The Indoor Football League is set to add multiple teams in 2027 and beyond. Let’s take a look at the rumors, the hints, and the confirmed expansion teams so far. Regardless, it looks like the rest of this season will be very interesting to follow along with for more concrete details on all these markets.
This article will be broken up into two sections:
Teams, we know something about;
Athens, Georgia, and San Jose, California (Bay Area return?)
Teams, we do not know anything about them yet.
Austin, Texas, and New Jersey
Table of Contents
Let’s Get Into It
First, let’s start with the clip that sparked this article and added to the two markets that had been mentioned already.
https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/david-pollack-brian-jordan-jerome-190444520.html
Back to the Bay?
Recently, three separate websites have published articles touching on a return to San Jose, or, in one case, mentioning the Bay Area Panthers by name. So far, no one from the league has come out and said this information is false, and there is reason to believe there may be some truth to it. Not the least of which is that Yahoo Sports, one of the broadcast partners for the IFL in 2026, is among the websites that mentioned a return to San Jose.
Some believe this is a product of web scraping; others believe this is insider info being intentionally leaked to drum up conversations like these about the league’s growth. We will let you decide when we lay out the facts of the decision to let the Bay Area go dormant, where some of their equipment has gone, and the status of some other key factors.
Obstacles to Overcome
Now let’s touch on a couple of things that we need to get out of the way immediately. First of all, if this is a return to San Jose, the first name that comes to mind for any arena or indoor football fan is, of course, the San Jose Sabercats, the longtime AFL team.
The issue is that the trademark is currently held by the scam that is the National Gridiron League; however, it is described as trademarked for use in running youth football training camps. There is also another trademark still active.
San Jose Sabercats EST 1995, which had been owned by Fry’s Electronics. It was transferred to The Law L.P. in March of 2023. This appears to be primarily for the sale of merchandise. Given that both of these trademarks are active, it could cause issues without some creative wordplay or the purchase of the rights. San Jose SaberCats Indoor Football is just one of the ways we could see the league get creative.
Now, if the league is bringing back some version of the Bay Area Panthers, there are some interesting things to note here. First of all, it is believed that the Panthers sold their turf to the Pueblo Punishers at some point and would need to purchase new turf in the event of a return. Obviously, this is far from an insurmountable task, and could have been by design.
If this one year of dormancy was due to something like an ownership change OR a rebrand, it would make sense that the team would go ahead and purchase new turf and avoid having to rebrand its used turf that will, by IFL standards, likely need to be replaced in the next few seasons anyway.
That is not all, the trademark for the Bay Area Panthers has been abandoned and has been for a long while. Although when filed, it was owned by Oakland Panthers Inc, which, in case you are wondering, is trademarked and is active. The Oakland Panthers trademark was up for renewal in August of 2025 and the company was sent a reminder of such, but it shows no record of being renewed. It goes on to say that for an extra fee the company could still file all the way up until Februrary of 2027, a convieient date for a team that could be looking to make a return for the 2027 season set to kick off in March.
California Presents One of the Most Expensive Markets to Operate in
With all that information out of the way, we can look at the realities of putting a team back in California. California may be one of the highest-cost states to operate in for indoor football. In this realm, there are three main factors that cause higher costs for a team: housing/venue rent, travel, and workman’s comp. California is like a triple threat when it comes to these costs. Housing is expensive, most venues are expensive, travel is pricey because California is huge and only one other IFL team is there, and last but not least, workman’s comp is crazy expensive.
Prior to the Bay Area going dormant, they also had one of the highest payrolls in the league. From the coaching staff having Rob Keefe, Les Moss, and Rod Windsor in 2025, to Rob Keefe and Dixie Wooten in 2024, along with Darren Arbet for part of 2023. That payroll cost didn’t stop at the coaching staff, with the Bay Area employing a rather large front office and having one of the highest roster payrolls in the league.
If the Panthers return, do we see a reset in this approach in the future, and if not, can we count on the Panthers or whoever the new team is, being there long term?
Venues in San Jose
There are three main viable venues in San Jose, California, that could feasibly house a new indoor football team. Let’s start with the most obvious: the venue previously used by the Panthers and Sabercats is the SAP Center. SAP Center is a 10,000+ seat arena that also plays host to the San Jose Sharks of the NHL, PWHL San Jose, and will host the CrossFit Games in 2026. It is still listed as the home for the Bay Area Panthers currently as well.
As we know, this was not initially going to be the home for the Panthers as they initially launched for the 2020 season, only for COVID to shut down the league, and they ultimately would not kick off until 2022. During this run-up to their first season, they had been known as the Oakland Panthers, but never ended up playing a game there before moving to San Jose for the 2022 season, where they remained the entire life of the team.
