The Arena Football League Welcomes Nashville Kats and Oregon Blackbears: AFL 2024

2023-11-03 00:35:00

BILLINGS — The Nashville Kats and Oregon (Salem) Blackbears are the newest members of the Arena Football League.

We are excited to announce Oregon to the AFL! The Blackbears will play at the Salem Pavilion in the West Division. The ownership group will be led by Kayvon Thibodeaux and Chuck Jones will be the head coach. #TheAFLIsBack #AFL2024 @OregonAFL pic.twitter.com/1F0K1HFdh9

— Arena Football League (@OfficialAFL) October 25, 2023

The Arena Football League account on the social media site X, formerly known as Twitter, recently featured posts welcoming the two teams.

We are excited to announce Nashville to the AFL! The Kats will play at the Municipal Auditorium in Nashville. The ownership group is led by attorneys Tamara Dadd Alan and Nancy D. Eckert. Gregg Johnson will serve as GM and Jeff Fisher as Chief Advisor. #TheAFLIsBack #AFL2024 pic.twitter.com/t4q5teLO3A

— Arena Football League (@OfficialAFL) November 1, 2023

The Billings Outlaws, who played the first two years since the team was re-launched in the Champions Indoor Football league, will also play in the upstart AFL in 2024.

The teams join squads in Wichita (Kansas), Salina (Kansas), Southwest Kansas (Dodge City), Council Bluffs (Iowa), Rapid City (South Dakota), Albany (New York), Everett (Washington), Orlando (Florida), and West Texas (Odessa) in the AFL. At a press conference in Wichita in early October, AFL commissioner Lee A. Hutton also mentioned teams will be in Minnesota, Philadelphia and Louisiana.

Billings Outlaws owner Steven Titus said it was announced on Thursday during the West Texas press conference that Austin, Texas, would also be joining the league.

The Chicago Rush (@ChicagoRushAFL) also joined X last month and tweeted “177Days till showtime #Gameon” on Thursday.

177Days till showtime #Gameone pic.twitter.com/il7EDVRjoA

— ChicagoRushAFL (@ChicagoRushAFL) November 2, 2023

Earlier it was announced that the AFL season was to begin on April 27.

The Outlaws also announced this month on their Facebook page that they had hired Brandon Davis as their director of player personnel and scouting and Stephen Foster as their new assistant general manager.

Titus also said the Outlaws would formalize the hirings of offensive coordinator/assistant head coach Shedrick Bonner and Qasim Mitchell as offensive and defensive line coach next week.

Outlaws head coach Cedric Walker will also serve as defensive coordinator.

Titus expects the league to announce the 2024 schedule in the next month.

“I’m excited. We are getting there,” Titus said. “We are starting to sign some players. We haven’t announced anything yet, but we will have a great team next year.”

Email Gazette Sports Editor John Letasky at [email protected] or follow him on X/Twitter at @GazSportsJohnL