Athens to host professional summer football team in 2027
Athens will host a professional Indoor Football League team in 2027, backed by investors including Jerome Bettis and David Pollack.
The Indoor Football League announced on Thursday amid the fanfare of live bands, performances by Michael Jackson and Elvis clones, that Athens will host a professional summer league football team in 2027. The team, yet to be named and with no coach announced, was formed through finances from 10 investors, including former football players David Pollock, Jerome Bettis, and Brian Jordan. All three men attended an open public press conference at the Akins Ford Arena in downtown Athens on May 21.
The team is part of the IFL, founded in 2009, which now has 14 teams divided into Western and Eastern conferences in large cities like San Diego to mid-size cities like Tucson and Orlando. The team’s commissioner, Todd Tryon from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, also attended the event. UGA Baseball: Three things to know about Georgia baseball star Daniel Jackson Mike Sammond, the president, CEO, and co-owner of the Athens team, spearheaded the financial package and identified investors.
“Athens is a perfect market for indoor football because football is a religion in this area and we saw through the Athens Rock Lobsters how this market and this city put its arms around professional sports teams,” he said. “It’s indoors, it’s summer, and there’s not much else to do in the Athens area in the summer,” Sammond, a University of Georgia graduate, said. The team is following a blueprint set by the Rock Lobsters, a professional hockey team that is filling the Akins arena and emerging as one of the best teams in its league.
David Pollack, an All-American at UGA and former ESPN sports announcer, said he became interested in being an investor after meeting with the people involved in the project. “You watch the Rock Lobsters and how much success they’ve had, and you know how much fun this city is and how it rallied behind them, so I knew it would be awesome,” he said. Bettis, who spent 10 years with the Pittsburgh Steelers and resides in Atlanta, said he also saw an opportunity to become involved in football again.