By Francis B. Allgood
SCBIZ Daily Staff

GREENVILLE -- The Bi-Lo Center will kick around with indoor football again – this time with what arena officials and investors believe will be a winning strategy. The Carolina Force will take to the turf in March 2009.

“We didn’t want to put in an owner who couldn’t be successful,” said Roger Newton, general manager of the Bi-Lo Center. “It doesn’t help the city if teams keep coming and going.”

Andre White, owner of Real Entertainment LLC in Atlanta, owns the team. Other investors include Robert and Debbie Noles, and Dale Davis, the former Clemson University basketball standout who played in the NBA from 1991-07.

Newton and White have been working on a plan to bring football back to the Bi-Lo Center for more than two years. The Carolina Rhinos, once part of the arenafootball2 league, played in Greenville from 2000-02.

The Carolina Force will play in the American Indoor Football Association. White had looked at the United Indoor Football league based in Omah, Neb., but in the end, the numbers didn’t work, particularly with travel costs, White said.

“As for the AIFA, more teams are on the East Coast,” he said.

The UIF announced in July that it would merge with the Intense Football League, an organization with teams mostly west of Texas.

“The af2 league is a very sold league, but its operating budget is so much higher than other leagues,” Newton added.

The Force will be in a division with teams that are within a day’s drive, such as in Florence, Charlotte, N.C., and Fayetteville, N.C.

But given current economic conditions, is now the right time to start a new team?

“I’ve been working on this for two and a half years, and I wasn’t going to back out at the ninth hour,” White said. “We will make it affordable.”

His benchmark for a successful 2009 campaign is an average of 3,200 fans per game. The Bi-Lo Center holds 12,000. The average ticket price will be $10-$12.

As a promoter of concerts, White plans to use that to his advantage.

“We’ll look at doing some post- or pre-game concerts,” White said.

Unlike the Rhinos or the former Greenville Grrrowl hockey team, where paying off building bond debts were closely tied to the success of the franchises, the Force will pay about $5,000 in rent per game, Newton said. The Bi-Lo Center and the team will get percentages of ticket sales and concessions. Merchandising sales go to the team.

The AIFA is on sturdy ground, according to John Morris, co-owner of the league.

“I am and will always be a businessman, first,” he said. Morris has four other companies. “This doesn’t pay my bills. It’s about giving guys a chance to keep playing and to move up to a team like the (AFL’s) Georgia Force.”

Entering its third season, the AIFA has two teams pulling in a profit, according to Morris. Last season the league had regional contracts with Fox Sports Net. The AIFA is seeking to expand those contracts and is seeking deals with local affiliates to televise games.

The league is attracting some star power, too. Marcus Colston, a wide receiver for the New Orleans Saints, is part owner in the Harrisburg (Penn.) Stampede. Former Washington Redskin Brian Mitchell is a consultant with the other new franchise for 2009, the (Washington) D.C. Armor.

White, too, is a former athlete. He played football at Morehouse College in Atlanta and for the British Columbia Lions in the Canadian Football League from 1993-94.