The Bay Area Panthers are a professional indoor football team based in

San Jose, California San Jose, officially San José (; ; ), is a major city in the U.S. state of California that is the cultural, financial, and political center of Silicon Valley and largest city in Northern California by both population and area. With a 2020 popul ...

. They are a member of the

Indoor Football League The Indoor Football League (IFL) is a professional indoor American football league created in 2008 out of the merger between the Intense Football League and United Indoor Football. It has one of the largest number of currently active teams amon ...

(IFL) and were to begin play in 2020 at

Oakland Arena Oakland Arena is an indoor arena located in Oakland, California, United States. From its opening in 1966 until 1996, it was known as the Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum Arena. After a major renovation completed in 1997, the arena was renamed T ...

as the Oakland Panthers. Due the onset of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

, the Panthers' inaugural season was cancelled and then the team withdrew from the following 2021 season. Prior to the 2022 season, the Panthers announced they would instead play their home games at the

SAP Center The SAP Center at San Jose (originally known as San Jose Arena and the HP Pavilion at San Jose) is an indoor arena located in San Jose, California. Its primary tenant is the San Jose Sharks of the National Hockey League, for which the arena has ...

in San Jose and were renamed after the

Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Gov ...

. The Panthers are co-owned by Oakland native and NFL All-Pro running back,

Marshawn Lynch Marshawn Terrell Lynch (born April 22, 1986) is an American former football running back who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 12 seasons. Nicknamed "Beast Mode", he spent the majority of his career with the Seattle Seahawks. Lync ...

, and by Roy Choi, who also owns the IFL's

Cedar Rapids River Kings The Cedar Rapids River Kings were a professional indoor football team based in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The River Kings joined the Indoor Football League (IFL) as an expansion team in 2011 as the Cedar Rapids Titans and first took the field for the 20 ...

and

San Diego Strike Force The San Diego Strike Force is a professional indoor football team based in San Diego, California. It is a member of the Indoor Football League and began play in 2019 at Pechanga Arena in the city's Midway district. It is the second professional ...

. The Panthers are the Bay Area's first arena/indoor football team since the

San Jose SaberCats The San Jose SaberCats were a professional arena football team based in San Jose, California. The SaberCats had been members of the Arena Football League (AFL) since 1995 (the year in which the team was founded); and until 2015, they belonged to ...

, who played in the

Arena Football League The Arena Football League (AFL) was a professional arena football league in the United States. It was founded in 1986, but played its first official games in the 1987 season, making it the third longest-running professional football league in ...

from until , and again from until , winning four ArenaBowl championships.

History

With the scheduled departure of the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

Oakland Raiders The Oakland Raiders were a professional American football team that played in Oakland from its founding in 1960 to 1981 and again from 1995 to 2019 before relocating to the Las Vegas metropolitan area where they now play as the Las Vegas Raide ...

relocation to

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...

2020 2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global Social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, social and Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of events, COVID- ...

and the

Golden State Warriors The Golden State Warriors are an American professional basketball team based in San Francisco. The Warriors compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA), as a member of the league's Western Conference Pacific Division. Founded in 194 ...

move to

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

in the 2019–20 season, on April 17, 2019, it was first reported that Roy Choi was in talks to bring an expansion

(IFL) team to Oakland for the 2020 season. Choi had previously purchased the

and launched the expansion

in the IFL. The Panthers were officially announced as an IFL expansion team on September 10, 2019, along with their logo, color scheme, and coaching staff by co-owners Roy Choi and former NFL All-Pro running back

. The team planned to play out the Warriors' former home, the

. The Panthers' name references the indigenous Bay Area cougar, Oakland's involvement in the rise of the

Black Panther Party The Black Panther Party (BPP), originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, was a Marxist-Leninist and black power political organization founded by college students Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton in October 1966 in Oakland, Califo ...

in the 1960s, and the blockbuster

Oscar Oscar, OSCAR, or The Oscar may refer to: People * Oscar (given name), an Irish- and English-language name also used in other languages; the article includes the names Oskar, Oskari, Oszkár, Óscar, and other forms. * Oscar (Irish mythology), ...

-winning

Marvel Studios Marvel Studios, LLC (originally known as Marvel Films from 1993 to 1996) is an American film and television production company that is a subsidiary of Walt Disney Studios, a division of the Walt Disney Company. Marvel Studios produces the Mar ...

movie ''

Black Panther A black panther is the melanistic colour variant of the leopard (''Panthera pardus'') and the jaguar (''Panthera onca''). Black panthers of both species have excess black pigments, but their typical rosettes are also present. They have been d ...

'', directed by Oakland native

Ryan Coogler Ryan Kyle Coogler (born May 23, 1986) is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is a recipient of four NAACP Image Awards, four Black Reel Awards, a Golden Globe Award nomination and an Academy Award nomination for Best Pictu ...

. A team of the same name had originally been announced to play in the proposed

Freedom Football League The Freedom Football League (FFL) is a planned professional spring-summer american football Minor league football (gridiron), minor league. History The Freedom Football League was announced on December 6, 2018 by Ricky Williams on ESPN's ''Outs ...

in December 2018, though no news had come from that league after the initial announcement. Because of the rising cost of living in the Bay Area, the Panthers stated they would provide lodging and meals to their players in addition to their regular salary. The team hired Kurt Bryan, best known for devising the

A-11 offense The A-11 offense is an offensive scheme that has been used in some levels of amateur American football. In this offense, a loophole in the rules governing kicking formations is used to disguise which offensive players would be eligible to receive ...

, as their inaugural head coach. However, the 2020 IFL season was curtailed in the midst of the

before the Panthers could play a game. After initially announcing it would return in 2021, the team subsequently also withdrew from the 2021 season due to the on-going restrictions during the pandemic. On August 16, 2021, the team held a press conference to announce it would not play in Oakland, instead relocating to the

, as the Bay Area Panthers without ever playing a game in Oakland.

Current roster

Current staff

Broadcasting

On February 27, 2020, it was announced that the radio home of the team would be

KNBR KNBR may refer to: * KNBR (AM), a radio station (680 AM) licensed to serve San Francisco, California, United States * KNBR-FM KNBR-FM (104.5 MHz) is a commercial radio station licensed to San Francisco, California, serving the greater San ...

AM 1050 out of San Mateo. KBCW broadcasts all home games on television. Dave Lewis is the play by play voice on the television broadcasts with Arena Football League Hall of Famer Darren Arbet on color commentary.

Scott Reiss Scott Reiss is an Emmy Award-winning American sportscaster. He is currently the sports director for the CBS affiliate KCTV television station in Kansas City, Missouri. He was previously the voice of Stanford University athletics for 10 years, hand ...

calls the games on radio.

References

External links

* {{Bay Area Sports American football teams in the San Francisco Bay Area Indoor Football League teams Sports teams in Oakland, California American football teams established in 2019 2019 establishments in California Sports teams in San Jose, California