Upcoming season or competition:![]() | |
![]() | |
Sport | Six-man arena football |
---|---|
Founded | 2023 |
First season | 2024 |
Commissioner | Tim Brown |
No. of teams | 4 (+2 planned) |
Country | United States |
Related competitions | AIF, AFL, IFL, NAL |
Official website | thearenaleague.football |
The Arena League (The AL or TAL) is a six-on-six indoor American football league in the United States. The league launched in 2024 with four teams.
The league was first announced in February 2023, with Pro Football Hall of Famer Tim Brown as TAL Commissioner. [1] The league then released a list of ten semi-finalist markets, which people could vote for the city to be a part of the inaugural season: Waterloo, Iowa; Kansas City, Missouri; Springfield, Missouri; Rochester, Minnesota; Little Rock, Arkansas; Rockford, Illinois; Dubuque, Iowa; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Duluth, Minnesota and Wichita Falls, Texas with fans casting their votes at TAL official website. [2]
The first city announced was Springfield [3] with Duluth being the second city. [4] Waterloo was announced on May 4 as the third team. [5] Kansas City was the fourth and final team announced for the inaugural 2024 season. [6] The league anticipates expanding in the forthcoming years, including adding two teams for the 2025 season, [7] with hope to expand to 12 teams by 2026. [8] In September The AL released the 2024 schedule. [9]
On October 19, 2023 the Waterloo Woo announced their owners and changed their team name to the Iowa Woo. [10]
On April 5, 2024, the league released a list of five markets, which people could vote via a poll on their website for the city to be an expansion franchise beginning in the 2025 season. The five markets included: Dallas, Texas; Eau Claire, Wisconsin; St. Joseph, Missouri; Hot Springs, Arkansas; and Rochester, Minnesota, which was a part of the inaugural season voting. On April 25, 2024, the league announced that Hot Springs would be the first expansion team and will begin play in 2025. [11] The league has also announced a second expansion team in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, to be branded the Eau Claire Jammers. [12]
The Arena League's rules aim to highlight the player's athleticism and increase the pace of play. The field will be traditional arena football size, measuring 50 yards long and 85 feet wide enclosed by padded walls. Teams will have 15-player rosters with the game being played with six offensive players against six defensive players. The league will follow a one-platoon system with offensive and defensive players playing both sides of the ball. There are no restrictions on defense. The play clock runs 20 seconds from the spotting of the ball, the same as the Canadian Football League. No offensive huddles are allowed unless a timeout is called.
As is the case with traditional six-man football as played at the high school level, all offensive players are eligible receivers with three players initially lined up in an offensive line position. The quarterback cannot run the ball past the line of scrimmage. The league uses the "double forward pass" rule, originating in the XFL, that allows two forward passes to be thrown on the same play so long as the second pass is from behind the line of scrimmage.
All players and coaches will communicate with helmet communication systems that fans will be able to listen to in real time. Kickoffs will be replaced with a quarterback throwoff, with an onside conversion option (akin to that seen in Fan Controlled Football and Alliance of American Football) available. All forms of kicking the ball are prohibited, including punts and field goals. [13]
There will only be one on-field official to mark and set the ball and make penalty announcements. There will be sky judges watching live video feeds to decide penalties in real time. [14] Coaches and fans will have access to the referee interactions. After each game, fans can give feedback on the referees performance.