The next venue that would be feasible, but likely the last choice for any prospective IFL team, is Tech CU Arena. This venue opened in 2022 and has only played host to the San Jose Barracuda of the American Hockey League, an affiliate of the San Jose Sharks, who own the arena. Here are a few reasons this arena may be one of the more attractive options to an IFL team.
Availability: Currently, the only full-time resident of the arena is the Barracudas, meaning the venue is likely looking for tenants. There is a saying in indoor football, if the venue wants you there, you will likely find success. This could be one of those situations where the venue would likely make a great deal for a team coming in and promising to fill as many as 8 home games each season, and as many as 10-11 games as well as a potential to eventually bid on the IFL Cup or IFL Championship games.
In terms of amenities, this venue is almost like the American Dream mall in the sense that it is in the same vicinity as restaurants, recreational ice skating rinks, and other businesses that would not only draw people in but also keep fans near the arena and coming back due to the entertainment options around the venue.
I have purposely avoided the main reasons this venue would be a tough sell in the IFL. Size is the first and foremost reason for this venue being the last resort. Even though it will be just 5 years old in 2027, it holds just 4,200 fans for hockey events. If memory serves, this would be the smallest arena in the current version of the IFL, and given the way the league has progressed over the last 5 years, I am not sure they would want this venue in their league.
The second reason this venue could be tough is the video screen that seems to hang low and is in the center of the playing surface. This would not be the only venue that has difficulties due to video boards, but this one may prove to be more of an issue than some other venues with higher roof lines. Regardless of whether you are looking for cost-effective venues, the Tech CU Arena could actually be the easiest path to profit on gameday for this ownership group. The age of the arena is also desirable as it is very modern, and already hosts a team that has been in place for years.
One thing to consider is that this could be a home for a team for many years to come without needing to continue to find new venues. The San Diego Strikeforce moved to Front Wave Arena in 2025, a 5,500-seat arena that allowed them to sign a three-year lease. This would be ideal for this new team, even if the long-term plan was to get the team launched, make sure it is stable, and eventually relocate to another arena in San Jose with a higher capacity.
Austin, Texas
“We’re keeping it weird and heading to Austin, Texas.” Expanding to Austin, Texas, in 2027 is a big move for the IFL, and one of the reasons is exactly what Widman alluded to. Texas is a big state for one team, adding another gives San Antonio a regional rivalry, and reduces travel for at least a couple of games each season.
The new Austin IFL franchise will be owned by Vivi Lin, who previously served as a Team President and Owner for the San Diego Strike Force. She also happened to be instrumental in the launching of Frontwave Arena, where the Strike Force plays. She also wrote a very interesting article about the opportunity for sports in Austin, Texas, specifically Football.
Her main venture currently is with Draft Sports and Entertainment. This should pique curiosity for fans, as one of their mission statements includes: “redefines what it means to be a stakeholder in the entertainment industry. Our proprietary platform takes passive fans and turns them into authenticated participants through the stakeholder framework that unlocks access, resale rights, and real-world rewards via blockchain, NFC, and secure marketplace infrastructure.”
Could we see a franchise in the IFL follow the Green Bay Packers ownership model by utilizing the Draft as the centerpiece? The Packers have rules in place preventing a majority ownership, but could we see a different approach with Draft retaining 51% of the rights and selling off 49% to fans like you and me as our way into ownership?
Some IFL fans will remember this is not the first time an IFL franchise has done something outside the box to draw fans in. Project Franchise and the Utah Screaming Eagles had a unique approach, but it was not quite the same as what could transpire in Austin.
Draft could also end up being the team name if you look at Lin’s profile on Facebook, her cover photo says ATX Draft, then her bio reads: Team Owner – Pro Football ATX Draft. This would certainly lean even further into the idea that Draft Sports & Entertainment will be a focal point of this new team and could even be a peek into the next era of professional sports franchise ownership.
Venue Options
The good news for the newest IFL ownership group is the fact that the Dallas Stars had incredibly deep ties to the Frisco Fighters organization, including running the sales and marketing for the team. The Stars happen to own one of two main venues found in Austin, the H-E-B Center. This happens to be a venue Lin mentioned herself in her aforementioned article, and should be considered the favorite for a landing spot.
If they utilize the venue where the Texas Stars play, the H-E-B Center, it seats 6,778 fans for hockey arrangements. The arena has actually hosted indoor football in the recent past as well. In 2022, the H-E-B Center hosted the Championship game for the X-League, a women’s indoor football league. H-E-B Center is home to many sports teams, which could cause some challenges when scheduling. The previously mentioned Texas Stars, and an NBA G-League team called the Austin Spurs.
