Champagne Cavalry : Arena Polo Needs New Image--Chukkers for Mass Appeal

Apparently, arena polo has swept the globe. But word hasn’t reached these shores, even though, according to the folks who sponsor the American Polo League, the sport is being played by 3,000 players in 20 countries.

But still, the APL is here, complete with Madison Avenue advertisers, vocal crowds of up to 3,500, and for the first time, last Saturday night, live television coverage.

That’s right, sandwiched between the Discount Tire Stores and Stroh’s spots on Prime Ticket Network were close-ups and Slo-mo replays of six men on horseback thundering down a field in Griffith Park, smacking a Nerf-like ball.

Four years after this grandiose experiment began, the question has to be asked: Has arena polo at last attracted enough ordinary beer drinkers to be considered a legitimate spectator sport?

For now, that will be answered by the people at Prime Ticket, who are also committed to televising Saturday’s game between the L.A. Colts and the Houston Longhorns, then will make a longer-term decision. And television, with its wonderful advertising dollar, is the catalyst, says Tom Goodspeed, a player for the Colts and general manager at the L.A. Equestrian Center, where the matches are held.

“If it doesn’t happen in the next five years, or doesn’t give a strong indication that it will happen in the next five years, it probably never will happen because it’s being showcased now,” he said.

Ah, but if it goes, Goodspeed sees no reason why it won’t become bigger and more popular than its parent, the outdoor game. Like spaghetti, polo originated in the Orient, but nobody said either had to stay there.

Goodspeed predicts a similar fate for his arena game, saying it will shed its haughty beginnings and eventually grow into a national league of teams made up of the best polo players in the world.

“It’s growing out of that elitism-type of bubble, and bursting to the people as a sport for all,” Goodspeed said.

Look around the 3,500-seat Griffith Park Equidome, where the league plays all its games. There are, of course, champagne-toting waiters, name-plated boxes for William Devane and Alex Cord, and enough double-breasted suits to fill the December issue of Gentlemen’s Quarterly. Sly Stallone and wife Brigitte Nielsen watch from their first-row, mid-field seats.

Ten rows above them, however, in the $8 terrace seats where the majority of the crowd sits, people wear denim, eat popcorn and sausages and drink Pepsi from cans. They also are considerably louder than the elegant segment.

Though the celebrities and their box seats initially supported the league, the style and rules of the arena game were designed for the common man.

Played on a dirt field 100 yards long and 50 feet wide, and bordered by a 4-foot-high concrete wall, arena polo seems like a derivative of indoor soccer. Three men on each team--one less than in the outdoor game--rumble to and fro, thwacking a rubber ball at a furious pace, often into the audience. Strung together are six five-minute periods, with no halftime.

The drawbacks of outdoor polo, according to Goodspeed, are that the field is 300 yards long and 200 yards wide, and that the action is hard to follow for the spectator and the television camera. It becomes more of a social event.

“Even though it’s a very challenging game, and for an educated spectator an interesting game, it’s way out there,” he said. “You’re separated from it. You need binoculars and earphones to be a part of it.”

So why doesn’t someone just shorten the outdoor field? Someone did: William T. (Wild Bill) Ylvisaker, founder and chairman of the National Polo League, which plays all its matches in Palm Beach, Fla.

In January, Ylvisaker had the insolence to reduce the sport and field of kings from four to three players and from 300 to 180 yards. Substitutions during the game were also allowed, and to prevent waning interest, play was reduced from six to four six-minute chukkers.

A bastardization of the sport? Crowds of 6,000 didn’t think so, paying as little as $4 each Sunday for seven weeks to watch the players, among them all four of the world’s 10-goalers, the highest-rank in polo.

Ylvisaker, too, aims to attract the television dollar, and eventually wants to expand his outdoor league to Chicago, St. Louis, Boston, and Los Angeles.

Nevertheless, there are those who suggest that it will be arena polo that survives.

“The only way polo is going to work is indoors,” said Mike Carny, an outdoor professional who also plays for the APL’s Cincinnati Centurians. He freely admits that his first love is outdoor polo but said: “Outdoors it’s too hard to understand the speed, and it’s hard to film.

“(Indoors) is like basketball--it’s spontaneous. It’s a free for all. It has a chance to make it in the commercial arena. . . . This is what I think America is--horses slamming into horses and people yelling.”

What is preventing arena polo from becoming the latest of America’s games is America’s bottom line. Promoters of the APL can afford to pay players only $1,000 a game. Multiply that by 20 games, and that’s what the Colts get paid.

And because the Griffith Park Equidome is the only arena in the 12-team league, visiting teams play only once a year, against the Colts. Either way, a player can’t make a living solely from arena polo, so nearly all of the world’s best players spurn the game.