Team | City | Stadium | Capacity | Joined | Head coach |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Duluth Harbor Monsters | Duluth, Minnesota | DECC Arena | 5,333 | 2024 | Tony O'Neil |
Iowa Woo | Waterloo, Iowa | The Hippodrome | 5,155 | 2024 | Mook Zimmerman |
Kansas City Goats | Kansas City, Missouri | Municipal Arena | 9,987 | 2024 | Dorsey Golston III |
Ozarks Lunkers | Springfield, Missouri | Wilson Logistics Arena | 4,500 | 2024 | Cam Bruffett |
Team | City | Stadium | Capacity | Founded | Joined | Head coach |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Hot Springs | Hot Springs, Arkansas | Bank OZK Arena | 6,050 | 2024 | 2025 | TBD |
Eau Claire Jammers | Eau Claire, Wisconsin | Sonnentag Event Center | 3,250 | 2024 | 2025 | TBD |
The inaugural season of The Arena League will have a nine-week regular season schedule with each team receiving one bye week with playoffs to follow. The season will run from June to August 2024. [15]
On April 6, 2024, the league announced that the championship game will be known as ArenaMania. [16]
Game | Date | Winning team | Losing team | MVP | Site | Attendance | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2024 | August 10, 2024 | TBD | TBD | TBD | Higher seed |
Team | TV Station(s) | Radio Station(s) | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
Duluth Harbor Monsters | Northland Fan 106.5 FM and 560AM [17] | ||
Eau Claire Jammers | |||
Hot Springs | |||
Iowa Woo | KCRG-TV [18] | [lower-alpha 1] | |
Kansas City Goats | |||
Ozarks Lunkers | KYTV [19] |
Former IFL Commissioner, Tommy Benizio, an advisor for the league and his corporation will operate and run the teams until, he hopes, business leaders in the community decide they want to be a part of it and own and operate a team. [20] The league would later announce owners for all four locations. [21] [22] [23] [10]
On December 4, 2023 former Dallas Desperados executive Ronnie Davis was appointed as Deputy Commissioner. [24]
J.R. Bond leads a small group financing the league; Bond is a political advisor in Kansas City and has served as owner of several professional sports teams including the Sioux City Bandits, Topeka Tropics, and Topeka Golden Giants. [25]
The Arena Football League (AFL) was a professional arena football league in the United States. It was founded in 1986, but played its first official games in the 1987 season, making it the third longest-running professional football league in North America after the Canadian Football League (CFL) and the National Football League (NFL) until the AFL closed in 2019.
The Georgia Force was the name of three separate versions of Arena Football League (AFL) teams based in the Atlanta Metropolitan Area of Georgia, United States.
The New Orleans VooDoo were a professional arena football team based in New Orleans, Louisiana. They were members of the Arena Football League from 2004 to 2015.
Arena football is a variety of eight-man indoor gridiron football. The game is played indoors on a smaller field than American or Canadian football, designed to fit in the same surface area as a standard North American ice hockey rink, resulting in a faster and higher-scoring game that can be played on the floors of indoor arenas. The sport was invented in 1981, and patented in 1987, by Jim Foster, a former executive of the National Football League and the United States Football League. The name is trademarked by Gridiron Enterprises and had a proprietary format until its patent expired in 2007.
The Springfield Cardinals are a Minor League Baseball team based in Springfield, Missouri. They compete as a member of the Texas League's North Division. The Cardinals began play in 2005. The team is owned by the 11-time Major League Baseball (MLB) World Champion St. Louis Cardinals, for which it has been the Double-A affiliate since its founding in 2005. Since its inception, the team's home venue has been Hammons Field.
The Northwoods League is a collegiate summer baseball wooden bat league. All players in the league must have NCAA eligibility remaining in order to participate. The league is amateur, and players are not paid, so as to maintain their college eligibility. Graduated senior pitchers are also eligible to play in the Northwoods League. Each team may have four of these players at a time.
KWWL is a television station licensed to Waterloo, Iowa, United States, serving as the NBC affiliate for Eastern Iowa. Owned by Allen Media Broadcasting, KWWL maintains studios on East 5th Street in Waterloo, with news bureaus and advertising sales offices in Cedar Rapids, Dubuque and Iowa City. The station's transmitter is located north of Rowley, Iowa, a city in Buchanan County.
