ultimateclassicrock.com
Kiss founders Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons are now among the owners of a professional football team, which will be called the LA Kiss and will use the band’s famous logo on their helmets. We can only imagine what the uniforms are going to look like.
This does not represent the long-awaited return of the National Football League to Los Angeles. Instead, the team will be part of the Arena Football League, which for the last 26 years has provided an indoor, summer-scheduled version of America’s favorite sport. The league’s smaller field results in a faster pace of play and higher scoring games.
“The whole idea of an alternative to what has perhaps become a corporate sport is very intriguing, and resonates with us,” Stanley explained to USA Today. “We’ve always tried to be a band that relates to everybody, and the AFL is built on that whole premise.”
The LA Kiss will start playing at the Honda Arena in Anaheim in March of 2014. Season ticket holders will be treated to a free Kiss concert at some point next year, and Simmons says the band will bring their unique brand of showmanship to the games themselves as well. “It’s exciting beyond anything that we’ve thought about before… it’s going to be that kind of in-your-face entertainment, whether you’re a football fan or not.”
Once you get past the typical “what are they selling now?” response to this latest Kiss co-branding venture, the deal actually makes a lot of sense. The band has tens of thousands of fans in every city in America. If this works right, every road game will be at least partially a home game, with new fans attending the event decked out in what’s sure to be a parade of Kiss-themed sporting gear. At a certain point, you just have to applaud the absurdity of it all, right?
Kiss founders Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons are now among the owners of a professional football team, which will be called the LA Kiss and will use the band’s famous logo on their helmets. We can only imagine what the uniforms are going to look like.
This does not represent the long-awaited return of the National Football League to Los Angeles. Instead, the team will be part of the Arena Football League, which for the last 26 years has provided an indoor, summer-scheduled version of America’s favorite sport. The league’s smaller field results in a faster pace of play and higher scoring games.
“The whole idea of an alternative to what has perhaps become a corporate sport is very intriguing, and resonates with us,” Stanley explained to USA Today. “We’ve always tried to be a band that relates to everybody, and the AFL is built on that whole premise.”
The LA Kiss will start playing at the Honda Arena in Anaheim in March of 2014. Season ticket holders will be treated to a free Kiss concert at some point next year, and Simmons says the band will bring their unique brand of showmanship to the games themselves as well. “It’s exciting beyond anything that we’ve thought about before… it’s going to be that kind of in-your-face entertainment, whether you’re a football fan or not.”
Once you get past the typical “what are they selling now?” response to this latest Kiss co-branding venture, the deal actually makes a lot of sense. The band has tens of thousands of fans in every city in America. If this works right, every road game will be at least partially a home game, with new fans attending the event decked out in what’s sure to be a parade of Kiss-themed sporting gear. At a certain point, you just have to applaud the absurdity of it all, right?
