Jim Foster (football)

James F. Foster is the founder and first commissioner of the Arena Football League. He is also a former NFL and USFL executive and was later the principal owner of both the Iowa Barnstormers and the AF2's Quad City Steamwheelers.

Born and raised in Iowa City, Iowa, Foster graduated from the University of Iowa in 1972 with a BGS in Advertising/Marketing and Broadcast Journalism and lettered in track/cross country. He was the founder in 1974 and Managing Director of the Newton Nite Hawks minor league football team of the Northern States Football League. After winning the league championship in 1975 Foster organized and introduced the sport of American (pro level) football to Europe during a 5-game exhibition tour in June 1977 with the Nite Hawks and the Chicago Lions playing exhibition games in major European cities, including Paris, Frankfurt and Vienna. While Promotion Manager of NFL Properties, he invented the game of Arena football while watching the Major Indoor Soccer League All-Star game being played at Madison Square Garden on February 11, 1981. He drew out a diagram and rules on the back of a 9" x 12" manila envelope. Foster left the NFL in September 1982 to pursue a goal of managing a major professional football team with the Phoenix based Arizona Wranglers during their inaugural 1983 season in the new USFL. After 1983 season ended, he accepted an offer to move back to the Midwest to serve as Executive Vice President for the re staging of the USFL Chicago Blitz under new ownership for the 1984 season. In the fall of 1985 after the USFL suspended operations to move from a spring season to a fall season on a head to head basis with the NFL, Foster soon after began working full-time on carefully testing and researching the mechanics and basic rules of the new game he had invented before actually launching the Arena Football League, starting play in early June 1987. Foster served as founding President/Commissioner from 1985-1992, at which time he stepped down to began the initial development of his own Arena Football team, the Iowa Barnstormers, which would bring professional football to his home state of Iowa for the first time, playing in the state's capitol and largest city, Des Moines. After staging a very successful and well received sold out preseason, market test game on April 22, 1994, Foster then completed raising the required capital to fund and operate the team and launched operations in June to prepare for a 1995 inaugural season. He served as as its Managing Owner through 2001, after which the team was then sold, withe the AFL Barnstormers moving to Long Island in New York to become the New York Dragons.

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