a stop or two and create a turnover, we win if our offense is playing well.”
The team will be led by last season’s AFL Coach of the Year, Bob McMillen.
“I have been given the task of building this team into a champion,” McMillen said. “We don’t look at this team as an expansion team. We look at is as a team that can and will compete for a championship right away.”
The team will open up their inaugural season Saturday against the San Antonio Talons, on the road at 5 p.m.
They will not play a home game at the Honda Center until April 5 at 6:30 p.m.
“We will be working with Harlan Hendrickson for the next month designing a game-day experience that you guys have never seen,” said team president Schuyler Hoversten. “There is a reason why our tagline is ‘See it to believe it’.”