The surviving eight teams from the 2024 Arena Football League season have now all left the AFL to officially form a new league called Arena Football One (AF1). This move came as Arena Insider reported a severing of ties between the team owners and AFL rightsholder G6 Sports over debt incurred during the AFL’s troubled relaunch.
Per the official league press release issued Friday, former AFL interim commissioner Jeff Fisher is now the full commissioner of the fledgling arena league while AFL general counsel Jerry Kurz transitions to become AF1’s new chief executive officer.
Longtime arena football fans may remember Arena Football One as the originally announced name for what eventually became the second version of the Arena Football League. Last year’s apparently now failed AFL was officially the third version of the league to launch and by far, the quickest to come undone.
AF1 will consist of at least eight teams including the 2024 AFL champion Billings Outlaws, the Albany Firebirds, Nashville Kats, Salina Liberty, Orlando Predators, Southwest Kansas Storm, Washington Wolfpack & Wichita Regulators with expansion expected before the 2025 start of play.