The Port Huron Pirates were a professional indoor football team based in Port Huron, Michigan. The team was a charter member of the Great Lakes Indoor Football League (GLIFL) joining the league in 2006 as an expansion team. The Pirates were the first professional indoor football team to be based in Port Huron. They played their home games at McMorran Arena in Port Huron, Michigan.
Paul Burmeister Paul Burmeister is an American sportscaster with NBC Sports and NBC Olympics, working primarily as a play-by-play voice and studio host across a wide range of platforms. Prior to his arrival at NBC in 2014, he spent a decade at NFL Network as a studio host.
Chris Siegfried is an American football coach and administrator who is currently a free agent. He was previously the offensive coordinator of the Jacksonville Sharks (2010) and Kansas City Brigade (2007), teams in the Arena Football League, the head coach of the Spokane Shock (2006), the South Georgia Wildcats (2005), and the West Texas Desert Hawks (2024), and the Cape Fear Wildcats (2002–2004) and Arkansas Twisters of the af2. While at Spokane, he led the first-year expansion team to a 14–2 regular season record and the ArenaCup Championship.
The Minnesota–Wisconsin League, known as the "Minny" League, was a professional minor baseball league that existed from 1909 to 1912. It was a Class D league in 1909, 1910 and 1912 and a Class C league in 1911. As its name suggests, it featured teams based in the states of Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Champions Indoor Football (CIF) was a professional indoor American football minor league created in 2014 out of the merger between the Champions Professional Indoor Football League (CPIFL) and Lone Star Football League (LSFL), plus one team from the Indoor Football League and two expansion teams.
The Arena Football Hall of Fame is the official Hall of Fame of the Arena Football League (AFL). The inaugural class was announced in 1998 and the Hall was not formally organized until 2011. Prior to 2011, there were four classes: 1998–2000 and then another in 2002. The Arena Football Hall of Fame is the highest honor for players, coaches, and contributors involved in the AFL. The voting process consists of fans and current Hall of Fame members voting on the finalists. The finalists are selected by the League Office in which they collect ballots from the Arena Football Hall of Fame Advisory Board, a group which consisted of former players, executives, journalists and media personnel with a long-time involvement in the league. The league began to decline in 2015, so no Hall of Fame announcements have been made since this year. The league folded for a second time in 2019. After the league's second closure, ArenaFan, a long-running fan site, announced it had taken over operations of the Arena Football Hall of Fame.
The Duluth Harbor Monsters are an Arena football team based in Duluth, Minnesota. They were announced as one of the four inaugural teams of The Arena League on April 5, 2023. This is the second professional arena/indoor football team to the Duluth area, the first being the Duluth-Superior Lumberjacks of the IFL. The team plays their games at the DECC Arena.
Wilson Logistics Arena is a multipurpose arena in Springfield, Missouri located on the Ozark Empire Fairgrounds. The stadium opened on January 11, 2024. The stadium replaced the Corwin Auto Arena.
The Ozarks Lunkers are a professional indoor football team based in Springfield, Missouri. They are currently members of The Arena League (TAL). They will play their home games at Wilson Logistics Arena, a multipurpose arena built next to the Ozark Empire Fairgrounds.
The Kansas City Goats are a professional indoor football team based in Kansas City, Missouri in the United States. They are currently members of The Arena League (TAL). They will play their home games at Municipal Auditorium.
The 2024 Arena League season is the inaugural season of The Arena League (TAL). The regular season began on June 1, 2024, with the regular season scheduled to end on July 27, 2024.
Cameron W. Bruffett, is an American football coach. He is currently the head football coach for Parkview High School and the inaugural head coach of the Ozarks Lunkers of The Arena League (TAL), which began in 2024. Bruffett is also a former defensive back in the Arena Football League (AFL).
The Iowa Woo are a professional indoor football team based in Waterloo, Iowa. They are currently members of The Arena League (TAL). They play their home games at The Hippodrome at the National Cattle Congress.
{{cite news}}
: Check |url=
value (help)