The Vegas Vipers are a professional

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

team based in

Las Vegas, Nevada 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 ...

. The team is an owned-and-operated member of the

XFL XFL may refer to: Sports * XFL (2001), a defunct American football league that played its only season in 2001 * XFL (2020), a professional American football league Vehicles * Bell XFL Airabonita, a 1940 U.S. Navy experimental interceptor aircra ...

, owned by RedBird Capital,

Dwayne Johnson Dwayne Douglas Johnson (born May 2, 1972), also known by his ring name The Rock, is an American actor and former professional wrestler. Widely regarded as one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time, he was integral to the developm ...

and

Dany Garcia Dany Garcia (born November 29, 1968) is an American businesswoman, film producer, and IFBB professional bodybuilder. Garcia is the founder of GSTQ, and the CEO and chair of The Garcia Companies and TGC Management, overseeing a portfolio of bra ...

's Alpha Acquico, LLC. The team began operations in 2020 as the Tampa Bay Vipers and played its home games at

Raymond James Stadium Raymond James Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium in Tampa, Florida that opened in 1998 and is home to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers of the National Football League (NFL) and the University of South Florida (USF) Bulls college football program. The se ...

, along with the

Tampa Bay Buccaneers The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are a professional American football team based in Tampa, Florida. The Buccaneers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) NFC South, South divisio ...

of the NFL and the University of South Florida Bulls football team of the NCAA. The Vipers were headquartered at

Plant City Stadium Plant City Stadium is a stadium in Plant City, Florida with a capacity of about 6,000. It was built in 1988 as the new spring training home of the Cincinnati Reds, who had previously trained at Al Lopez Field in nearby Tampa for many years. In 1 ...

Plant City, Florida Plant City is an incorporated city in Hillsborough County, Florida, Hillsborough County, Florida, United States, approximately midway between Brandon, Florida, Brandon and Lakeland, Florida, Lakeland along Interstate 4. The population was 39,764 at ...

, where players were housed and practices were held.

History

Tampa Bay (2020)

Tampa Bay joined

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

, New York,

Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

and

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

as the league's inaugural cities. Teams have 40-man active rosters and play a 10-week season.

Vince McMahon Vincent Kennedy McMahon (; born August 24, 1945) is an American media proprietor and retired professional wrestling promoter, executive, and performer. From 1982 to 2022, he served as the chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of WWE, the w ...

said "the game will feature simplified rules for a faster pace of game that should complete in under three hours", and draw from former college and NFL players. In contrast to other XFL teams, the Vipers were granted three years rent-free at Raymond James Stadium as part of the team's first lease agreement. On March 5, 2019,

Marc Trestman Marc Marlyn Trestman (born January 15, 1956) is an American football and Canadian football coach. He led the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League (CFL) to back-to-back Grey Cup victories in 2009 and 2010, and another as head coac ...

was announced to be the head coach and general manager of the Tampa Bay XFL team for the 2020 season. On February 9, 2020, the Vipers played their first game in team history, losing to the

New York Guardians The Orlando Guardians are a professional American football team based in Orlando, Florida. The team was founded by Vince McMahon's Alpha Entertainment and is an owned-and-operated member of the XFL. The Guardians played their home games at MetLi ...

23–3. They won their first game in week 4, shutting out the

DC Defenders The DC Defenders are a professional American football team based in Washington, D.C. The team was founded by Vince McMahon’s Alpha Entertainment and is an owned-and-operated member of the new XFL owned by Dwayne Johnson’s Alpha Acquico. Th ...

25–0. They finished 2020 XFL season 1–4 when the league suspended operations due to Covid-19.

Las Vegas (2022–present)

On July 24, 2022, the XFL announced that it would move its Florida-based team to

Orlando Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures rele ...

, a relocation that had been discussed since the premature end of the 2020 season. In September 2022, a leak on the XFL's online store indicated the team would take the name of the defunct

(and thus become the Orlando Guardians) while the Vipers brand would be transferred to the Las Vegas XFL team, in homage to the

rattlesnake Rattlesnakes are venomous snakes that form the genera ''Crotalus'' and ''Sistrurus'' of the subfamily Crotalinae (the pit vipers). All rattlesnakes are vipers. Rattlesnakes are predators that live in a wide array of habitats, hunting small anim ...

s in the

Las Vegas Valley The Las Vegas Valley is a major metropolitan area in the Southern Nevada, southern part of the U.S. state of Nevada, and the second largest in the Southwestern United States. The state's largest urban agglomeration, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Stat ...

