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 Arena Football League season, 1987 season, making it the third longest-runnin ...

. It was succeeded by

1997 Events January * January 1 – The Emergency Alert System is introduced in the United States. * January 11 – Turkey threatens Cyprus on account of a deal to buy Russian S-300 missiles, prompting the Cypriot Missile Crisis. * January 1 ...

. 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 ...

, who defeated the

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

ArenaBowl X ArenaBowl X was the Arena Football League (1987–2008), Arena Football League's tenth ArenaBowl. The game featured the #2 Tampa Bay Storm of the National Conference against the #1 New York Dragons, Iowa Barnstormers of the American Conference. Bo ...

. 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 were relocated to

Minneapolis Minneapolis is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 429,954 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the state's List of cities in Minnesota, most populous city. Locat ...

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

Anaheim, California Anaheim ( ) is a city in northern Orange County, California, United States, part of the Greater Los Angeles area. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the city had a population of 346,824, making it the most populous city in Orang ...

, becoming the Anaheim Piranhas, and the

Miami Hooters Miami is a coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a population of 6.14 million, is the second-largest metropolitan ...

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 ...

Team movement

Standings

Playoffs

All-Arena team

References