The National Arena League (NAL) is a professional indoor football league that began play in 2017. It consists of teams based on the East Coast of the United States and one team in California.
2016:
In June 2016, Columbus Lions' owner Skip Seda and father Keke Seda founded a league called the Arena Developmental League (ADL) in the wake of several years of minor indoor leagues folding. The league was announced to begin play in March 2017 and, while not affiliated with any other leagues, intended on developing players to be looked at by scouts in the Arena Football League (AFL), Canadian Football League (CFL), and National Football League (NFL). In their introductory press conference, the league announced former AFL, af2, and CFL head coach John Gregory as its first commissioner and former AFL and af2 head coach Chris Siegfriedas director of football operations.
Charter teams began being announced in July 2016 with the Columbus Lions and Lehigh Valley Steelhawks joining from the defunct American Indoor Football.[1][2] On July 21, the High Country Grizzlies announced their ADL membership after initially being announced as an AIF expansion team.[3] On August 11, the Dayton Wolfpack were announced as the league's fourth team.[4] On September 13, the ADL added the Georgia Firebirds from the AIF as the fifth team.[5] On September 21, the league announced its sixth team to be from Highland Heights, Kentucky, owned by Northern Kentucky Professional Indoor Football LLC headed by W. Leland Bennett III. Bennett was one of the owners of the Northern Kentucky Nightmare, a travel team that played in the AIF the previous season, but no name for the ADL team was announced and the franchise was removed from the league when the league later changed names. In October, the ADL added the Anderson Gladiators from Anderson, South Carolina, but they were removed from the league in November due to arena lease issues.[6] On October 17, the Corpus Christi Rage announced it had joined the ADL (although the ADL did not confirm until October 28).[7] On October 20, the ADL announced that the Fort Myers area-based Florida Tarpons were joining the league.[8] However, the Tarpons would also withdraw from the league on November 10 to join the upstart Arena Pro Football.
2017:
February 20, 2017, all Wolfpack home games were cancelled.[10] During the season, the league took over operations of the Firebirds,[11] Rage, and Wolfpack. The Sharks would go on to finish with an 11–1 record and win the inaugural championship game over the Lions. The Rage and Wolfpack folded at the end of the season.
2018:
In October 2017, commissioner Gregory stepped down and was replaced by the director of operations, Chris Siegfried.[19] The 2018 season began on April 7, 2018. All three expansion teams fared well, with the Cobras winning the league championship, the Pirates finishing the regular season in first place, and the Mammoths ending the season on a five-game winning streak. However, the Lehigh Valley Steelhawks finished the season winless and the owner announced he was trying to sell the team, while the Mammoths were also announced as looking for local ownership.
2019:
The league announced its first addition of the 2019 season in the New York Streets with plans to play at the Westchester County Center in White Plains, New York, in December 2018.[20][21][22][23] A revived Orlando Predators team, owned and coached by players from the former Arena Football League team of the same name, was added on January 17, 2019.[24] After failing to reach an agreement with local ownership, both the Lehigh Valley Steelhawks and Maine Mammoths announced they had suspended operations for the season.[25][26] Prior to the 2019 season, Sharks' majority owner and NAL expansion chairman Jeff Bouchy resigned and sold his interest in the team to the other owners on March 11, 2019.[27] The Sharks won the 2019 NAL championship.[28]
2020:
The 2020 NAL Season was cancelled due to the global pandemic, during that year the National Arena expanded naming the Albany Empire, Jersey Flight, and Ontario Bandits as it's newest franchises for the 2021 season. The West Virginia Roughriders were included in expansion but are set to play for the 2022 season.
