The Arena Football League played its inaugural season in 1987 with four teams to introduce the sport to the American public. The
Chicago Bruisers,
Denver Dynamite,
Pittsburgh Gladiators and
Washington Commandos comprised the four-team league that ran a schedule from June 19 to August 1. The AFL drew an impressive average of 11,000 fans per game and TV coverage on ESPN. The four teams
Pittsburgh (12,856),
Denver (12,098/game),
Washington (11,525) and
Chicago (8,638) drew fairly well in their respective facilities; Washington and Chicago both managed to outdraw the 1984 averages of their respective
USFL franchises, the
Federals and
Blitz. Denver played at the old
McNichols Arena, Pittsburgh at the
Civic Arena, Washington at the
Capital Centre in
Landover, Maryland, and Chicago at the
Rosemont Horizon in
Rosemont, Illinois (now the Allstate Arena and the only one of the initial AFL venues still extant ). A fifth arena football team, the
Miami Vise, played one exhibition game in 1987, later dubbed the "Showcase Game." The Vise defeated the Bruisers, 33–30, on February 26 but did not carry over to the regular season that summer. The AFL formally kicked off on Friday, June 19, 1987, when the host Pittsburgh Gladiators hosted the Washington Commandos at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh before 12,177 fans. AFL football officially began at 7:37 pm EDT that night when Washington's
Dale Castro kicked the ball into the slack net (the mesh between the field goal posts) resulting in a touchback. The Gladiators took over on their own five-yard line. The very first play from scrimmage saw Pittsburgh quarterback
Mike Hohensee hit WR/DB
Russell Hairston on a 45-yard touchdown pass; the play would set the tone for the league's wide-open, high-scoring mandate that the game's inventor, James Foster, envisioned. The Gladiators, featuring future
Arena Football League Hall of Famer Craig Walls playing against his brother Kendall, went on to win the game 48–46. The head coaches of the four AFL teams in 1987 were former
CFL great
Ray Jauch (Chicago), future longtime AFL coach
Tim Marcum (Denver), The Denver Dynamite would also feature a backup QB that would go on to an NFL head coaching career:
Marty Mornhinweg, who backed up
Whit Taylor. Also on the Dynamite roster that year was FB/LB
Rob DeVita, WR
Durrell Taylor and future AFL Hall of Fame WR
Gary Mullen. a win that was the first of seven ArenaBowl titles for Denver coach Tim Marcum. ==Standings==