Jim Foster

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Jim Foster is the founder and first commissioner of the Arena Football League. He is also a former NFL and USFL executive and was later the principal owner of the Iowa Barnstormers.

Foster derived the basic concept of Arena football while watching a game of indoor soccer being played at Madison Square Garden on February 11, 1981. He drew it out on a manila envelope. The AFL began league play in 1987. In 1990, Foster was granted a patent on the game of Arena football and the equipment unique to it, particularly the end zone rebound nets, meaning that other indoor football leagues not affiliated with the Arena organization must play by at least somewhat different rules than the ones the AFL uses.