Football league team sidelined by high comp costs

North Dakota’s only Indoor Football League team will stay on the sidelines this year because of high workers compensation premiums, according to The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead.

The Bismarck Bucks team announced that it will forego playing this season because it can’t afford the premiums for medical coverage through the state’s comp program Workforce Safety & Insurance. The team intends to seek legislation allowing the team to opt out of mandatory coverage through the state’s monopoly workers comp program, according to the newspaper.

Workers comp costs for the 25-player team and its coaches and other staff exceeded the payroll costs for the entire operation, Derrick Bulawa, CEO of BEK Communications Cooperative, which owns the Bucks, told the newspaper.