Empire’s task becomes a lot tougher without Rob Keefe

Unfortunately, they have no marketing department. Maybe that’s just as well. The Empire’s biggest marketing tool departed Monday.

Rob Keefe, leader of Albany’s two-year, highly successful run in the Arena Football League, resigned as head coach and president of football operations of the newly established Empire.

If there were reason to be optimistic about the return of arena football to the Capital Region, even at a lower level, Keefe was the centerpiece. He led the previous rendering of the Empire to the 2019 Arena Bowl championship, a celebration short-circuited by the AFL’s demise in November 2019.

The region’s arena fan base became uplifted during the early stages of the pandemic when Orlando Predators owners Ron Tridico and Nate Starling bought a second National Arena League franchise and placed it in Albany. The NAL can’t match the AFL in pay or play, but Keefe and his inexhaustible enthusiasm would keep the momentum going. Perhaps he could persuade some of his former players to return to Albany.

Unfortunately, Keefe’s decision to step aside was a stride in the direction of the arenafootball2 days.

Rob Keefe, who was head coach of the Albany Empire before resigning Monday, speaks to the crowd during a block party held in front of Times Union Center in 2019. Keefe said he’ll miss interacting with the Capital Region community. (Jim Franco/Special to the Times Union)

James Franco

“It’s a difficult decision,” Keefe told me by phone from Orlando, Fla., “but at the end of the day, as prepared as I was to sacrifice for the community I love, I had to put myself first. Over the course of six months, I wanted to put myself in a position that I was going to be able to do everything I possibly could to make this organization be successful.”

With no front office in place and the season opener initially scheduled for May 22 (now moved to May 29), it was obvious that the pieces hadn’t been put in place to make this ship run smoothly. A hint that things wouldn’t be the same as before came when George Manias, the chief operating officer of the AFL Empire, declined to join the new venture. Manias subsequently became president of Albany’s new National Lacrosse League franchise.

Keefe maintained that he would have been able to assemble a quality roster. “We would have had great players,” he said. “We would have had a great coaching staff. I wasn’t concerned with the caliber of athletes we would have had.”

The new owners aren’t entirely culpable. Tridico was ready to suspend operations for one season until he finally got assurance last week that the Empire could have the Times Union Center’s seating limitations raised from 10 to 25 percent.

That gives Tridico and Starling the ability to sell approximately 3,100 seats for each of its four home games. It’s a far cry from the 10,981 the Empire averaged for six home games in their final AFL season, and a long way from profitability.

With deadlines approaching, the Empire will be moving fast to fill their openings, but the plans are to have a season.

“I know I’m losing money, but we’re doing it anyway,” said Tridico, who vowed to have a general manager and coach hired by the end of the week. “I’m calling it a dress rehearsal for ’22. We’re limited in what we can do with entertainment. We can’t do the street party. There are certain things we can’t do inside the arena, like the T-shirt cannon we can’t do because you’re going to have people running to grab stuff. We’re dealing with the hand we’re dealt.”

That hand became even weaker without Keefe.

“In no way do I want to make this reflect upon the new Albany Empire ownership,” Keefe said. “I wish them and the organization nothing but success. The fans have to make the decision themselves. A lot of people can read into things.

“Ultimately, I’ll say this: I love the Albany and Capital Region community. The hardest decision is leaving, knowing that I won’t be able to engage with the fans and the sponsors and all the great community members that I have been close with. That’s really difficult.”

It may prove to be even harder on the Empire’s fan base.