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Here's the chance to make your gridiron fantasies a reality — or, at least, to line up against the best arenafootball2 has to offer.

The minds behind "The Arena Gridiron Challenge" have been traveling the Southern states since Tuesday, collecting footage for what they hope will become a blockbuster reality TV series.

Stops have been made in four cities, with the final sets of tryouts to be held in Florida. The whirlwind tour concludes as the crew visits Fort Lauderdale and Tampa on Monday and Tuesday, respectively, in search of players to form an af2 expansion team.

"We don't know the ending until we get to it," said George Caldwell, one of the show's creators, "but the idea is to come up with two teams of roughly 20 players."

Those two teams would then play each other, with the winner to join af2 next season. The expansion franchise would likely play in Jacksonville, which has applied for af2 membership in 2007.

Caldwell expects the project, which is privately funded, to reveal a different side of the game. Players in af2, the farm system for the Arena Football League, are far from the NFL limelight, rewarded no more than $250 for each game they play.

Caldwell visited Germain Arena on Saturday night to film the Florida Firecats and Louisville Fire, who met in a crucial American Conference contest carrying postseason implications.

"We're looking for lots of scoring, big hits and a raucous crowd," Caldwell said. "We've been through four cities in four days and have seen some very talented kids. With this week's game having a playoff atmosphere we felt it would provide the kind of excitement we're looking for in the show."

League president Jerry Kurz supports the project, he said, because it might reach an audience that has never heard of the league. The af2 is always looking for innovative ways to win new fans, so the idea of a TV series seemed appropriate.

"I think it could give us pretty good exposure," Kurz said, "and it's a good way to kick off the Jacksonville team. Everybody knows that reality shows are in. Sports is a common denominator. It's a great way to give publicity to a new af2 team."

The show's key workouts will take place in Lakeland, after the number of players has been trimmed to 72. It is then that a group of coaches — headlined by AFL legends Ron Meyer and Jay Gruden, who led Orlando to ArenaBowl XX this past season — will compile two teams to play in the big game at the end, with af2 contracts at stake.