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| Date | July 19, 2024 | ||||||||||||||||||
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| Arena | American Dream Meadowlands,East Rutherford, New Jersey | ||||||||||||||||||
| Winning coach | Cedric Walker | ||||||||||||||||||
| Losing coach | Damon Ware | ||||||||||||||||||
| TV in the United States | |||||||||||||||||||
| Network | CBS Sports Network | ||||||||||||||||||
| Announcers | Ari Wolfe,Bret Munsey andBrent Stover | ||||||||||||||||||
ArenaBowl XXXIII was the 33rd edition of theArenaBowl, the championship game for the2024 Arena Football League season. It took place at the American Dream Center, an ice rink located insideAmerican Dream Meadowlands, a shopping mall and entertainment complex inEast Rutherford, New Jersey, on July 19, 2024. It is the first since the original league's bankruptcy in 2019 and the reestablishment of the AFL in 2024.[1] The game featured theAlbany Firebirds facing off against theBillings Outlaws who had faced each other earlier in the season in Billings winning 36-35.
Billings won the Arenabowl 46-41 for their first ArenaBowl championship.
ArenaBowl XXXIII was the first ArenaBowl hosted on a neutral site sinceArenaBowl XXVI. The site was originally selected as theTarget Center, home of theMinnesota Myth. However, this was dropped when the Myth folded and Myth co-owner Lee Hutton was expelled from his post as league commissioner.
On June 27, 2024, the league announced a new venue for the game would be held at American Dream Center, an ice rink located insideAmerican Dream Meadowlands, a large retail complex and entertainment facility located inEast Rutherford, New Jersey, adjacent to theMeadowlands Sports Complex and not far fromMetLife Stadium.[2][3] The choice of a shopping mall for the event drew widespread attention, with Matt Reigle ofOutkick describing it as "either the coolest thing I've ever seen or the saddest,"[4] a former AFL broadcaster writing forBarstool Sports praising it as an example of the league's reputation for being willing to try new things,[5] and Karl Rasmussen ofSports Illustrated commenting that the lack of traditional angled seating or a press box had consequences for theCBS Sports Network television broadcast, which largely operated from a single high camera, giving unusually angled views of the action.[6] CBS Sports Network commentatorAri Wolfe himself commented that the situation was "unlike anything we've ever seen."[7]
This was the second consecutive ArenaBowl appearance for Albany, who appeared in and wonArenaBowl XXXII, the last ArenaBowl of the previousArena Football League as theAlbany Empire in2019; theEmpire had also won twoNational Arena League titles in the interim in 2021 and 2022.[8] This was Billings's first league championship appearance in its current incarnation and the fifth for theBillings Outlaws brand overall, the first since the2010 United Bowl. The two teams were the first and second ranked teams in the AFL in the 2024 regular season. In the two teams' regular season matchup, the Outlaws, using rules the team had pushed to bring in fromChampions Indoor Football as part of that league's merger with the AFL (and which Albany had themselves used to win a game under similar circumstances against the West Texas Desert Hawks four weeks prior),[9] scored a touchdown, four-point conversion and a deuce (a kickoff through the Firebirds' uprights) in a five-second span to win their week 9 contest 36–35.[10] Albany and Billings each advanced to the ArenaBowl by defeating theSalina Liberty[8] andNashville Kats, respectively, in the AFL playoffs (Billings having avenged its lone regular season loss against the Kats in said game).[11]
| Quarter | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Albany Firebirds | 0 | 13 | 16 | 12 | 41 |
| Billings Outlaws | 3 | 14 | 16 | 13 | 46 |
atAmerican Dream Center,East Rutherford, New Jersey
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