The Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Mavericks were a proposed professional arena football team based in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, founded in 2024 as an expansion team in Arena Football One. The team was to be owned by local businessman Matt Rowland, a college friend of the league's then-president Jared Widman. The Mavericks were to play their home games at the Mohegan Arena at Casey Plaza in Wilkes-Barre Township, Pennsylvania beginning in the 2025 season but, after Widman left Arena Football One, disbanded before playing.
The Mavericks are only the second arena football team to play in the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton region and the first since the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Pioneers of the original af2 that played from 2002 to 2009, playing in two ArenaCup title games losing to the Tulsa Talons in 2007 and the Spokane Shock in 2009.
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Fifteen years after the Pioneers played their final game in Wilkes-Barre, Arena Football One, (a reorganized offshoot of the failed second revival of the Arena Football League) granted an expansion franchise to local owner Matt Rowland, a graduate of Misericordia University, a private Catholic university in Dallas, Pennsylvania. In a press released posted by AF1, they were quoted as describing Rowland as an "extensive experience as an innovative boxing promoter and has several large boxing cards to his credit."[1][2] The team will play their home games starting in the 2025 season at the Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza in the Wilkes-Barre Township. League president Jared Widman was quoted to say, “The (Mohegan) Sun Arena has been wonderful to work with. Bringing arena football back to Wilkes-Barre, it is something that is exciting and the league is happy about.”[3] Rowland and Widman were college classmates at Misericordia and teammates on that school's lacrosse team.[4]
On November 21, Shawn Liotta was announced as the team's inaugural head coach.[5] Their first-ever signee is defensive back Ikenna Ahumibe.
On December 20, owner Matt Rowland announced the team would be known as the Mavericks and their colors would be red and Carolina blue, with the official logo to be revealed later in the day.[6]
AF1 announced on February 14, 2025, that the Mavericks were out of the league and would not play the 2025 season, with league CEO Jerry Kurz noting that the decision was " one of the hardest messages any organization has to deliver" and that it was necessary to "eliminate concerns" in the interest of the league's long-term stability.[7] Widman admitted that he had largely taken over efforts to save the franchise but ultimately determined that there was not enough sponsorship money or local interest to launch the team.[8] The team's closure also coincided with Widman leaving AF1.[8]
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