2023-2025
THE ATLANTIC COAST FOOTBALL LEAGUE REVIVAL....SIMPLY A minor league
The ORIGINAL Atlantic Coast Football League (ACFL) was a minor league football league that operated from 1962 to 1973. In began with six teams fromed the league, the Providence Steam Roller, Patterson Minors (later the Newark Bears), Portland Sea Hawks (later the Springfield Acorns, Stamford Golden Bears (later the Hartford Knights), Ansonia Black Knights and the Frankfort Falcons). In 1965, four of the ACFL franchises (Hartford, Newark, Springfield and Providence) joined six teams from the United Football League (Philadelphia, Toronto, Wheeling, Richmond, Fort Wayne and Charleston WV) to create the Continental Football League (CFL). The CFL in 1969. From 1966-1969 the ACFL merged with the remaining CFL teams (Hartford, Newark, Springfield, Providence, Jersey City, Wheeling, Norfolk, Richmond, Harrisburg and Mohawk Valley) to revive the ACFL. The league would go on until 1973 but lost teams to the NFL-AFL merger. 1987, Cosmo Iacovozzi was inducted into the American Football Semi Pro Football Hall of Fame. The only possibility was to form a true minor league football league, which the old ACFL (Atlantic Coast Football League) did in Summer of 2023. This will be a fantasy minor league that will replicate the OLD ACFL from 50 years ago to present a NEW minor league football league system.
The 2024 ACFL will have 9 of the 2023 franchises plus 3 expansion teams with Providence RI, Springfield MA, Hartford CT,
Newark NJ, Mohawk Valley Region NY, Harrisburg PA, Wheeling WV, Richmond VA, Norfolk, VA, along with the former Jersey City in Willmington DE(formerly Jersey City NJ), and NEW expansion teams in Portland, ME and Lehigh Valley, PA.
What it takes in order to make ACFL Minor League Summer Football will succeed:
(1) NO franchises in cities that already have an NFL, USFL or XFL teams, preferably 50 miles or more away from any NFL team
(2) Cities with 100,000+ populations and metro areas of 300,000+.
(3) Create a Summer League from June 1st to Labor Day Weekend in September
(4) The league will operate with 3 divisions, 4 teams per division, play a 12 game regular season with playoffs weeks 13 and 14
(7) A MINOR LEAGUE football leage with stadium capacities between 7,500 – 15,000