National Indoor Football League

The National Indoor Football League was a professional indoor football league in the United States. For their first six years, the league had teams in markets not covered by either the Arena Football League or its developmental league, af2, however, that changed briefly with their expansion into AFL markets such as Atlanta, Denver, and Los Angeles, and af2 markets such as Fort Myers and Houston.

History

The NIFL, based in Lafayette, Louisiana, was founded by Carolyn Shiver. The league started operations in 2001, with many teams coming from Indoor Football League being bought the previous year and folding operations. In 2002, the league added in the teams from the Indoor Professional Football League. 2003 was the most successful year for the league as 24 teams played a mostly complete schedule, with few cancellations.

Before the 2005 season, nine teams left the league to form United Indoor Football. That same year though, the Intense Football League ceased operations and four teams from there joined the league. Those teams however, left the league before the 2006 season started.