Phoenix Gets Professional Football Team

PHOENIX, AZ — The new Alliance ofAmerican Football will base one of its teams in metro Phoenix, the fifth U.S. city to officially nab a franchise for the startup league. The new team will begin playing at the newly renovated Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe in February 2019, Arizona State University said Wednesday.

The new eight-team league will begin a 10-week season on Feb. 9, he weekend after the Super Bowl. The inaugural season will end with two playoffs rounds and a championship game on the last weekend in April. Games will be broadcast on the CBS Network.

Other cities that have won AAF franchises are Salt Lake City, Utah; Orlando, Florida; Memphis, Tennessee; and Atlanta, Georgia. The new league will have eight teams that will play a 10-week season.

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The head coach for the new Phoenix team will be announced at a news conference Friday, according to the Arizona Republic. Charlie Ebersol, the co-founder and CEO of The Alliance of American Football, and Jared Allen, the league’s investor/player relations executive, will be joined by ASU officials Ray Anderson, the vice president of university athletics, and Colleen Jennings-Roggensack, vice president for cultural affairs.

Sun Devil Stadium is undergoing a $300 million renovation. The final piece of steel in the three-phase renovation was put in place Wednesday.

ESPN has more on the AAF.

Photo via Shutterstock / David Lee