After solidifying the rules and business plan, supplemented with sketches by a professional artist, Foster presented his idea to various television networks; he reached an agreement with NBC for a "test game".
ESPN2 began televising a more standard schedule of Arena Football League regular season and playoff games from 1995–1999.
The year 2000 brought a heightened interest in the AFL after Kurt Warner, who spent three years as quarterback of the AFL's Iowa Barnstormers, rose to fame as starting quarterback for The Greatest Show on Turf, the Super Bowl-winning offense of the then-St. Louis Rams.
From 2001 to 2008, the Rush games were broadcast by Tom Dore and former Chicago Bears offensive lineman James "Big Cat" Williams.
In 2003, NBC obtained the broadcast rights (on a revenue sharing basis) and a minority interest in the Arena Football League.
In conjunction with this, the league moved the beginning of the season from May to February (the week after the NFL's Super Bowl) and scheduled most of its games on Sunday afternoons instead of Friday or Saturday evenings as it had in the past.
NBC's coverage received sharp criticism from some longtime AFL fans and owners such as Jon Bon Jovi.
NBC also tended to massively advertise select teams such as the Philadelphia Soul, Chicago Rush, Colorado Crush and the Dallas Desperados, while smaller-market teams such as the Austin Wranglers, San Jose Sabercats, Grand Rapids Rampage and the then-Columbus Destroyers were massively underpromoted or not broadcast at all.
FSN would carry more than 100 telecasts in 2004, including eight games on Fox–owned Sunshine Network (now Sun Sports), with 15 of the 17 teams appearing a minimum of five times.
The Fox Sports Networks agreement had some of the revenue-sharing aspects in common with the two-year deal that the AFL had with NBC.
Most FSN regional telecasts took place on Fridays and Saturdays, and were in addition to the AFL's exclusive Sunday afternoon national window on NBC.
[6] In 2006, due to the XX Winter Olympic Games, the Stanley Cup Playoffs, and the Daytona 500, NBC reduced its coverage of AFL games from weekly broadcast to scattered coverage during the regular season, albeit with an extensive playoff schedule ending with ArenaBowl XX.
[8] On June 30, 2006, the Arena Football League and NBC Sports failed to reach an agreement to extend their broadcasting contract, ending the network's association with the AFL after four years.
In an interview with The New York Times, NBC spokesman Mike McCarley stated, "we gave Arena Football our best effort, with top production and significant promotion, but the ratings never grew."
During an August 2006 segment of Larry King's interview with owner Jon Bon Jovi, a new deal was hinted at being in development, one that would be superior to its previous agreement with NBC.
As previously mentioned, on December 19, 2006, ESPN and the Arena Football League agreed to a five-year agreement that includes extensive multimedia rights and a minimum of 26 televised games per season, beginning in 2007 and lasting until 2011.
The network will gain privileged financial information, but insists that it will not give the AFL more favorable coverage on shows like SportsCenter as a result.
[citation needed] In 2009, the Arena Football League suspended operations to refinance and restructure its business plan.
However, the team lost its last two games, first to the 1–13 Dallas Vigilantes and then closed out the year on the road losing to the Spokane Shock.
The remaining games in the season were carried on a tape delay to prevent the possibility of the players staging a work stoppage immediately prior to a scheduled broadcast and the resulting embarrassment.
Once the labor issues were resolved, the NFL Network resumed the practice of broadcasting a live Friday night game. )
[18][19] For the 2018 season, the AFL's sole national English language telecast partner was the CBS Sports Network, but all games were streamed free online and Brigade and Valor games were available over their owner Ted Leonsis' Monumental Sports Network.