HERE'S THE KICKOFF! Tim Brown, commissioner of The Arena League, announced Eau Claire would be home to a new league franchise starting in the summer of 2025.

Eau Claire’s new Sonnentag Event Center is still under construction, but it’s already drawn a new sports franchise to the community.

An upstart professional football league, The Arena League, announced Friday that it will add an Eau Claire-based expansion team to its lineup for the 2025 season. The team – which will be named via a fan contest – will play five home games during the summer of 2025 at UW-Eau Claire’s new event center, which is expected to open this fall on Menomonie Street. The team will play its five home games in the 3,200-seat arena that the Blugold men’s and women’s basketball teams will call home.

“You can always tell when you walk into a city and talk to the people that it’s going to be a good situation. And certainly that’s what we feel here in Eau Claire,” said league Commissioner Tim Brown, a Pro Football Hall of Famer, who announced the team at a press conference at The Eau Claire Event Center.

The league promises fast-paced, huddle-free, “iron man”-style six-on-six football in which all players except the quarterback play both offense and defense, said Tommy Benizio, an advisor to the league who spoke at the press conference.

There’s plenty that sets The Arena League apart from other kinds of football, Benizio added. Games are played on a 50-yard field, there’s a 20-second play clock, and there’s no huddling or kicking: Teams have to drive – not punt – on a fourth down, and instead of kicking extra points after a touchdown they must try for a one- or two-point conversion. Another fan-friendly element: Fans will be able to rate the game’s referees!

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You can always tell when you walk into a city and talk to the people that it’s going to be a good situation. And certainly that’s what we feel here in Eau Claire.

TIM BROWN

THE ARENA LEAGUE COMMISSION AND PRO FOOTBALL HALL OF FAME MEMBER

The Eau Claire franchise is currently owned by the Kansas City, Missouri-based league, but Benizio said he’s optimistic a local owner will step up to purchase the team. Either way, the league has committed to a three-year lease to play at the Sonnentag Event Center, which was a major draw for the league when considering Eau Claire, he said.

The Arena League currently consists of four teams – in Duluth, Minnesota; Waterloo, Iowa; and Kansas City and Springfield, Missouri – and will begin its first season of play this June. In the summer of 2025, the league will add teams in both Eau Claire and Hot Springs, Arkansas. The league is focused on mid-sized cities for a reason, Benizio explained: “We didn’t want to be in Minneapolis and be a small fish in a big pond.”

According to Benizio, the franchise will be the first professional team in any sport to call Eau Claire home since the Eau Claire Braves (originally the Eau Claire Braves), a minor league baseball team, folded in 1962. Benizio expects the new team’s roster to be filled with former (and perhaps future) NFL players, as well as veterans of Division I, II, or III football programs. The small squads will make the teams more economically viable, Benizio contended. “We want these teams to be profitable before their first shipment of footballs,” he said.

An artist's rendering of the Sonnentag Event Center, which is under construction in Eau Claire. (Submitted image)

Benny Anderson of Daredevil Consulting, who has been advising the Eau Claire team, said the team is launching a competition to name itself. Between May 17 and June 1, members of the public are encouraged to visit eauclairearenafootball.com and suggest a team name, as well as to offer names for team logos and colors. Website visitors can also make deposits for season tickets.

While The Arena League itself is new – it was announced just last year – it has some pro-football star power behind it: One of the league’s founding teams, the Kansas City Goats, is co-owned by former NFL fullback Christian Okoye, known in his playing days as “The Nigerian Nightmare.” And Brown, the commissioner, won the Heisman Trophy as a wide receiver for Notre Dame and spent 17 seasons in the NFL, most of it for the Los Angeles/Oakland Raiders.

Brown quipped during the press conference that his previous trips to Wisconsin involved playing against “the dastardly Packers” and noted the coldest game he ever played was at Green Bay’s Lambeau Field in 1993 (when the wind chill at kickoff was 22 below zero). Games will likely be more comfortable inside the climate-controlled Sonnentag Event Center.

Likewise, The Arena League wants the Chippewa Valley to be comfortable with its new team. “We’re just trying to do something different and really trying to bring something great to the community,” Brown said.

Learn more about The Arena League online at thearenaleague.football, and find out about the unnamed Eau Claire team at eauclairearenafootball.com.