The 2024 Arena Football Competition season came to an end on a mall in New Jersey on Friday night when the Billings Bandits defeated the Albany Firebirds in ArenaBowl XXXIII. Yes, you read that right.

A team from Montana defeated a team from upstate New York in a shopping mall in the Garden State.

Arena Football’s (not so) triumphant return has been a bit of a chaotic affair. It got off to an extremely hilarious start in August of last year, when the locations of the cities selected for a team were revealed as a surprise. It wasn’t so funny in May, when teams were forced to quit before the first month of the season was over.

Eight AFL organizations canceled games at short notice, failed to pay their players, owed tens of thousands of dollars to the facilities that housed them and closed their doors. Some blamed league officials for not honoring their promises of uniforms, footballs, travel expenses, etc.

The Arena Football League also lost its broadcast partnership with NFL Network and was on the verge of total collapse shortly after its official revival.

Despite all the early season problems, the season went on. Albany, Billings, Nashville, Orlando, Salina, Southwest Kansas, Washington and Wichita managed to survive.

ArenaBowl XXXIII was played Friday at the American Dream Center in East Rutherford, marking the conclusion of the inaugural season of the Arena Football League.

American Dream Center is the second largest shopping mall in the United States. It also has an indoor ski and snowboard park, a water park, a Nickelodeon theme park, and an ice skating rink.

The ice rink became an Arena Football field for the ArenaBowl.