The Oregon Blackbears were a professional indoor football team based in Salem, Oregon . They were announced as one of the inaugural teams for the revived Arena Football League (AFL), beginning play in 2024. They play at the Oregon State Fairgrounds Pavilion in Salem. The Blackbears spent much of its existence in a state of uncertainty after a league reorganization early in the 2024 season, having twice been removed from, then restored to the league, as original owner and original league president Travelle Gaines was ousted from the league midseason and never sold the team to an ownership group that had agreed to take over the team's operations and allow it to continue. Because of this, the Blackbears were not carried over to Arena Football One but were replaced with a different team, the Oregon Lightning , with new ownership and much of the same staff.
27-677: The Blackbears were the third official (and likely final) Oregon-based team to play in the Arena Football League , but were the first to play outside of the Portland, Oregon , area. They were also the first "major" sports team based in Salem. The first team representing the state of Oregon in the Arena Football League were the Portland Forest Dragons , who played from 1997 to 1999 before relocating to Oklahoma City and being rebranded as
54-526: A college friend of league president Jared Widman's. On September 12, the Monterrey Kings were announced as the first AF1 team in Mexico. Firebirds owner Mike Kwarta indicated in an interview that the twelfth team, which is scheduled to be formally announced the last week of September, would be Arizona. The league had not ruled out further expansion before the season starts, with the schedule to be finalized by
81-566: A press release announced that the team would be called the Oregon Blackbears . The ownership group was announced to have been led by former Oregon Ducks standout and current New York Giants linebacker Kayvon Thibodeaux and that their head coach is former player Chuck Jones. In a statement to Arena Insider , Thibodeaux stated that he was never an owner of the team and that "(t)he league used my name for publicity.". Travelle Gaines, who served as league president under commissioner Lee Hutton,
108-466: A revival of two leagues bearing the Arena Football League name: the original that operated from 1987 to 2008, and the second—coincidentally also known as Arena Football 1 before acquiring rights to the AFL name prior to its first season—from 2010 to 2019. The 2024 AFL's lone season began with 16 teams, six of which had joined through a pre-launch merger with Champions Indoor Football . Within three weeks, five of
135-678: A suburb of Bend , and takes on the history and intellectual property of the former Oregon High Desert Storm , which played three seasons in the American West Football Conference before that league dissolved in 2023. Due to the coexistence of another Storm team in AF1 (the Southwest Kansas Storm ), and continued entanglements over the Blackbears brand, the new team will bear the name Oregon Lightning . Johnson also carries over to
162-559: Is a future professional arena football league based in Nashville, Tennessee , set to play in 2025. The league was founded by the eight teams who had survived the 2024 Arena Football League season . The eight founding teams added multiple expansion teams in advance of the 2025 AF1 Season. All eight of the inaugural teams in Arena Football One had played the 2024 season in the Arena Football League , which had been launched that year as
189-581: The Oklahoma Wranglers . Oregon would not see the AFL again until 2013 when the Portland Thunder were established by Clackamas billionaire Terry Emmert and would take the field a few months later. The Thunder were rebranded as the Portland Steel in 2016 after the league took control of the franchise from Emmert, then abruptly folded at season's end with no explanation. The second incarnation of
216-609: The Oregon Lightning , partially owned by the head coach of the 2024 AFL's Oregon Blackbears Chuck Jones, were announced as AF1's newest expansion team. The expansion marks the continuation of arena football in Oregon under a new structure—legally, a continuation of the Oregon High Desert Storm of the American West Football Conference —following the Blackbears' entanglements with Hutton and its unsuccessful efforts to remain in
243-527: The Southwest Kansas Storm in place of the Billings Outlaws "due to unforeseen circumstances," the Blackbears were briefly removed from the Arena Football League's list of teams on May 27 without their knowledge before being restored later that day. On May 28, 2024, coinciding with the naming of new league president/ chief operating officer Jared Widman, the league officially removed the team from
270-443: The 16 teams had folded. After multiple complaints of promises that were left unfulfilled to teams, to players, and to G6 Sports and Entertainment (the holding company that had been licensing the trademarks and intellectual property to the league), a hasty reorganization ousted founding commissioner Lee Hutton. With direct backing from G6, the remaining teams committed to finishing the 10-week season; three additional teams would fold over
297-695: The AFL in 2024. On November 13, the Corpus Christi Tritons were announced to be joining AF1; the Tritons had been part of American Indoor Football for the 2024 season but had been excluded when most of the AIF's teams joined the National Arena League . On November 15, the Arizona Bandits , previously announced as a 2025 AFL expansion team, were officially announced as members of AF1. That same day,
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#1732859404765324-538: The Lightning as a senior advisor. Arena Football League (2024) Too Many Requests If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below. Request from 172.68.168.226 via cp1108 cp1108, Varnish XID 762853179 Upstream caches: cp1108 int Error: 429, Too Many Requests at Fri, 29 Nov 2024 05:50:04 GMT Arena Football One Arena Football One
351-623: The course of the season, leaving eight by the end of the regular season. Jeff Fisher , who had originally joined the league as an advisor to the Nashville Kats , assumed the role of temporary commissioner for the remainder of the season. Following ArenaBowl XXXIII , the surviving members of the AFL, including champions the Billings Outlaws , began hyping up "Arena Football is back" in various team social sites posing an image on September 4, 2024, saying, "A new era begins today." The next day it
