EVERETT – It’s beginning to look a lot like football.
The Everett Public Facilities District board on Thursday threw support, and an unofficial invitation, to a National Indoor Football League expansion team looking to make the Everett Events Center its home.
The center and its intended indoor football team, the Everett Hawks, could make it official by the end of the month, said Fred Safstrom, facilities district executive director.
“We continue to be encouraged by the prospect of an NIFL team here,” Safstrom said. “The board is continuing with the discussions and is hopeful that an agreement will be reached.”
The NIFL is headed into its fifth season and has 25 teams across the country.
If both parties sign on the dotted line, the Everett Hawks could be rolling out sod at the center by March to begin its inaugural season.
The Everett Hawks expansion team is owned by a local group headed by National Football League player Sam Adams, a former Seattle Seahawk.
Adams, who now plays for the Buffalo Bills, could not be reached for comment Thursday, nor could any other representative of the Hawks ownership group.
In a statement released earlier this summer, NIFL President Carolyn Shiver called Everett “a strong sports market” with “a strong sports base already in place.” It refers to the Silvertips hockey team and Aquasox baseball team, both minor-league franchises.
Part of the possible NIFL expansion could be contingent on other Pacific Northwest communities – the Tri-Cities and Boise, Idaho, are two possibilities – adding franchises. The closest team now is in Billings, Mont.
According to the NIFL Web site, at meetings later this month the league will vote whether to accept the Everett Hawks’ franchise.
Earl Dutton, public facilities district president, said he doesn’t know whether indoor football will take hold in Everett, but he has faith in Adams’ vision.
“He’s willing to put his checkbook on the line for it, so I have to feel that he probably knows what he’s doing,” Dutton said.
“To be real, real honest … I was a real skeptic as to how hockey would take hold,” he said. “Obviously, the people who were involved in hockey knew more about it than I did.”
Indoor football would be Everett’s third minor-league sport, along with the AquaSox and Silvertips. It also wouldn’t be out of the question for the events center to add another sport – basketball.
Though talks have quelled with the American Basketball League and the Continental Basketball League, the center feasibly could schedule hockey, football and basketball games, Dutton said.
Events center staff are adept at changing the floor from ice to hardwood, Safstrom said.
In the same vein, crews would have no trouble laying sod over the ice – even with tight turnarounds between hockey and football games, Safstrom said.
Leasing the arena to such teams means more entertainment possibilities for residents and almost no financial risk for the events center. Even if there is poor attendance at indoor football games, the district would break even, he said.
“That was the primary purpose for building this facility, to provide entertainment for the residents,” Dutton said.
Reporter Jennifer Warnick: 425-339-3429 or jwarnick@heraldnet.com.
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