James Foster is the inventor of the game of Arena Football, (and US patent recipient), the founder and first commissioner of the Arena Football League (AFL).
He is also a former National Football League (NFL) and United States Football League (USFL) executive and was later the Managing Owner of both the Iowa Barnstormers and the AF2's Quad City Steamwheelers.
Biography
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, (working on air for UIowa radio stations WSUI and KICR). At Iowa, Foster lettered in track/cross country while also being a member and officer in the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity. He also served as the paid executive director of the overall 22 houses fraternity system at UIowa from 1970-1972 when he graduated.
In 1974 He founded, played and served as club director of the Newton Nite Hawks minor league football team of the Northern States AAA Pro Football League (NSFL). After winning the league championship in 1975, Foster worked with a well known European soccer coach and sports promoter Bob Kapp, to organize and introduce the sport of American (pro level) football to Europe for the first time, during a five-game exhibition tour in June 1977 between the Nite Hawks and the Chicago Lions of the Northern States AAA Pro Football League playing exhibition games in major European cities, including Paris, Lille, Frankfurt, Gratz and Vienna.
In the fall of 1977, he was hired away from the Nite Hawks to take over the reins of the struggling NSFL Quad City Mohawks in Rock Island, IL, (the one time home of charter NFL team, the Rock Island Independents led by star player Jim Thorpe). Foster rebranded the club as the Black Hawks, as well as rebuilding the team roster. That led to their first winning season in a decade and a berth in the 1978 NSFL Championship game. In June of 1979 Foster, working with a major European based sports/events promotion firm, Keith Prowse Co., conducted a 2nd European Pro Football 5 game tour featuring the Black Hawks vs. the Indianapolis Capitols, also of the NSFL, playing in Brussels, Antwerp, Rotterdam and Frankfurt, (2 games).
Following that 2nd European venture, in the fall of 1979, Foster was hired by the NFL to become the promotion manager of NFL Properties, (marketing and licensing). During his tenure with the NFL (1979-82) 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 sketched out a diagram along with basic rules on the back of a 9" × 12" manila envelope.
Foster opted to leave the NFL in September 1982 to pursue a goal of managing a major professional football team, taking an offer to help launch the Phoenix-based Arizona Wranglers as assistant general manager during their inaugural 1983 season in the new USFL. After the season ended, he then accepted an offer to move back to the Midwest to serve as executive vice president of the Chicago Blitz of the USFL.
When the fateful decision was later made to move the USFL in 1985 from a spring season to a fall season on a head-to-head basis with the NFL, Foster made a pivotal decision to begin 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 (AFL), starting play in early June 1987. Foster served as founding president and commissioner from 1985 to 1992, at which time he stepped down to begin the initial development of his own AFL 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, 1993, Foster opted to move forward, completing the raising of the required capital to fund and operate the team and launch operations in June 1994 in preparation for a 1995 inaugural season. He served as its Managing Owner through 2001. A very difficult decision was made to sell the team due to rapidly raising personnel operating expenses, as well as having to continue to play in an iconic, but antiqued and undersized venue in Des Moines. The AFL Barnstormers were sold to NHL NY Islanders owner Charles Wong and moved to Long Island in New York to become the New York Dragons.