Former Bills players in talks to start indoor football team in Buffalo
Former Buffalo Bills receiver Stevie Johnson confirmed that he’s exploring the idea of bringing back the Buffalo Destroyers, this time in the Indoor Football League.
Former Buffalo Bills receiver Stevie Johnson is in talks to bring an indoor football team to Buffalo.
Johnson confirmed that he’s exploring the idea of bringing back the Buffalo Destroyers, this time in the Indoor Football League.
Former Bills wide receiver Stevie Johnson hosted a football skills camp for kids ages 7-13 with a group of Amherst varsity and JV players helping out. Buffalo News file photo
For five seasons more than two decades ago, Buffalo had a second pro football team – the Destroyers, in the indoor Arena Football League – that folded in 2003.
Johnson is working with another former Bills player, running back Fred Jackson, to help fund and start an expansion team in the IFL, the longest continuously running indoor league.
Former Bills running back Fred Jackson sings the "Shout" song with fans at the "Billieve Together" Mobile Playoff Rally at the William-Emslie Family YMCA in Buffalo on Jan. 18, 2023. Buffalo News file photo
Johnson and Jackson are looking to be majority owners and open the remainder of team ownership to the community and other investors.
“Somebody got to do it,” he wrote in an Instagram post about bringing indoor football back to Buffalo.
Buffalo didn’t get a team when the AFL returned to play for the 2024 season – after it went bankrupt five years earlier. But this may be the best chance to get indoor football back in Western New York.
Johnson will face the usual scrutiny over whether Buffalo can be a sustainable market for a semi-professional-type football team. and if the IFL can make it into the future. Many similar outdoor and indoor leagues eventually met their demise or, at the very least, experienced stoppages.
The two former Bills have bought the trademarks and rights to the Destroyers name and will need to pay a $350,000 entry fee by July 31 if they want to start the team for the 2026 season. That number jumps to $500,000 to enter for the 2027 season.
Johnson said he and Jackson will be able to cover $1.5 million as part of an escrow account created to go toward franchise stability. They are also in talks with potential investors.
Johnson met with IFL officials Thursday to further discuss the matter.
They also have spoken with officials from the University at Buffalo's Alumni Arena in Amherst about potentially playing games there, and will explore if there is any opportunity at the downtown KeyBank Center.
The Buffalo team couldn't get going until 2026, at the earliest. The 14-team IFL already has set its 2025 schedule, which is slated to begin March 21. The season is 19 weeks long with playoffs in August.
The teams playing in the league closest to Buffalo are the Massachusetts Pirates and 2025 expansion team Fishers Freight Football in Indiana. The IFL can trace its history back to 2003.
Jackson played in the IFL for two seasons, setting single-season records that still stand: 53 touchdowns and 1,770 rushing yards in 18 games in 2005. The IFL Hall of Famer and Texas native played for the Bills from 2006 to 2014.
Johnson, a California native, played for the Bills from 2008 to 2013. He played in the NFL through the 2016 season.
Former Bills players Stevie Johnson, right, and Ryan Fitzpatrick pose for a photo with Kayla Hayes, left, and Karen Krug at Hyde Park Elementary School in October 2023. Joshua Bessex, News file photo
On its website, the IFL says it has developed a strategic growth plan that will allow for continued expansion throughout the country at a “manageable, yet meaningful pace.”
But since the end of the 2024 season, which featured 16 teams, the Duke City Gladiators, Frisco Fighters and Sioux Falls Storm announced they would have to sit out the 2025 season due to money or arena issues.
Buffalo may be a football-hungry town, as evidenced by how Bills Mafia overwhelmingly supports its NFL team. But the late Mark Hamister's experience with the Destroyers in the AFL was not a profitable one. He lost more than $5 million on the club over its last two seasons in Buffalo and had to sell the Destroyers, who played their games at what is now KeyBank Center.
That team lasted from 1999 to 2003, until Hamister started selling off his shares to a group in Columbus, Ohio, where the team moved and eventually folded after four additional seasons.
The Destroyers' season-ticket base of more than 12,000 in 1999 was the largest in the league. But attendance dropped substantially after the team lost 21 of its first 22 games and the Destroyers recorded a 23-51 record, never winning a playoff game during five seasons in Buffalo. The team went from averaging 12,013 in its first season to 7,629 in 2003
