Arena Football One (2025)
Upcoming season or competition: 2025 Arena Football One season | |
 | |
| Sport | Arena football |
|---|---|
| Founded | September 5, 2024 |
| Founder | Arena Football One, LLC Steven Titus (chairman) |
| First season | 2025 |
| CEO | Jerry Kurz |
| President | Jared Widman |
| Commissioner | Jeff Fisher |
| No. of teams | 8 (as of September 5, 2024) |
| Country | United States |
| Headquarters | Nashville, Tennessee |
| Related competitions | AFL (2024), CIF |
Arena Football One is a future professional indoor football league based in Nashville, Tennessee, set to play in 2025. The league was founded by the eight teams who had survived the 2024 Arena Football League season, effectively serving as a reorganization of the 2024 revival of the Arena Football League.
History
[edit]
All eight of the inaugural teams in Arena Football One had played the 2024 season in the Arena Football League, which had been launched that year as a revival of two leagues bearing the Arena Football League name: the original that operated from 1987 to 2008, and the second—coincidentally also known as Arena Football 1 before acquiring rights to the AFL name prior to its first season—from 2010 to 2019. The 2024 AFL's lone season began with 16 teams, six of which had joined through a pre-launch merger with Champions Indoor Football. Within three weeks, five of the 16 teams had folded. After multiple complaints of promises that were left unfulfilled to teams, to players, and to G6 Sports and Entertainment (the holding company that had been licensing the league trademarks to the league), a hasty reorganization ousted founding commissioner Lee Hutton. With direct backing from G6, the remaining teams committed to finishing the 10-week season; three additional teams would fold over the course of the season, leaving eight by the end of the regular season. Jeff Fisher, who had originally joined the league as an advisor to the Nashville Kats, assumed the role of temporary commissioner for the remainder of the season.
Following ArenaBowl XXXIII, the surviving members of the AFL, including champions the Billings Outlaws, began hyping up "Arena Football is back" in various team social sites posing an image on September 4, 2024, saying, "A new era begins today." The next day it was announced that they would be playing in a newly-former league called Arena Football One, sharing the name with a working title used by the 2010s AFL before its launch. The trademark was filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office on September 1, 2024, by Outlaws owner Steven Titus dba Arena Football One, LLC, of Gillette, Wyoming.[1] (G6 Sports Group still owns the AFL logo and its intellectual properties, but not the team IP's.)
The new league will be a full separation from G6, as all eight teams leave the AFL and join AF1. In a statement to Arena Insider, G6 executive Chris Chetty noted that after the league had narrowly completed the 2024 season, it had been left with numerous unpaid debts that he, though he would maintain responsibility, had been advised not to immediately pay off, but that the team owners had stipulated the debts be paid as a condition for returning.[2]
On September 6, 2024, AF1 formally announced its launch with a press release and new social media feeds, confirming that the new league would carry over Jeff Fisher as commissioner (now on a permanent basis) and Jerry Kurz, the founding commissioner of the 2010s AFL and a veteran of the original league, as chief executive officer. In the statement, AF1 indicated that additional "expansion teams in emerging markets" would be among the teams to play the 2025 season.[3] Of those teams, the Arizona Bandits, a team that had previously been announced to be joining the AFL in 2025, released its own teaser at the same time as the eight inaugural teams.[4] In an interview with the Billings Gazette, Titus indicated that one of the expansion teams would be based in Mexico, and others would be in cities that had previously hosted arena football teams.[5]
Teams
[edit]| Team | Location | Arena | Capacity | Founded | Head coach |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Albany Firebirds[6] | Albany, New York | MVP Arena | 13,785 | 2023 | Damon Ware |
| Billings Outlaws | Billings, Montana | MetraPark First Interstate Arena | 8,700 | 2021 | Cedric Walker |
| Nashville Kats | Nashville, Tennessee | Nashville Municipal Auditorium | 8,000 | 1997 | Dean Cokinos |
| Orlando Predators | Orlando, Florida | Kia Center | 17,192 | 1991 | E. J. Burt |
| Salina Liberty | Salina, Kansas | Tony's Pizza Events Center | 7,583 | 2015 | Heron O'Neal |
| Southwest Kansas Storm | Dodge City, Kansas | United Wireless Arena | 5,300 | 2021 | Gary Thomas[7] |
| Washington Wolfpack | Everett, Washington | Angel of the Winds Arena | 8,149 | 2023 | J.R. Wells |
| Wichita Regulators | Park City, Kansas | Park City Arena | 5,000 | 2023 | Clinton Solomon |
Future teams
[edit]Teams that would've joined the previous AFL.
| Division | Team | Location | Arena | Capacity | Founded | Head coach |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 teams | Arizona Bandits | Phoenix, Arizona | TBD | TBD | 2023 | Darren Arbet |
| Chicago Rush | Chicago, Illinois | TBD | TBD | 2023 | TBD |
Map of teams
[edit]
References
[edit]- ^ Arena Football One Trademark filing, USPTO.gov, September 1, 2024
- ^ Carter, Anthony (2024-09-04). "All remaining teams separate from Arena Football League to form 'Arena Football One'". Arena Insider. Retrieved 2024-09-04.
- ^ AF1 Press Release, AFL X page, September 6, 2024
- ^ Social media post from the Arizona Bandits, via X, retrieved September 5, 2024
- ^ Letasky, John (2024-09-06). "Arena Football One forms including old AFL teams, including ArenaBowl champion Billings Outlaws". 406 MT SPORTS. Retrieved 2024-09-07.
- ^ Kelly, Michael (2024-09-06). "Albany Firebirds to join new Arena Football One league for 2025 season". Times Union. Retrieved 2024-09-06.
- ^ "Change of Leadership going into the '24 Season". Southwest Kansas Storm. July 26, 2023.