Las Vegas Outlaws To Join Arena Football League in 2015

Adam Markowitz
Friday August 22, 2014

CLEVELAND -- The Arena Football League family is set to grow once more. At Media Day for ArenaBowl XXVII, Commissioner Jerry B. Kurz announced that the Las Vegas Outlaws will be playing in the 2015 season.

"Las Vegas is very sports oriented. We lost the team years ago, but now, we're back," said one of the team's owners, Vince Neil.

The Outlaws are going to be the third franchise to play in the city of Las Vegas in Arena Football League history. The Las Vegas Sting played in the AFL in 1994 and 1995. The team went 11-14 in its history. The team's average attendance over its two seasons was 5,733, and it played at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in '94 and at the Thomas & Mack Center in '95. The team moved to Anaheim and became known as the Anaheim Piranhas after that for two seasons.

The Las Vegas Gladiators played from 2003 through 2007. The team never had a winning record in its history, and it averaged 8,979 fans. The Gladiators moved to Cleveland and became known as the Cleveland Gladiators franchise which will be playing in the ArenaBowl on Saturday.

Neil promises to bring an exciting brand of football to Sin City, as he becomes the second member of the Rock n' Roll community to join the AFL in the last two seasons. Neil mentioned his Outlaws will immediately spark a rivalry with the Los Angeles KISS, who were a new expansion team in the 2014 season under the ownership of Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, and Doc McGhee.

"It's going to be total craziness," said Neil. "It's rock and roll football. It's in your face football."