The Syracuse Blitz was a

Professional Indoor Football League The Professional Indoor Football League (PIFL) was a professional indoor football league that played four seasons from 2012 to 2015. Like the Lone Star Football League, the PIFL was mainly composed of teams formerly part of Southern Indoor Foot ...

(PIFL) team that played one exhibition game in 1998 and was going to join the league officially in 1999. The franchise was originally awarded to

Buffalo, NY Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from Southe ...

as the Buffalo Blitz on June 16, 1997. The move was part of a rush brought on by the threat of the

Buffalo Bills The Buffalo Bills are a professional American football team based in the Buffalo metropolitan area. The Bills compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division ...

' lease expiration, which had led to speculation that the Bills would leave Buffalo (speculation that turned out to be unfounded as an extension was reached). The Blitz was owned by Don Angelo, Bryan Perry, and a group of area investors. At that time, they were negotiating with the

University at Buffalo The State University of New York at Buffalo, commonly called the University at Buffalo (UB) and sometimes called SUNY Buffalo, is a public research university with campuses in Buffalo and Amherst, New York. The university was founded in 1 ...

Buffalo State College The State University of New York College at Buffalo (colloquially referred to as Buffalo State College, SUNY Buffalo State, Buffalo State, or simply Buff State) is a public college in Buffalo, New York. It is part of the State University of New ...

for playing sites for the upcoming PIFL season. In September of '97, 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 ...

announced their next franchise would be in Buffalo also, later on known as the

Buffalo Destroyers Buffalo most commonly refers to: * Bubalina, including most "Old World" buffalo, such as water buffalo * Bison, including the American buffalo * Buffalo, New York Buffalo or buffaloes may also refer to: Animals * Bubalina, a subtribe of the tr ...

. This forced the move of the PIFL "Blitz" to

Syracuse, NY Syracuse ( ) is a City (New York), city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, Onondaga County, New York, United States. It is the fifth-most populous city in the state of New York following New York City, Buffalo, New York, Buffa ...

. After one scheduled tryout (Feb. 21, 1998), the Syracuse Blitz did not come together in time for the 1998 PIFL season, so the team had changed their plans to enter the league in 1999. The "Blitz" in fact did play one exhibition game against the

Louisiana Bayou Beast The Louisiana Bayou Beast were a team in the Professional Indoor Football League (PIFL) in 1998, in the Indoor Professional Football League (IPFL) in 1999, and reincarnated in 2001 in the National Indoor Football League (NIFL). The Bayou Beast fra ...

at the

Pete Maravich Assembly Center The Pete Maravich Assembly Center is a 13,215-seat multi-purpose arena in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The arena opened in 1972. It is home to the Louisiana State University Tigers and Lady Tigers basketball teams, the LSU Tigers women's gymnastics ...

on the

Louisiana State University Louisiana State University (officially Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, commonly referred to as LSU) is a public land-grant research university in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The university was founded in 1860 near ...

campus in

Baton Rouge, LA Baton Rouge ( ; ) is a city in and the capital of the U.S. state of Louisiana. Located the eastern bank of the Mississippi River, it is the parish seat of East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana's most populous parish—the equivalent of countie ...

on July 4, 1998. The Beast won the exhibition game 39-18. The "Blitz" wore all black uniforms with all black helmets (no logos used). The Syracuse Blitz never did take to the field in the 1999 regular season, as the league changed its name to the

Indoor Professional Football League The Indoor Professional Football League (IPFL) was the new incarnation of the Professional Indoor Football League (PIFL), which started in 1998. Two of its teams (the Madison Mad Dogs and the Green Bay Bombers) left the league and their owner, ...

that season. Twenty years after the original Buffalo Blitz were proposed, the Buffalo Lightning indoor football team (itself an offshoot of the long-established Buffalo Gladiators semi-pro squad) rebranded itself as the

Buffalo Blitz The Buffalo Blitz was a professional indoor football team based in Buffalo, New York. The club was established in 2014 as the Buffalo Lightning, an expansion team in American Indoor Football for the 2015 season. Playing as an independent in 201 ...

External links

Buffalo Awarded Indoor Football Franchise

Are You Ready for Even More Football?
{{Indoor Professional Football League American football teams in New York (state)

Blitz Blitz, German for "lightning", may refer to: Military uses *Blitzkrieg, blitz campaign, or blitz, a type of military campaign *The Blitz, the German aerial campaign against Britain in the Second World War *, an Imperial German Navy light cruiser b ...

Professional Indoor Football League teams Indoor Professional Football League teams Sports in Buffalo, New York American football teams established in 1998 American football teams disestablished in 1999