| Arizona Bandits | |
| Founded: | 2023 |
| City: | Tempe, Arizona |
| Misc: | ArizonaBandits.com (coming soon) |
| Colors: | Lime Green, Black, Silver & White |
| Coach: | Darren Arbet |
| Owner: | Matthew Mason, David Glynn and Tim Carbajal |
| President: | Matthew Mason |
| General Manager: | Darren Arbet |
| League: |
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| Team History: |
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| No League Champs: | 0 |
| No Conf Champs: | 0 |
| No Div Champs: | 0 |
| Arena Years: |
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The Arizona Bandits are a future professional indoor football team based in Tempe, Arizona. They were announced as one of the inaugural teams for the revived Arena Football League (AFL), but months after that league's collapse, they have joined the new Arena Football One that will begin play in 2025.[1]
The Bandits were slated to be the second official Arizona-based team to play in the AFL and the first since the Arizona Rattlers (now of the Indoor Football League) who played in the original AFL from 1992 to 2008 and again from 2010 to 2016.
Four years after the AFL folded for the second time, it was announced on February 1, 2023, that the league intended on relaunching in 2024.[2] On July 18, the 16 intended market cities were announced, but Arizona wasn't among said markets.[3]
On September 6, 2023, the Bandits launched their Facebook and Instagram pages with new logos and news about the ownership group, which is led by local businessmen Matthew Mason and David Glynn, along with Bakersfield, California-based semi-professional team owner Tim Carbajal. Carbajal had originally been in line to own the California Grizzlies (California was one the markets announced by the league), but was unable to secure a lease with Bakersfield's Mechanics Bank Arena.[4] Their head coach and general manager is former San Jose SaberCats and Bay Area Panthers head coach Darren Arbet, who won four ArenaBowl championships with the SaberCats before that franchise abruptly folded in 2015.[5] [6] On November 16, 2023, the Bandits were among the team that attended a special AFL Launch Party in New York City. However, as of press time, the Bandits are on hiatus until 2025 and have yet to announce where they will play.
In an interview with KTVK 3TV and KPHO CBS 5, co-owner Matthew Mason announced that the Bandits will be playing in a new state-of-the-art arena in either Phoenix or Scottsdale that could also host a potential revival of the Arizona Coyotes of the National Hockey League.[7] In May 2024, the Arizona State Land Department blocked the sale of the land upon which the arena would have been built,[8] effectively ending efforts to build the new arena and the Coyotes themselves.[9]
On May 14, 2024, the league fired commissioner Lee Hutton and contracted to 10 teams, leaving the Bandits' future existence in doubt.[10] However, with the positive changes in the league led by interim commissioner Jeff Fisher, the Bandits continue to plan to join the league for 2025 and beyond.
On September 4, 2024, concurrent with the other eight surviving AFL teams, the Bandits posted a teaser video, but the Bandits' teaser did not match that of the other teams (whereas the other teams' message read "A new era begins today",[11] the Bandits' instead read "Something big is coming.")[12] The Bandits were not included among the eight teams that are expected to be included in Arena Football One, a successor league being formed by the surviving AFL members by leaving the current AFL and forming a new league.[13] AF1 did indicate that there would be expansion teams joining before 2025, possibly including the Bandits.[14] In late September, the owner of another AF1 team, the Albany Firebirds, Mike Kwarta confirmed that the twelfth AF1 team would be Arizona and would be announced the last week of that month.[1] The league issued a statement that week that did not announce any expansion teams, but warned against any prospective teams making premature announcements before the league thoroughly vetted and approved any expansion bids (this was not targeted specifically at the Bandits; another prospective franchise, the Las Vegas Kings, had repeatedly made false claims about being invited to join the league).[15] The Bandits were among the organizations who were identified at the league's "Arena Football University" clinic that week along with other prospective bidders, an invitation the league stated "should not be taken as a guarantee of admission to AF1."[16] In late October, AF1 indicated a final decision on the Bandits' and other teams' bids for expansion would come in early November after the application deadline was extended to October 31.[17] The league updated the situation again on November 13 stating that whether or not the Bandits or any other teams would be added would come "in the coming days".[18]
On November 15, 2024, the Bandits were officially announced as the 14th franchise in AF1 and will be based out of and will play their home games in Tempe.[19] They will play in the West Division along with the Billings Outlaws, Oregon Lightning and Washington Wolfpack.