Jim Foster
|
|
Jim Foster is the founder of the Arena Football League in 1987. He is also a former NFL and USFL executive and was later the princpal owner of the Iowa Barnstormers. He is said to have derived the basic concept of Arena football while watching a game of indoor soccer being played at Madison Square Garden—and to have drawn it out on a cocktail napkin (although a manila envelope was, in fact, used). In 1990, Foster was granted a patent on the game of Arena football and the equipment unique to it, particularly the end zone rebound nets, meaning that other indoor football leagues not affiliated with the Arena organization must play by at least somewhat different rules than the ones the AFL uses.