The 1996 Arena Football League season was the tenth season 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 ...

. It was succeeded by

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; '' Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of ...

. The league champions were 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 ...

, who defeated the

Iowa Barnstormers The Iowa Barnstormers are a professional indoor football team based in Des Moines, Iowa. They are currently members of the Indoor Football League (IFL). They play their home games at Wells Fargo Arena, known in indoor football circles as "The ...

ArenaBowl X ArenaBowl X was the Arena Football League's tenth ArenaBowl. The game featured the #2 Tampa Bay Storm of the National Conference against the #1 Iowa Barnstormers of the American Conference. Both teams ended their regular seasons at 12-2, yet Iowa h ...

. The AFL finally stabilized its scheduled number of games. It expanded to a 14-game season, which would remain until 2003. Previously, the scheduled number of games had not stayed the same for more than three years.

Team movement

The Texas Terror joined the league as an expansion team. Meanwhile, the

Fort Worth Cavalry The Fort Worth Cavalry was an Arena Football League team which operated for a single season, 1994, in the National Conference. The league did not want to abandon the idea of having a franchise in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, a major media ma ...

were relocated to

Minneapolis Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...

and became the Minnesota Fighting Pike; the Las Vegas Sting moved to

Anaheim, California Anaheim ( ) is a city in northern Orange County, California, part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area. As of the 2020 United States Census, the city had a population of 346,824, making it the most populous city in Orange County, the 10th-most ...

, becoming the Anaheim Piranhas, and the Miami Hooters were renamed to the Florida Bobcats. The franchise rights to the Denver Dynamite were sold and the team announced they would return in 1997 as the

Nashville Kats The Nashville Kats were an Arena Football League team, located in Nashville, Tennessee. They were last coached by Pat Sperduto, who coached the team's original incarnation to two ArenaBowl appearances prior to the original franchise's move to A ...

Standings

Playoffs

All-Arena team

{{DEFAULTSORT:1996 Arena Football League Season