One challenge with this arena is the scheduling of major rodeo events; they host Rodeo Austin for two weeks straight in early March. However, it would be fairly easy to simply schedule a two-game road trip during these two weeks if there is any overlap at all; in 2026, only four teams played a game before March 21st. Have them start with the bulk of the teams, and have their home opener in week two: problem solved.
Many will wonder if the venue once used by the Austin Wranglers of the AFL/AF2 is still available, but it was demolished in 2024.
The IFL previously had a team in Austin back in 2010 that played at Luedecke Arena, a 6,400-seat arena built in 1983 that has held four separate indoor or arena football teams from 1999 to 2019. This arena seats 6,400 fans, but is dated and is likely the second choice for the Austin ownership.
If you’re a fan of the IFL, the expansion buzz has been hard to miss, with two official announcements(and one unofficial), including one for Athens. This one has been out for some weeks now, but the impact another southern team will have on the IFL is invaluable when you really break it down.
It creates a southern pocket of fairly regional teams between Orlando, Athens, and Jacksonville. The three will be no more than 7 hours apart. This pocket gives the IFL the ability to schedule in a way that keeps costs down and makes scheduling simple; if all play each other twice, and not three times, if needed. Considering the vague news from the Austin announcement at the IFL Cup, we may finally be breaking into the East Coast.
Athens, GA
Co-Written by Matt Ryzir
Ownership at any level of sports is pivotal; this is especially true in indoor football. Solid ownership can be the difference between a one-and-done franchise and a run, as we saw out of Sioux Falls. As of recent, this has been a strong suit of the IFL. Well-vetted, well-funded ownership that is aware of all the challenges that come with owning an indoor football team.
This seems to be more of the same, and we won’t be surprised if the rollout is on par with that of Fishers and no less than New Mexico. Huge names in the region, more specifically Athens itself, headline the ten-person (according to rowdysports.tv) ownership group.
Names like Jerome Bettis, an NFL Great and Hall of Famer, and Brian Jordan, who played both Professional Football and baseball in Georgia. If that isn’t enough, David Pollock, a former ESPN analyst and 3 Time All American for the Georgia Bulldogs, is also part of the group.
Anther influential owner is Mike Sammond, Sammond is no stranger to minor leagues having been a part of the Greensboro Hornets (baseball), Atlanta Knights (hockey), Birmingham Bulls (hockey), Birmingham Steel Dogs (football), and Columbus War Dogs (football), to say he understands what he is getting into is an understatement. He also happens to have been involved with the Olympics broadcast team very nearly overlapping with IFL President Jared Widman in their affiliation with the Olympics.
While we don’t know much about the others, these three are just as much of a draw to other sports fans as they are to owners. Bettis and Pollack do a lot to pull in your casual NFL and College Football fans, while Jordan gives all sports fans in the state a reason to pay attention.
Akins Ford Arena
Unbelievably, this venue has never hosted arena or indoor football previously. There was an attempt to bring Arena-style ball in 2018, but plans fell through and ultimately never materialized.
Akins Ford Arena is already primed for the sport. Though you may hear fans question the placement, you have to take a deeper look into what already exists. The venue, as it stands, hosts the Athens Rock Lobsters of the SPHL and a variety of events in a busy college city. Like so many other IFL franchises and indoor teams in general l, playing in a hockey-ready arena lends itself to a ton of advantages.
The arena seats just north of 8,000, making it the perfect, in our opinion, size for the IFL. The stands will have a much fuller look if they can manage to be in the top half in attendance, which matters more than ever with the IFL airing on Yahoo Sports Network. Not only that, you don’t have the headaches and low volume feel you get out of the Orlando Pirates, a franchise that could have a crowd of 6000+ and still feel empty.
Market
This is the only spot that is really questionable. While it is a college town, the IFL season ends well past the end of the Spring Semester. Arena and Indoor football playing in college towns is nothing new, but you have to wonder if a metro arena under 250,000 can support a team long term. While the college aspect is an advantage and a disadvantage, it can also play a huge factor in staffing for the front office and non-player personnel. You have built in extremely local college students always looking for internships.
There is no doubt going to be a pool of able-bodied, qualified college-age locals willing to jump on the opportunity. We have seen it work as recently as this season with the Kentucky Barrels, whose ownership even pointed this out during offseason interviews before utilizing it. If we had our pick, this wouldn’t have been our very first choice, but it also wouldn’t have been too far down on the list. If the marketing, branding, and product, in general, are done right there is no reason this team can’t thrive.
