By Dennis Quick
Senior Staff Writer

As indoor football returns to the Lowcountry three years after the Charleston Swamp Foxes folded, Jason Parker and his front-office colleagues of the area’s newest semi-pro team, the Charleston Sandsharks, believe their organization is strong enough to lead the franchise to pay dirt.

“It’s about business” and spending money wisely, said Parker, president of the Sandsharks, which makes its debut in the six-year-old National Indoor Football League March 25 against the Fayettville, N.C., Guard at the North Charleston Coliseum, site of the Sandsharks’ home games.

It was the business aspect the Swamp Foxes fumbled, Parker explained, pointing out that the Swamp Foxes, which lasted four seasons in the arenafootball2 league, paid too much in workers’ compensation costs—about $2,500 per player—that helped deplete the team’s finances. The Sandsharks will pay about $1,350 per player.

In that regard, “we learned a lot from the Swamp Foxes,” Parker said.

Team spokesman Robert Clamp, vice president and director of operations for Moncks Corner-based Upper-Works Marketing, which handles the Sandsharks’ marketing and public relations efforts, said the organization has a winning lineup in the front office.

“We’ve got people in positions that suit their strengths,” he said.

The franchise has a potential worth of $2.5 million, with shareholders kicking in $25,000 a piece, Parker said. It was believed that former Burke High School standout and Miami Dolphins professional football star Oronde Gadsden co-owned the team. However, Gadsden’s relation with the team is unclear.

Gadsden, who owns the NIFL’s Miami Morays and helped the Sandsharks land its North Charleston Coliseum venue, remains “involved” with the team but for how long remains difficult to say, Parker added.

At the Feb. 9 press conference announcing the Sandsharks’ arrival, both the organization and North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey reached out to the community.

“We have a coalition of people who not only believe in the concept of indoor football, but in the community,” Summey said. “Let’s give these folks a chance to succeed in our community.”

For its part, the Sandsharks will get involved in community organizations such as Habitat for Humanity, in which players will help build homes for low-income families, and go into public schools to serve as role models for kids.

The Sandsharks team is among 26 NIFL teams scattered from coast to coast. The league formed in 2000 when two fledgling indoor football leagues, the Indoor Professional Football League and the Indoor Football League, combined with eight new teams. The goal was to create a league providing exciting, inexpensive family entertainment.

In indoor football, the field is 50 yards long. There are eight offensive players and eight defensive players. The games are often high scoring, and fans sit close to the field. Players earn about $200 per game.

Tickets for Sandsharks games range from $7 to $30. Season tickets range from $42 to $180. The season lasts 14 games, with seven games played at the coliseum.

For its home opener, the team hopes to draw at least 5,000 spectators to the 10,000-seat coliseum. In 2004, the Fort Wayne, Ind., Freedom set the NIFL’s single-game attendance record by attracting 10,225 fans.

Dennis Quick is senior staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dquick@charlestonbusiness.com.

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