Iowa Barnstormers are joining the IFL

For the first time in five years, the Indoor Football League is expanding.

On Tuesday, Jeff Lamberti, president of the Iowa Barnstormers, announced that his franchise was leaving the Arena Football League and becoming part of the IFL.

That expands the IFL’s roster from the nine franchises that have played these past two seasons to 12 for the 2015 season.Besides the Barnstormers, Billings, Mont., was announced in the middle of the 2014 season as an expansion team for 2015.On Monday, an expansion franchise in Wichita Falls, Texas, was announced.

Billings will be known as the Wolves, while Wichita Falls will be the Nighthawks.

Tri-Cities Fever owner Teri Carr said the three new teams are all welcome additions. But more important, they’ll be strong franchises.

“The gentleman who owns the Wichita Falls team (Drew Carnes), he’s going to be a good addition,” said Carr. “He’s retired and spent the past two seasons involved in community service. He wants his team to do the same thing.”

For Lamberti, moving the Barnstormers from the higher-profile AFL down to the IFL makes sense just from an economic standpoint.

It takes a lot more money to run an AFL franchise in a league spread out all over the country.

Although the IFL is also spread out — Carr always says the Fever is located out on an island all by itself, with Billings and Wyoming the closest franchises to the Tri-Cities — Iowa will have short bus trips to play neighbors in Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Sioux Falls, S.D.; and Grand Island, Neb.

Carr said that there should be no more additions for the 2015 season.

However, the league lineup may drop back down to 10 or 11 teams before the first kickoff next season, depending on whether the owners of the Wyoming Cavalry decide to go forward with another season.

Mike Layton, one of the owners who has been running the team, has struggled with some health issues.

Carr says the league would like an answer to the Wyoming question by next week.

The same thing goes for the Allen Wranglers, depending on whether ownership decides whether it can afford the budget for the coming season.

That would help everyone with setting their schedules by the time the next owners meeting occurs Sept. 16-17.

“The schedule is in the works,” Carr said. “At the meetings, we’ll finalize our budgets, and if there are any operations and manual changes, they’ll be finalized.”

This story was originally published August 27, 2014 at 11:03 PM with the headline "Iowa Barnstormers are joining the IFL."