National Indoor Football League

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National Indoor Football League
150px
National Indoor Football League logo
Sport Indoor football
Founded 2001
Ceased 2008
Country USA
Last champion(s) San Diego Shockwave
Official website http://www.niflfootball.com (Dead link)

The National Indoor Football League was a professional indoor football league in the United States. For their first six years, the league had teams in markets not covered by either the Arena Football League or its developmental league, af2, however, that changed briefly with their expansion into AFL markets such as Atlanta, Denver, and Los Angeles, and af2 markets such as Fort Myers and Houston.

History

The NIFL, based in Lafayette, Louisiana, was founded by Carolyn Shiver. The league started operations in 2001, with many teams coming from Indoor Football League being bought the previous year and folding operations. In 2002, the league added in the teams from the Indoor Professional Football League. 2003 was the most successful year for the league as 24 teams played a mostly complete schedule, with few cancellations.

Before the 2005 season, nine teams left the league to form United Indoor Football. That same year though, the Intense Football League ceased operations and four teams from there joined the league. Those teams however, left the league before the 2006 season started.

For the 2005 season, the NIFL had an agreement with NFL to handle referee assignment and training. The agreement was not renewed after the season was over.[1]

The 2006 season, was the most chaotic for the league to that point. Ten expansion teams were added to the league, but nine of them had problems that reflected badly on the league. The most notable situation was the owner of the Montgomery Maulers firing the entire team.[2] None of the ten expansion teams returned to the league for the next season.

The 2007 season started with several league-owned expansion teams added in, primarily to supplement games with the returning teams. However, the teams were all poorly funded and had problems. The San Diego Shockwave won the 2007 NIFL Championship.


Former teams

Teams that left the NIFL to join (or plan to join) another league

Defunct teams/failed expansion

Indoor Bowl games

Year Winner Loser Score
2001 Mississippi Fire Dogs Wyoming Cavalry 55–21
2002 Ohio Valley Greyhounds Billings Outlaws 55–52
2003 Ohio Valley Greyhounds Utah Warriors 45–37
2004 Lexington Horsemen Sioux Falls Storm 59–38
2005 Tri-Cities Fever Rome Renegades 47–31
2006 Billings Outlaws Fayetteville Guard 59–44
2007 San Diego Shockwave No Playoff

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ NIFL squad in Montgomery fired after salary dispute
  3. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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