378-399: The debts be paid as a condition for returning. On September 6, 2024, AF1 formally announced its launch with a press release and new social media feeds, confirming that the new league would carry over Jeff Fisher as commissioner (now on a permanent basis) and Jerry Kurz , the founding commissioner of the 2010s AFL and a veteran of the original league, as chief executive officer along with
405-636: The end of October. In an interview with the Albany Times-Union , league sources indicated that an expansion draft would be held to allot players to the four new AF1 teams, with the existing teams allowed to protect 15 players. The league will offer a base salary of $ 400 per game—less than the $ 1,000 that the AFL had initially promised in 2024 but higher than other indoor leagues, with teams allowed to pay higher salaries at their own discretion— and will not require players to play "ironman" on both offense and defense as they had under previous iterations of
432-486: The existing front office staff. In the statement, AF1 indicated that additional " expansion teams in emerging markets" would be among the teams to play the 2025 season. Of those teams, the Arizona Bandits , a team that had previously been announced to be joining the AFL in 2025, released its own teaser at the same time as the eight inaugural teams. In an interview with the Billings Gazette , Titus indicated that one of
459-466: The expansion teams would be based in Mexico, and others would be in cities that had previously hosted arena football teams. On September 9, 2024, AF1 announced the Stockton Crusaders as their first expansion team joining the eight former AFL teams for the 2025 season. On September 10, AF1 announced another expansion team to be based out of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania and owned by Matt Rowland,
486-541: The league would fold three years later. Both teams played their home games at the Moda Center . Four years after the original AFL folded for the second time, it was announced on February 1, 2023 that the league intended on relaunching in 2024. On July 18, the 16 intended market cities were announced, including Salem. Like some other locations, Salem city officials were surprised about the announcement, but stated that they "look forward to learning more". On October 25, 2023,
513-414: The league. The league will follow traditional arena football rules and restrictions otherwise. The season structure will feature two divisions (East and West) of six teams each, assuming no further expansion, all playing a 12-game regular season (up from 10 in 2024) and an eight-team playoff culminating in a yet-unnamed championship to be held at the home arena of the highest-seeded team. On October 22,
540-466: The ouster of commissioner Lee Hutton on May 14, 2024, the Blackbears were initially left out of the reorganized ten-team league. League officials expressed openness to continuing to schedule games against the Blackbears. In a statement, Johnson expressed surprise that his organization had not been involved in the decision and that he would accept the ruling and disband the team, beginning negotiations with other leagues to ensure Blackbears players could finish
567-537: The remainder of the 2024 season schedule. The team continued to negotiate with the league while also exploring other options and the team announced the renewal of its contract with HUMBL (which had been the AFL's online platform under Hutton) for ticket sales for "any future home games." On June 17, after the team was unable to find opponents for their two remaining scheduled home games, the Blackbears formally concluded their season, finishing 3-1 in their inaugural season. Gaines and Hutton left rent bills of $ 30,000 unpaid for
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#1732859404765594-616: The season elsewhere. In a statement to the Statesman-Journal , he indicated plans to discuss the team's exclusion with the other ten remaining owners before taking any further action. As of May 16, the Blackbears are still scheduled to play the Washington Wolfpack on May 18. filling a schedule hole left when the Rapid City Marshals , one of the ten surviving teams, cancelled an upcoming game amid in-team turmoil that had forced
621-421: The sudden forfeiture of that team's previous game. The Blackbears announced an agreement to finish the 2024 season on May 17 after a local ownership group was found to cover the league's shares in the team; ultimately, Gaines and Hutton never sold their stakes, and the entanglement of these "legal relationships" ultimately prevented the team from returning to the field. After declining a Week 5 reassignment to play
648-420: The team IP's.) The new league will be a full separation from G6, as all eight teams leave the AFL and join AF1. In a statement to Arena Insider, G6 executive Chris Chetty noted that after the league had narrowly completed the 2024 season, it had been left with numerous unpaid debts that he, though he would maintain responsibility, had been advised not to immediately pay off, but that the team owners had stipulated
675-493: The three games held at the fairgrounds. Attempts to reach team officials went unanswered in early September, and the team has not made any social media posts since June 17. On October 22, 2024, Arena Football One , which absorbed the eight surviving teams from the end of the 2024 AFL season, announced it would return to Oregon with a new team co-owned by former Blackbears coach Chuck Jones. The new team will play in Redmond, Oregon ,
702-506: Was announced that they would be playing in a newly-formed league called Arena Football One , sharing the name with a working title used by the 2010s AFL before its launch. The trademark was filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office on September 1, 2024, by Outlaws owner Steven Titus dba Arena Football One, LLC, of Gillette, Wyoming . (G6 Sports Group still owns the AFL logo and its intellectual properties, but not
729-513: Was the listed majority owner of the team, through a limited liability company , with the league holding an additional minority stake. Before the start of the 2024 season, Patrick Johnson was named the team president. Their main rivals in the new AFL were the Washington Wolfpack and Billings Outlaws . On April 27, 2024, the Blackbears won the debut at home over the Wolfpack 47-40. With
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