New Jersey
Co-Written by Matt Ryzir
While this one isn’t official, we have a feeling it may be sooner rather than later. Jared Widman, just before the IFL Cup Championship game, dropped news of Austin. What followed was a hard hint at another team coming to New Jersey, even going as far as to say “in the same parking lot”. While it was very vague and left many of us clamouring at the what, who, and how, it did give us just enough information to make informed inferences as to what could be coming.
Possible Venues
The Rink at American Dream
Of the two options, the American Dream was just used as the site for the four IFL Cup games. As we have seen, indoor football is more than possible at the venue. Having a team in the mall would boost foot traffic, something every mall has struggled with for the better part of a decade. The chore of finding vendors and opening up an entire arena is all but nonexistent, outside of the obvious seating issues it presents.
T.J. Bartholomew
We are fairly certain that if they were to take this route, additional and reworked seating arrangements would be in the works. It’s not too far-fetched to think the American Dream is sustainable for eight to ten home games in a season. There is also the added benefit that for much of the season, the mall would likely allow the team to leave the field installed serving as a form of advertising for the league.
Meadowlands Arena
While this venue has no major tenant and acts as more of a rehearsal hall as of late, it is still very possible to see it re-emerge in the sports world as the home of an IFL franchise. According to various social media posts within the last year, it would need a slight amount of work to be Indoor War-ready, including a little rearranging, signage pulled down, and a bit of updating.
It breaks even on current ventures, and an 8-10 event tenant could possibly push back in the other direction financially. Considering the lack of stable tenants, it may also come at a bit of a discount compared to various arenas we already see in the league. Solely based on the comments at the IFL Cup, we are leaning this way.
Ownership
If the potential team goes to the Meadowlands Arena, ownership would be wide open. If it goes to the American Dream, we are inclined to think it would be owned by the Ghermezian family, not directly, but through Triple Five Group, which owns the mall. In this case, arena rent isn’t a factor, considering the mall essentially owns the team. An interesting note: if the Ghermezian family is involved in the ownership, they are known for developing multiple “super malls” across the United States, and in Canada.
This includes: The Mall of America, American Dream Miami, and West Edmonton Mall. Why is this an interesting fact? West Edmonton Mall has an NHL sized ice rink on site, American Dream Miami is proposed to have a similar setup when built, with the Mall of America the outlier here. Now we are not suggesting that this could turn into even more teams, but would it be completely unheard of to see a team split it’s home games between two venues?
As previously mentioned, adding a team would help drive the foot traffic that any mall thrives on. The measurements of profitability and sustainability wouldn’t only be judged on the amount of tickets sold or merchandise bought, but also the increase in volume to the mall and the increased sales seen by vendors close by. The partnership could propel both, but we will have to see where this one goes.
Market
It has been over two decades since Meadowlands Arena has had fifty-yard football in any capacity. There have been several attempts to bring the sport back, but none have been attached to a league that was sustainable. The hunger for sports is relatively unknown, but if the excitement over lower-budget teams coming into town is any indicator, it could be wildly successful.
The last major indoor or arena team to call Meadow Lakes arena, now the NJ Reddogs, drew an average attendance of over 7,000. While we are two eras of the game removed from that feat, we don’t see why it can’t be repeated.
Considering the Metro it is in, even limited marketing could draw in huge crowds, the same crowds that used to be drawn in by the NBA and NHL. This region is going to care about quality. If you slap together an operation that is reminiscent of the NY Streets, the locals are going to find it hard to care. On the same token, if you can come out and function and appear similar to teams like Vegas and Tulsa, it would be a major tipping point in the right direction.
No matter who you root for, the Indoor Football League expanding fully into the East Coast is huge. Both have their own pros and cons, but both show a lot of promise, one for location, the other for league-long-term stability. It makes it the only league to play fifty yards inside of an arena to truly be coast-to-coast. It goes without saying that both of these moves show just how far the IFL has come.
Long Term Outlook
The Indoor Football League appears to be slowly re-adjusting the ownership groups they accept when it comes to expansion. They have over time developed into the only indoor football league that can claim any semblance of stability from year to year.
While they have lost franchises, over the past 5 seasons none have happened during the season, and some of these markets have gone on to return to the league; New Mexico in 2026, and it appears Bay Area could return in 2027. What we did not touch on in this article is the ever-present fact that while the IFL is adding franchises, there is the ever-present fact that indoor football is an incredibly difficult sport to sustain franchises in long term.
While there are potentially four teams joining, or re-joining the league in 2027, there is inevitably going to be at least one team that opts to call it quits, or moves on to a more cost effective league. With franchises like the Iowa Barnstormers, and the Northern Arizona Wranglers struggling to compete against ownership groups with larger budgets, and often times much better amenities, do they ever look to other alternatives or do they fade away into the sunset among many others?
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