.XFL Teams Names Leaked Online, Some Old, Some New, Some Surprising Changes
Retrieved September 23, 2022. The league confirmed this on October 31, also revealing the teams' color schemes, in that Orlando would retain Tampa Bay's green-based color scheme, while Vegas would get the black-and-red-based color scheme used by New York in 2020.

Market overview

The

Central Florida Central Florida is a region of the U.S. state of Florida. Different sources give different definitions for the region, but as its name implies it is usually said to comprise the central part of the state, including the Tampa Bay area and the Gr ...

corridor has been a popular location for alternative professional football since the 1960s. Two teams in particular were in Tampa Bay: the

Tampa Bay Storm The Tampa Bay Storm were a professional arena football team based in Tampa, Florida, US. It played in the Arena Football League (AFL). Originally the team was located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and operated as the Pittsburgh Gladiators. The f ...

were one of 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 ...

's most successful and longest-lived franchises, surviving in the city from 1991 until it suspended operations after the 2017 season. The

Tampa Bay Bandits The Tampa Bay Bandits were a professional American football team in the United States Football League (USFL) which was based in Tampa, Florida. The Bandits were a charter member of the USFL and was the only franchise to have the same principal o ...

were one of the biggest successes in the

United States Football League The United States Football League (USFL) was a professional American football league that played for three seasons, 1983 through 1985. The league played a spring/summer schedule in each of its active seasons. The 1986 season was scheduled to be ...

in the 1980s. In addition, the

Florida Tuskers Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to th ...

of the UFL played one of their games in nearby

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

. The only other major professional sports team playing in February and March in Tampa is the

Tampa Bay Lightning The Tampa Bay Lightning (colloquially known as the Bolts) are a professional ice hockey team based in Tampa, Florida. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Atlantic Division in the Eastern Conference. They play th ...

of the

National Hockey League The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...

, but the XFL team also faced indirect competition from

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

spring training Spring training is the preseason in Major League Baseball (MLB), a series of practices and exhibition games preceding the start of the regular season. Spring training allows new players to try out for Schedule (workplace), roster and position spo ...

Relocation to Las Vegas

The original

had placed one of its teams, the

Orlando Rage The Orlando Rage was an American football team based in Orlando, Florida as part of the XFL, begun by Vince McMahon of the World Wrestling Federation and by NBC, a major television network in the United States. History The team's colors were ...

, 80 miles up Interstate 4 in

, where that city had openly embraced the league and had some of its best attendance (buoyed in part by Orlando also having the best regular-season record). The former

Alliance of American Football The Alliance of American Football (AAF) was a professional American football minor league. The AAF consisted of eight centrally owned and operated teams in the southern and western United States, seven of which were located in metropolitan are ...

placed a team of their own, the

Orlando Apollos The Orlando Apollos were a professional American football franchise based in Orlando, Florida, and one of the eight members of the Alliance of American Football (AAF), which began play in February 2019. The team played its home games at Spectru ...

, in Orlando before the current XFL announced its teams. Shortly before the XFL went bankrupt, it was exploring moving the Vipers to Orlando. In April 2022, multiple reports indicated that the league was following through on that relocation under new ownership of

and

, and that the league had hired

Terrell Buckley Douglas Terrell Buckley (born June 7, 1971) is a former American football cornerback and current Head Coach of the Orlando Guardians. He also played professional baseball for the Mobile Baysharks in the Texas-Louisiana League. College career Bu ...

to coach the franchise. Johnson and Garcia confirmed the news on July 24. On October 31, it was announced that the Vipers franchise would be relocating to Las Vegas, Nevada, while the Guardians franchise would relocate to the Orlando location.

Rod Woodson Roderick Kevin Woodson (born March 10, 1965) is an American former professional football defensive back in the National Football League (NFL) for 17 seasons. He is currently the Head Coach of the XFL's Vegas Vipers. Woodson was drafted in the ...

was announced to become the coach of the Vipers.

Players

Current roster

Staff

References

External links

* {{Florida Sports American football teams established in 2018 2018 establishments in Florida XFL (2020) teams Sports in Las Vegas Sports teams in Las Vegas American football teams in Nevada