Indoor football: IFL plans merger with UIF for ’09 season

The Intense Football League and United Indoor Football already had set up a season-ending contest between their respective champions.

Now, when the UIF champion Sioux Falls Storm play host to the IFL champion - either the Louisiana Swashbucklers or the Corpus Christi Hammerheads - in the National Indoor Bowl Championship Game on Aug. 2 in Sioux Falls, S.D., it will serve as a springboard to a new league.

IFL and UIF officials on Tuesday announced that the leagues will merge for the 2009 season.

"(Tuesday) is one of the best days, if not the best, for indoor football," IFL president Chad Dittman said in a statement released by the league. "What the merger of the NFL and the AFL did for professional football in the 1960s, this partnership will do for us. It can and will lead to bigger and better things."

The IFL has Louisiana, Corpus Christi, the Odessa Roughnecks, the CenTex Barracudas, the San Angelo Stampede Express, the Katy Ruff Riders, the Frisco Thunder, the Alaska Wild and the Fairbanks Grizzlies.

The UIF has teams in Sioux Falls; Billings, Mont.; Omaha, Neb.; Fort Collins, Colo.; Bloomington, Ill.; St. Charles, Mo.; Sioux City, Iowa; and Wichita, Kan.

"The UIF has approached us before about joining them, but it was never the right situation," Odessa president Tommy Benizio said. "This time, the talk was about a true merger, dissolving both leagues and starting a new league.

"When we started this league four years ago with six teams, it had a mom-and-pop feeling to it and we ran it almost like a club. With new teams coming in next year, we needed to change things and simultaneously move forward."

This is the second time that Odessa has left the IFL for a new challenge.

Odessa left the league in 2005 for the National Indoor Football League and reached the semifinals with a 16-0 record before losing to the Tri-Cities Fever. When the Roughnecks returned to the IFL in 2006, they went 14-2 and won the championship.

Odessa coach Chris Williams was excited about the merger when he was contacted while returning to town after the Roughnecks' 59-57 loss to Louisiana in the IFL semifinals on Monday night.

"I think it's a good, legitimate move in the right direction," he said. "With this decision, the IFL is merging with good business people and good football people. We are going to make people take notice in indoor football because both leagues already were respected. Now, as one league, we are going to be a threat."

The new league has not selected a name, but it hopes to select a commissioner and league president and determine rules and divisions at the league meetings in Omaha in September.

Benizio said there could be as many as 26 teams in the league when training camps open in March 2009.

THE BASICS

The Intense Football League and United Indoor Football will merge beginning in the 2009 season. Here are the current league members:

The IFL

Alaska Wild
CenTex Barracudas
Corpus Christi Hammerheads
Fairbanks Grizzlies
Frisco Thunder
Katy Ruff Riders
Louisiana Swashbucklers
Odessa Roughnecks
San Angelo Stampede Express 

IFL on the Net: www.intensefootballleague.net

The UIF

Bloomington Extreme
Billings Outlaws
Colorado Ice
Omaha Beef
River City Rage
Sioux City Bandits
Sioux Falls Storm
Wichita Wild

UIF on the Net: www.unitedindoorfootball.com

THE HISTORIES

The championship results from the Intense Football League and United Indoor Football

United Bowl I (2005)
Sioux Falls 40, Sioux City 38
United Bowl II (2006)
Sioux Falls 72, Lexington 64
United Bowl III (2007)
Sioux Falls 62, Lexington 59
United Bowl IV (2008)
Sioux Falls 40, Bloomington 35

Intense Bowl I (2004)
Amarillo 62, Lubbock 47
Intense Bowl II (2006)
Odessa 97, Corpus Christi 56
Intense Bowl III (2007)
Louisiana 46, Corpus Christi 27
Intense Bowl IV (2008)
Louisiana vs. Corpus Christi
Note: The IFL suspended operations for one season in 2005.

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Indoor_Football; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intense_Football_League