Among them include the closures of multiple franchises, numerous cancellations of games, and the abrupt departure of the Philadelphia Soul players and staff, and the lack of payments handed out to most teams, resulting in questions about the league's future.
On January 16, 2023, after a month of the first tweet, the Twitter account posted a picture of the league’s 2003-18 logo, with the caption #NewProfilePic.
[6] On July 18, 2023, TMZ Sports initially reported that the AFL had selected the following cities that would be receiving new teams: Austin, Texas; Boise, Idaho; Bakersfield, California; Chicago, Illinois; Denver, Colorado; St. Paul, Minnesota; Lake Charles, Louisiana; Cincinnati, Ohio; Orlando, Florida; Salem, Oregon; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; St. Louis, Missouri; Tallahassee, Florida; Nashville, Tennessee; Everett, Washington; and Odessa, Texas.
[21] In late 2023, three supposed expansion teams were announced as the "California Grizzlies", "Minnesota Myth", and "St. Louis Rampage".
[25] Defector Media traced the California Grizzlies to Tim Carbajal, who operates a semi-pro spring football team in the area.
[34] On October 5, 2023, Hutton appeared with the owners of three remaining CIF teams—the ICT Regulators of the Wichita metropolitan area, Salina Liberty and Southwest Kansas Storm in Dodge City— and CIF commissioner Mike McCoy as they announced the remainder of that league was merging into the AFL, with McCoy being named AFL deputy commissioner three weeks later.
[37] On May 2, 2024, the Iowa Rampage announced it had folded after one game, citing multiple broken promises from league management to cover increased expenses.
[38] The Georgia Force abruptly folded a few days later[39] and on May 9, the Soul suspended operations for the remainder of the 2024 season with hopes of returning in 2025.
[41][42] In a press release, the Outlaws indicated that the league would contract to 10 teams for the remainder of the season: Washington, Billings, Rapid City, Southwest Kansas, Salina, West Texas, Wichita, Albany, Nashville, and Orlando, with the league remaining open to continue scheduling games with Oregon and "other teams not mentioned.
[44] The Cedar Rapids River Kings, recently severed from American Indoor Football due to owner misconduct, were added to the schedule as a non-league member for Week 5.
[49] The league confirmed that the Desert Hawks had withdrawn from their final game "for reasons that we will not disclose" on June 20 but that the team had not folded.
[50] Desert Hawks owner Zack Bugg folded the team officially on June 21, citing arena concessions money disputes,[51] lingering issues tied to Hutton's promises, and the alleged embezzlement of the money Bugg had fronted to NFL Network to televise a game that the network never televised.
In the semifinal round, July 13, 2024, the lowest-seeded winner of the first-round matchups will play the top seed, while the runner-up hosts the highest-seeded.
ArenaBowl XXXIII will be hosted at a neutral site, later revealed to be the American Dream Center in East Rutherford, New Jersey, on Friday, July 19, 2024.
[61] On June 12, 2024, alongside the postseason announcement, the Arena Football League also outlined the seeding procedures for this season:[54] The final standings for the 2024 season are as follows: The following teams achieved these results before their removal from the league, not including points scored: Because of multiple problems before this week, some schedule changes took place, including the awards of bye weeks to the Louisiana VooDoo and the Rapid City Marshals.
[45] Following the suspension of operations of the West Texas Desert Hawks, the Cedar Rapids River Kings once again stepped in to fill in as Salina Liberty's opponent this week.
On June 26, the league decided to cancel the majority of games this week and declare the remaining six teams in the playoffs.
[73] In week 3, Washington and Rapid City both renegotiated their player contracts to a "competitive indoor football salary".
[74][75][76] The higher salaries also reflected the expectation that most players other than quarterbacks would have been required to play both offense and defense, reimplementing the one-platoon system that the original AFL had used from its 1987 launch until 2007.
"[82] Oregon Blackbears president Patrick Johnson, who had opposed the television deal and expressed relief that it had been cancelled, described the agreement as predatory, in that NFL Network would keep a $430,000 annual brokered programming fee and would not allow the league to sell any advertising during the games, instead collecting all the advertising revenue for themselves on top of the fee.
Prior to the 2024 playoffs, the league announced a cable and satellite television deal with CBS Sports Network to carry the entirety of the tournament.
[89][90] Those issues, stemming from misconduct by the league commissioner Lee Hutton III, caused five teams to suspend operations and cancelling the broadcast agreement with the NFL Network.
[91][92][93][94] After cancelling a May 9 home game, the Minnesota Myth folded on May 13, with owner Diana Hutton accusing the league of attempting to sabotage the team in order to force her husband to resign, which he refused to do.
[97][98] This is despite a league bylaw that was believed to have granted Hutton total immunity from ouster by league owners;[75] the ouster was made with the full cooperation of G6 Sports Group (owners of the trademarks and connected to the original F1 group that had founded the revival), who had suggested Fisher for the position.