The Albany Empire was a professional

arena football Indoor American football, or arena football, is a variation of gridiron football played at ice hockey-sized indoor arenas. While varying in details from league to league, the rules of indoor football are designed to allow for play in a smaller ...

team based in

Albany, New York Albany ( ) is the capital of the U.S. state of New York, also the seat and largest city of Albany County. Albany is on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River, and about north of New York C ...

, that began play 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 ...

(AFL) in 2018. Home games were played at

Times Union Center The MVP Arena (originally Knickerbocker Arena, and then the Pepsi Arena and Times Union Center) is an indoor arena located in Albany, New York. It is configurable and can accommodate from 6,000 to 17,500 people, with a maximum seating capacit ...

located in downtown Albany. The Empire was Albany's third arena football team and second AFL team; it succeeded the original Albany Firebirds who began AFL play in

1990 File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of humanity on Earth, astrophysicist ...

and enjoyed great success, most notably winning

ArenaBowl XIII Arena Bowl XIII was the 1999 edition of the Arena Football League's championship game. The game was played on August 21, 1999, at the Firebirds' home arena, the Times Union Center (then known as the Pepsi Arena). The title game featured the #8 O ...

, before moving to Indianapolis following the 2000 season, and later the Albany Conquest who played in the

af2 The AF2 (often styled as af2, and short for arenafootball2) was the Arena Football League's developmental league; it was founded in 1999 and played its first season in 2000. Like its parent AFL, the AF2 played using the same arena football ru ...

developmental league from 2002 until that league folded after the 2009 season (and was known as the Firebirds for that last season).

History

After the

American Hockey League The American Hockey League (AHL) is a professional ice hockey league based in the United States and Canada that serves as the primary developmental league for the National Hockey League (NHL). Since the 2010–11 season, every team in the le ...

Albany Devils The Albany Devils were a professional ice hockey team in the American Hockey League (AHL). The top affiliate of the New Jersey Devils of the National Hockey League (NHL), the A-Devils played their home games at the Times Union Center in Albany, ...

relocated to

Binghamton, NY Binghamton () is a city in the U.S. state of New York, and serves as the county seat of Broome County. Surrounded by rolling hills, it lies in the state's Southern Tier region near the Pennsylvania border, in a bowl-shaped valley at the conflue ...

, the Times Union Center was left without a full-time professional tenant. (It remained home to the Siena College men's basketball team of the NCAA Division I Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference.) On March 14, 2017, Center general manager Bob Belber confirmed that it was in early discussions to bring an AFL team back to Albany. On October 24, the new Albany team was officially announced as a member of the AFL for the 2018 season. The local ownership group (led by

George Randolph Hearst III George Randolph Hearst III (born 1955) is the publisher and CEO of the '' Times Union'' newspaper in Albany, New York, and a director of the Hearst Corporation. He is the second child of George Randolph Hearst Jr. and Mary Astrid Thompson and g ...

) has partnered with that of their AFL leaguemates the

Philadelphia Soul Philadelphia soul, sometimes called Philly soul, the Philadelphia sound, Phillysound, or The Sound of Philadelphia TSOP, is a genre of late 1960s–1970s soul music characterized by funk influences and lush instrumental arrangements, often featu ...

(which includes

Ron Jaworski Partner owner , highlights= * Pro Bowl (1980) * Bert Bell Award (1980) * Philadelphia Eagles Hall of Fame ;NFL record * Longest touchdown pass: 99 yards (tied) , statlabel1= TD– INT , statvalue1=179–164 , statlabel2=Yards , statvalue2=28,19 ...

, Dick Vermeil,

Marques Colston Marques E. Colston ( born June 5, 1983) is a former American football wide receiver. He played college football at Hofstra University, and was drafted by the New Orleans Saints in the seventh round of the 2006 NFL Draft. He helped the Saints ac ...

and Jahri Evans among others) to run both teams' business operations while keeping their football operations separate. (This marks the second time that the AFL has announced two teams with common ownership and management but separate football operations, as the

Washington Valor The Washington Valor were a professional arena football team based in Washington, D.C. that played in the Arena Football League (AFL) from 2017 to 2019. The team's home arena was the Capital One Arena. The Valor were owned by Monumental Sports ...

and

Baltimore Brigade The Baltimore Brigade was a professional arena football team based in Baltimore, Maryland, that played in the Arena Football League (AFL) from 2017 to 2019. The team's home arena was the Royal Farms Arena. The franchise was owned by Monumental Sp ...

are both owned and operated by D.C.-area businessman

Ted Leonsis Theodore John Leonsis (born January 8, 1957) is an American businessman, investor, filmmaker, author, philanthropist, and former politician. He is a former senior executive with America Online (AOL), and the founder, chairman, and CEO of Monument ...

but are competitors on the field and separately coached.) On November 7,

Rob Keefe Rob Keefe (born November 5, 1980) is a former arena football defensive specialist and coach. Keefe has five championship victories and is the only person in arena football history to win ArenaCup ( af2) and ArenaBowl (AFL) titles as both a playe ...

was named the Albany team's head coach. On November 9, the Albany team announced that the four team name finalists were the Empire, Fire, Machine and Phoenix. Voting ended on November 15 and the winning name was announced on January 23, 2018, as the Albany Empire. The team played its first game on April 14, 2018, losing at home to the Philadelphia Soul 56–35 before a sellout crowd of 13,648. On August 11, 2019, the Empire won their first ArenaBowl, defeating the

45–27. After the 2019 season, the AFL announced it was ceasing operating teams in local markets and looking into becoming a traveling league. However, the entire league filed for bankruptcy in November 2019 and ceased operations.

Season-by-season results

Players

Individual awards

Personnel

Head coaches

Staff

References

External links

Official website
{{Arena Football League 2017 establishments in New York (state) 2019 disestablishments in New York (state)