Southern Colorado is about to get a reintroduction to indoor football in 2026. Recently, it was announced, via an interview with Kix 107.5, that Lisa Rohrich is launching the Pueblo Punishers. Bringing indoor football back to Pueblo a decade after its last professional team departed. Much has changed in the landscape of professional indoor football, and the city of Pueblo to help set the Punishers up for early and sustained success. Let’s take a look at the foundation the Punishers have built in a short time leading up to their inaugural season.
Table of Contents
Full Pueblo Punishers Interview
Who is Lisa Rohrich, Owner/CEO of the Pueblo Punishers?
Many new fans may be asking who Lisa Rohrich is and how have we arrived at her owning a professional football team in Pueblo, Colorado, in 2026? Lisa becoming an owner is a product of her hard-work and passion for the sport. It is a journey that led her to multiple locations over the last few seasons as she oversaw multiple aspects of the business while holding a variety of roles with the Gillette (Wyoming) Mustangs, Billings Outlaws, and Colorado Spartans.
Her titles since 2021 have included General Manager, and CEO as she made her bones working with one of the more successful owners in indoor or arena football, Steven Titus. She also got first hand experience launching not one but two expansion franchises during her time with the Wyoming Mustangs, and Colorado Spartans. She may be one of the most qualified first-time team owners we have seen launch an expansion team in a long time.
What could make the Pueblo fan base happy to hear, is two of these three teams are still in operation today, and the third was shuttered not because of financial or infastructure related issues, but due to a change in leagues. Steven Titus opted to move to the AFL following the 2023 season, and in that move the league granted entrance to Billings, but denied entrance to Gilette. The thought process at the time was that the arena the Mustangs played in, the Camplex, simply was not what the AFL was looking for. In hindsight, the Mustangs would have been much more presentable than some of what the 2024 AFL put on the field.
Lisa has been described by former colleagues as passionate, intelligent, and instrumental to the teams she worked with in the past. By the players and coaches who know her, she is described as kind-hearted and caring. One sentiment is echoed by all parties: she is the exact type of person fans should want running a team. The market of Pueblo looks to be in capable hands with Lisa at the helm of the Punishers.
Market of Pueblo
The Pueblo Punishers will play in Southwest Motors Arena, located in downtown Pueblo, Colorado. This arena was also supposed to be the home for the previously mentioned Steel City Menace, but the contract fell through, and the team wound up playing two away games before folding entirely. This arena is uniquely set up to help build a fan base in year one for the Punishers.
The Arena is located at the Colorado State Fairground, where there are year-round events that the team could attend in an effort to get in front of local fans, and those traveling into Pueblo for larger events. Word of mouth advertising year-round at the venue you plan to play at could be a very effective way of building a dedicated local fan base.
Growing Market
Pueblo is an up-and-coming city in Colorado. Over the past ten years, the population has ballooned in Denver, making the cost of living outrageous and pushing more and more people into cities like Loveland, Thornton, Colorado Springs, and Pueblo. Pueblo is, however, still cost-effective enough that housing should not be as cost-prohibitive as that of their neighbors, the Spartans, who are playing in Denver. The median property value in 2023 in Denver: $586,700, Pueblo $271,800. That gap has likely closed in the last two years given that Denver is hitting something of a plateau, while Pueblo is still seeing growth.
The population increase in Pueblo has not been anywhere near the rise that neighboring cities like Colorado Springs have seen…yet. The trends show that the increase in Pueblo has steadily climbed over time. Looking closer at the data for Pueblo, you can see that the median household income and employed population both rose, while the poverty rate fell nearly 8% in one year. Not only is Pueblo’s population growing, but its economy is also growing fairly favorably.
The largest factor in making the use of the Southwest Motors Arena a smart decision is the extremely team-friendly cost to rent the venue. The Pueblo Punishers could truly have one of the cheapest arena rental rates in all of indoor football. Looking at the rental rates for the facility, it appears the arena can be rented for $3,500 per day, or the team could opt to set aside time the day before games for setup for the cost of about $5,000 per event.
With a capacity of 5,300 fans for hockey-based arrangements, the Pueblo Punishers could lean into this relatively low-cost arena, and do their best to increase attendance by providing fan-friendly ticket prices in 2026. This could be another ingredient in the recipe for building a dedicated fan base early in the Punisher’s life as a franchise.
Leaning Into Local Partnerships
Partnering with schools and organizations in Pueblo to provide discount rates on tickets for their members is another way the Pueblo Punishers can grow their fan base early and quickly. I have more than a few ideas on how the Punishers could pack the house and prove Pueblo deserves to host a professional football team. Perhaps offering a blanket discount to any student or teacher who attends a school in Pueblo.
One thing I would love to see from sports teams is leaning into families and youth sports in the area as well. How about a family four-pack setup where a family can get 4 tickets, 4 drinks, 4 hot dogs, and 4 sides for under $100? Offering free tickets to kids in local youth football organizations is a sneaky way of allowing kids to talk their parents into taking them to a game as well.
If the Punishers are smart, they will do their best to reel in some big fish from CSU-Pueblo. Bringing in players with name value locally could prove to be a powerful method to get fans interested sooner rather than later as well. Players like Hunter Raquet, Trey Botts, maybe even Howard Russell V, who just rushed for over 1,000 yards in 2024. The names they could revisit would be endless. Recruiting players with ties to this school or high schools in the area should be high on the priority list for the Punishers.
Corporate Sponsors
The Punishers hit the ground running immediately, and before they even announced publicly which league they would be playing in, they had secured multiple partners for the 2026 season, including American Family Insurance, Secom (a fiber internet company), Cimarron Glass, and Hernandez Concrete.
Hopefully, this is just a quick start to what ends up being a robust list of partnerships that can help make the Pueblo Punishers a mainstay in Southern Colorado for many years to come.
