Indoor American football

In the United States, indoor football is football played at ice hockey-sized indoor arenas (as opposed to certain NFL teams which have large indoor stadiums, such as the New Orleans Saints who play in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome). While varied, the rules of indoor football are designed to allow for play in a smaller arena. The indoor football season typically begins in mid- to late-winter and ends by mid-summer.

The first documented indoor football games were those played at Madison Square Garden in 1902 and 1903, known as the "World Series of Pro Football." The games were played on a 70-yard by 35-yard dirt field but otherwise adhered to outdoor rules. Poor attendance led to the tournament being discontinued after two years.

The first major indoor football game was the 1932 NFL Playoff Game, which was played indoors in the Chicago Stadium due to a severe blizzard that prevented playing the game outside. A dirt floor was brought in, and to compensate for the 80-yard length of the field, the teams' positions were reset back twenty yards upon crossing midfield.

In 1930, the Atlantic City Convention Center constructed a full-size indoor football field, and used it for one to three games a year during the 1930s; the stadium stopped hosting games in 1940 and did not resume hosting football games until 1961. In the 1960s the Boardwalk Bowl, a post-season game involving small college teams, was contested at the convention center. The Bowl was an attempt to make Atlantic City more of a year-round resort in the pre-gambling era as opposed to a single-season one (the Miss America Pageant, also held at the center, likewise began as an attempt to extend the season beyond Labor Day). The Atlantic Coast Football League played its inaugural championship game at the convention center in 1962, but the game only drew 2,000 fans and the game would thereafter move to the home stadium of the team with the best regular season record. The Philadelphia-based Liberty Bowl game, which had been played at Municipal Stadium from 1959–1963, was moved into the Convention Center in 1964 for the contest between Utah and West Virginia. The game drew just over 6,000 fans, though, and the Liberty Bowl moved to Memphis the next year, where it is still held as of 2015.

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