Hampton, Va. -- Hampton University President William R. Harvey and a group of North Carolina businessmen have secured the Arena Football League's approval to bring a team to Raleigh-Durham.
Harvey; Robert L. (Roddy) Jones, the chairman of Tri Properties Inc., Davidson and Jones Hotel Corporation and Davidson Jones Beers Construction Company; and Peter T. Loftin, chairman/CEO of BTI Telecommunications, make up the ownership group of the expansion team that will begin play in April 2000.
The team, which was approved on July 30 at the AFL Board of Directors meetings in Chicago, will be the 19th in the Arena Football League. The team will play at the new state-of-the-art Raleigh Sports and Entertainment Arena, which will open this fall, announced AFL Commissioner David Baker.
The arena will also host the CIAA Tournament beginning in February 2000.
"Arena league football is an exciting brand of football to watch," Harvey said. "The team we are bringing to Raleigh-Durham will have a representative number of players from the ACC [Atlantic Coast Conference], MEAC [Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference], CIAA [Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association] and other collegiate leagues. Ticket pricing will be fixed so that games will be affordable not just for one or two persons but for the whole family. This team will provide a great deal of enjoyment for the area and surrounding states as we play our home games in the new state-of-the art sports arena. With the NFL holding an option to purchase 49 percent of this relatively new league, the stability is built-in. I look forward to being a part of this terrific new venture."
A press conference will be held in the next few weeks to announce Raleigh-Durham's newest professional sports team, their nickname, logo and ticket information.
Harvey is 100 percent owner of the Pepsi Cola Bottling Co. in Houghton, Mich. He is also in his 22nd year as president of Hampton University.
Prior to assuming his current position, he served as administrative vice president at Tuskegee University, administrative assistant to the president at Fisk University; and assistant for governmental affairs to the dean of the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University.
Jones was appointed president of Davidson and Jones Inc. in 1973 and president of the restructured Davidson and Jones Corporation in 1979. Loftin's BTI Telecommunications is one of the nation's top telecommunications companies.
The Arena Football League will culminate its 13th season on Aug. 21. The AFL is the second-longest running professional football league in the United States and is on pace to eclipse the 1 million attendance mark for the fourth consecutive season. The League has expanded from 14 to 19 teams, including the Buffalo Destroyers this season, and teams in Chicago and New Orleans for the 2001 season.
