The Arena Football League announced its division alignment for the 2014 season on Tuesday.
The League will once again feature four divisions within two conferences based on geographic relationships; however, in order to maintain historic rivalries and encourage the development of new ones, AFL Ownership has elected to divide alignment into an eight-team American Conference and six-team National Conference for 2014.
The four division names are South, East, Pacific and West. The South and East divisions make up the American Conference and each division has four teams. The Pacific and West divisions make up the National Conference and have three teams in each division.
The two newest AFL markets – Portland and Los Angeles – will join the National Conference with Los Angeles heading to the West Division while Portland will join the San Jose SaberCats and Spokane Shock in forming the new “Pacific Division”. The Iowa Barnstormers will move from the National Conference to the American Conference in 2014, joining the Cleveland Gladiators, Philadelphia Soul and Pittsburgh Power in the East Division, while the San Antonio Talons will clash with Los Angeles and Arizona in the National Conference West Division.
The full regular season schedule will be announced in the coming days. AFL Owners will be making a decision on the updated playoff format during meetings to be held in November.
The complete division alignment of the Arena Football League for the 2014 season is as follows:
AMERICAN CONFERENCE South Division East Division |
NATIONAL CONFERENCE Pacific Division West Division |