Oregon Blackbears | |
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Current season | |
Established 2023 Play in Oregon State Fairgrounds Pavilion in Salem, Oregon OregonBlackBears.com | |
League/conference affiliations | |
Current uniform | |
Team colors | Black, Gray, Red |
Personnel | |
Owner(s) | Arena Football League (90%) Kayvon Thibodeaux & Justin Butler (10%) |
President | Patrick Johnson |
Head coach | Chuck Jones |
Team history | |
| |
Championships | |
League championships (0) | |
Conference championships (0) | |
Division championships (0) | |
Home arena(s) | |
The Oregon Blackbears are a professional indoor football team based in Salem, Oregon. They were announced as one of the inaugural teams for the revived Arena Football League (AFL), beginning play in 2024. They play at the Oregon State Fairgrounds Pavilion in Salem.
The Blackbears are the third official Oregon-based team to play in the Arena Football League, but are the first to play outside of the Portland, Oregon, area. They are also the first "major" sports team based in Salem.
The first team representing the state of Oregon in the AFL were the Portland Forest Dragons, who played from 1997 to 1999 before relocating to Oklahoma City and being rebranded as the Oklahoma Wranglers. Oregon would not see the AFL again until 2013 when the Portland Thunder were established by Clackamas billionaire Terry Emmert and would take the field a few months later. The Thunder were rebranded as the Portland Steel in 2016 after the league took control of the franchise from Emmert, then abruptly folded at season's end with no explanation. The second incarnation of the league would fold three years later. Both teams played their home games at the Moda Center. [1]
Four years after the AFL folded for the second time, it was announced on February 1, 2023 that the league intended on relaunching in 2024. [2] On July 18, the 16 intended market cities were announced, including Salem. [3] Like some other locations, Salem city officials were surprised about the announcement, but stated that they "look forward to learning more". [4]
On October 25, 2023, a press release announced that the team would be called the Oregon Blackbears. The ownership group is led by former Oregon Ducks standout and current New York Giants linebacker Kayvon Thibodeaux and that their head coach is former player Chuck Jones. [5] [6] [7] [8] Before the start of the 2024 season, Patrick Johnson was named the team president. [9] Their main rivals in the new AFL are the Washington Wolfpack.
On April 27, 2024, the Blackbears won the debut at home over the Wolfpack 47-40.
With the ouster of commissioner Lee Hutton on May 14, 2024, the Blackbears were left out of the reorganized ten-team league. League officials expressed openness to continuing to schedule games against the Blackbears. [10] In a statement, Johnson expressed surprise that his organization had not been involved in the decision and that he would accept the ruling and disband the team, beginning negotiations with other leagues to ensure Blackbears players could finish the season elsewhere. [11] In a statement to the Statesman-Journal, he indicated plans to discuss the team's exclusion with the other ten remaining owners before taking any further action. [12] As of May 16, the Blackbears are still scheduled to play the Washington Wolfpack on May 18. [13] filling a schedule hole left when the Rapid City Marshals, one of the ten surviving teams, cancelled an upcoming game amid in-team turmoil that had forced the sudden forfeiture of that team's previous game. [14] The Blackbears announced an agreement to finish the 2024 season on May 17 [15] after a local ownership group was found to cover the league's and Thibodeaux's shares in the team. [16]
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 North America after the Canadian Football League (CFL) and the National Football League (NFL) until the AFL closed in 2019.
Moda Center, formerly known as the Rose Garden, is the primary indoor sports arena in Portland, Oregon, United States. It is used for basketball, ice hockey, rodeos, circuses, conventions, ice shows, concerts, and dramatic productions. The arena has a capacity of 19,393 spectators when configured for basketball. It is equipped with state-of-the-art acoustics and other amenities.
KGW is a television station in Portland, Oregon, United States, affiliated with NBC and owned by Tegna Inc. The station's studios are located on Jefferson Street in southwestern Portland, and its transmitter is located in the city's Sylvan-Highlands section. KGW also served as the Portland bureau for co-owned regional news channel Northwest Cable News before it shut down on January 6, 2017.
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The Portland Steel were a professional arena football team based in Portland, Oregon and members of the Arena Football League (AFL). The team started as the Portland Thunder, joining the AFL in 2014 as an expansion team along with the Los Angeles Kiss. The team played their home games at the Moda Center. They were known as the Thunder until the franchise went under league ownership in 2016 and became the Steel.
The Portland Rockets were a professional American football team based in Portland, Oregon for two nonconsecutive seasons during World War II. They were members of the Northwest War Industries League as the Portland Boilermakers in 1942 and the American Football League (AFL) in 1944. The Rockets played their home games at Multnomah Stadium and its colors were green and orange. In 1944 team president Henry J. "Sandy" Sandberg asked people to submit suggestions for the team's nickname, the winner of which was L. J. Maclin of Salem, Oregon. Six other people made the same suggestion, but Maclin had submitted his entry first. They all received season tickets.
Terry W. Emmert is an American businessman, entrepreneur and sports franchise owner from Clackamas, Oregon, a suburb of Portland. He is the founder and owner of Emmert International, an engineering and transport service company, the International Basketball League's Portland Chinooks and the Portland Thunder professional Arena Football League team. He has two children, Terry Michael Emmert, who is vice president of Emmert International, and Christine Vessey, the Vice President of Multrec Corporation.
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