If your business has any interest in sponsoring the team contact them at: Team@PuebloPunishers.com.
Playing Partners
Choosing the right market, and getting the fans to support your brand new team early are just two pieces of the larger puzzle of success for indoor football teams. Another factor that has to be considered, and one that can often spell doom for teams, is their playing partners, and the travel related to these teams.
Technically the Punishers have yet to announce which league they will play in and depending where you look on google, it is said they are joining the Colorado Minor League of Football, which is simply not true. Looking at the logistics of owning a professional football team in Pueblo, Colorado, the most logical choice, and the one that was teased by the Punishers’ brass on the interview, is of course the National Arena League.
Being that the only current professional arena football team in Colorado is currently a part of the National Arena League, it is a virtual no-brainer to join this league. If you listen closely to the interview Lisa mentions the league they will be joining just completed their championship, this interview was recorded on June 18th. The NAL Championship game was played just two days before on June 16th.
Looking at this map you can see why the Punishers would wisely choose to play in the NAL. Not only are they the only league that features another team in Colorado, but they also offer regional playing partners in Omaha, Sioux City, and Amarillo. The goal is for as many of these trips as possible to be drivable by bus. As the league currently stands, Pueblo has 6 teams within 13 hours of them. It likely would not be fun, but even the trips to Wheeling and Columbus could be bussed, Wheeling drove to Denver during the 2025 season.
Drive Times to Teams in the League
- Pueblo to Denver 2 hours
- Pueblo to Amarillo 4 hours 45 minutes
- Pueblo to Omaha 8 hours 55 minutes
- Pueblo to Sioux City 10 hours 4 minutes
- Pueblo to Shreveport 12 hours 25 minutes
- Pueblo to Idaho 12 hours 55 minutes
- Pueblo to Wheeling 19 hours 45 minutes
- Pueblo to Columbus 20 hours 33 minutes
Rumor Mill
Corralling Kansas
Looking at that map you can see some cities labeled with a question mark. The reason for these question marks are simple. With the addition of Pueblo, and Amarillo, the NAL has suddenly become that much more attractive to teams like Southwest Kansas, and Salina who previously played with the Omaha Beef, and Sioux City Bandits in the Champions Indoor Football League for years up until 2023. I don’t believe the league would ever admit they are trying to “woo” any teams, but adding markets that could make for some tough decisions for desirable teams and ownership groups is certainly on the agenda.
Eastern Expansion or Making Moves in the Mid-West?
The flip side is there have been rumors that the Wheeling Miners, and Columbus Lions are both weighing their options to move to a different league. This comes mostly due to the travel they have been tasked with. They are clearly the outliers on the map above, and outside of adding Carolina, and finding one or more other teams to repopulate the eastern side of the map, the travel certainly is not friendly for either team.
If one or both of these teams move on to a new league, that almost certainly kills the potential of a Cobras return for the same reason, except to more of an extreme. Carolina is even further east, and without the potential of trips to Wheeling, and Columbus to make their travel somewhat stomachable, they would be signing up for death by distance. A fate that is all too familiar in indoor football.
With all of these factors considered, a perfect world for the Pueblo Punishers might be an NAL that adds the Storm and Liberty from the AF1 giving them two more playing partners within 8 hours of them, while removing the Miners, Cobras, and Lions and keeping the entire league within 13 hours of driving for Pueblo.
Cutting travel costs, coupled with a cost effective arena arrangement, and growing base of sponsors long before the season kicks off looks to be a very sound setup as everything stands now. Worst case scenario, there are some longer trips to Columbus, and Wheeling and the league keeps two of the more stable and well run franchises in all of indoor football, best case scenario the NAL and AF1 play a game of red rover, and the NAL sends Wheeling and Columbus in exchange for Salina and Southwest Kansas. “Red Rover, Red Rover…send Southwest Kansas over…”
Duke City Gladiators
There is at least one more team that could potentially have to strongly consider joining this version of the NAL either now or in the future, the Duke City Gladiators. Having gone dormant after the 2024 season, Duke City has been sold which could have eliminated most of the previously held ties to the original CIF teams. However, New Mexico could see a scenario where the travel to cities like Amarillo, Pueblo, Denver, Dodge City, Salina, Omaha, and Sioux City is better than some of what they would be asked to do in the IFL, and add the benefit of reigniting old rivalries. This would make for another playing partner less than 5 hours away from Pueblo.
Going Going Back Back to NAL NAL
Another caveat to this offseason has been the announcement by the Beaumont Renegades that they will be pursuing a move into the Indoor Football League. The IFL offers a longer season, and more home games which is reportedly part of their reasoning for the move. When speaking with members of the Renagades it is clear they are confident they will be admitted into the IFL, however this deal is not yet complete, and anything could still happen. This in theory includes a return to the NAL. Beaumont is a 14 hour and 10 minute drive from Pueblo.
Overall Outlook
Fans should be encouraged by the pieces the Pueblo Punishers already have in place but the importance of fan support should not be understated. The Punishers will live and die by their ability to capture the attention of the community in Pueblo. In a city of over 112,000 people and a reasonably priced 5,300 seat arena to fill, the Punishers have all the makings of a team that should be able to take advantage of a rather ripe market for the taking in southern Colorado.
Looking at other sporting events in the area, the Southwest Motors Event Center played host to the 4A High School basketball tournament and nearly sold out. The Pueblo Bulls routinely sell out their games at Pueblo Ice Arena and Events Center at 1,000 fans, the Punishers could be in store for some promising support from a community looking for something to call their own.
Follow the team on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/share/1BUBfg9Wf8/?mibextid=wwXIfr
Visit Their Website:
https://www.pueblopunishers.com
Sources:
Pueblo Punishers Facebook Page
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