Report: El Paso Offered Indoor Football Expansion Team
El Paso is one of five cities to be offered an Indoor Football League team, according to a report in the Arizona Daily Star.
The IFL decided earlier this year to go the 2010 season without an El Paso franchise when a new owner for the team could not be found. The El Paso Generals won the Lone Star Division in the 2009 season and made it to the semi-finals in the playoffs that year.
Tucson has already accepted an invitation to join the IFL and would be the cornerstone of a new Southwest Division that would begin play in the 2011 season. According to the newspaper report, the other cities that would play in the division that were offered franchises were El Paso, Prescott, Ariz., Fresno, Calif., Bakersfield, Calif. and Albuquerque.
It was not immediately clear if El Paso has accepted the invitation.
Having served as a general manager in the league beforehand, Dart Clark, one of the Tucson team’s owners, is no stranger to the IFL.
?[Tucson] is a tremendous city with an amazing University and fans?, Clark said in an IFL news release. ?The city and the whole Southwest region is a great area for football?.
IFL Commissioner Tommy Benizio, who has been trying to expand to the Southwest, likes the possibilities this move brings to the league.
?There has always been interest in expanding to the area from multiple parties?, Benizio said in a league news release on Tucson joining the league. ?This is the first step in bringing football to the Southwest.”
