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By MIKE ZIMMER
Gazette Sports Editor
The Billings Outlaws' road to a league championship in 2009 could stretch from Corpus Christi, Texas, to Fairbanks, Alaska - a mere 8,517-mile round trip.
On Thursday, the United Indoor Football league (UIF) announced that it will merge with the Intense Football League (IFL) for the 2009 season.
"This is a move that will bring both credibility and stability to indoor football," IFL communications director Paul Winfrey said in a press release. "The IFL and UIF are two of the sport's most stable business organizations. Combining strengths and resources will create a partnership that will insure the long-term growth of the sport."
Winfrey said the new league's name will be announced on Aug. 3. Other details of the new league, such as conference and divisional alignments, final expansion for the 2009 season and playing rules, will be decided at the first-ever league meetings to be held in mid-September in Omaha, Neb.
The eight-team UIF currently includes teams in Billings, Sioux Falls, S.D., Fort Collins, Colo., Omaha, Neb., Sioux City, Iowa, Bloomington, Ill., Wichita, Kan., and St. Joseph, Mo.
The nine-team IFL currently includes six teams in Texas, one in Louisiana and two in Alaska - Fairbanks and Anchorage.
At least three additional cities have applied for franchises in the new league, meaning the league could include as many as 20 teams for the 2009 season.
"This merger of existing and long tenured teams is the most exciting thing to happen in indoor football," said Outlaws owner Mike Parnell. "It validates the UIF's model of teams owning the league and running the league in the same way that the NFL and Major League Baseball do.
"This new league will be the largest in indoor football and will have the most prestigious and continuously operating teams, great regional rivalries and significant opportunities for further expansion. The new combined dues income stream will also allow for some really fun marketing and branding investments."
Outlaws coach Heron O'Neal said the new league will be No. 2 in all of indoor football, ranking below only the Arena Football League.
"With this merger, I think we definitely surpass A2 (the arenafootball2 league)," said O'Neal. "We'll have teams all over the map, and teams with good, solid ownership. The UIF and IFL don't add teams just to add them. They do their research and make sure that the owners are solid financially.
"I'm looking forward to the added exposure and the added competition. And I'm definitely looking forward to taking a trip to Alaska to play those two teams."
Both the UIF and IFL will conclude their fourth season of play on Saturday, Aug. 2 when the league champions of both leagues meet in Sioux Falls, S.D., in what is being called the National Indoor Bowl. The UIF champion Sioux Falls Storm will host either the Corpus Christi Hammerheads or the Louisiana Swashbucklers, who meet for the IFL title Saturday in Lake Charles, La.
Louisiana has been the IFL's dominant team for the past two seasons. The Swashbucklers went 15-1 and won the league championship in 2007 and are 15-0 this season heading into Saturday's title game.
The new league will be the fourth league in the 10-year history of Billings indoor football. Billings teams have played in the Indoor Football League (2000), National Indoor Football League (2001-05) and UIF (2007-08). |
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