Sioux Falls Storm leaving IFL for Champions Indoor Football

The Storm are on the move again.

Sioux Falls’ longtime indoor football franchise announced Wednesday they are leaving the Indoor Football League to join Champions Indoor Football, a 14-team league that just completed its third season of existence.

Though the Storm had been in the IFL since it was created out of the United Indoor Football/Intense Football League merger of 2009, the IFL had dwindled to six teams, and Wichita Falls is expected to join the Storm in moving from the IFL to the CIF. That would leave the IFL with five teams and give the CIF 15.

The Storm will play in the CIF’s North Conference, where they will play alongside former UIF rivals the Sioux City Bandits and Omaha Beef. There are also North teams in Bismarck and Kansas City.

The CIF will play a 12-game schedule – four fewer than the IFL’s 16-game slate. The Storm and any other new team may only keep eight players from the 2017 roster in 2018. And the CIF pay scale is different. While the IFL paid all players equally -- $250 a game – the CIF gives teams a salary cap which they can divide amongst its players as it wishes, with a minimum per game salary of $75 and a maximum of $300.

Ultimately, this is a move that stabilizes the Storm’s future by ensuring they have a league to play in. And it will save them money – not only is the salary cap smaller than what Storm owner Todd Tryon paid in salaries in the IFL, the travel costs will shrink considerably.

Tryon said when the season ended it wasn’t necessarily his intention to move leagues. There was talk of a CIF-IFL merger, but with the IFL having recently added former Arena League franchises Arizona and Iowa, the CIF was unable to get the IFL teams to agree to its terms in regards to schedule length and salary structure. The IFL wanted the CIF teams to ‘come up’ to their demands, while the CIF wanted the IFL to ‘come down’. In the end, the CIF held the cards.

“This is the best move for us because it ensures we’ll still have a program,” Tryon said. “Our fans aren’t going to notice a difference in the quality of play. And they’re going to get back some of those regional rivalries we had with Sioux City and Omaha. I think the IFL was kind of getting stale with the same teams, and those were teams that were far away. Now our fans can go on the road to Sioux City, to Bismarck.”

Shortly after the season ended, with the Storm falling to Arizona in the IFL championship, rumors began swirling the Storm were looking to move. The IFL asked its teams to commit for the 2018 season, and Sioux Falls declined, choosing to wait and see what happened.

While Storm coach Kurtiss Riggs said he badly wanted his team to get another shot at Arizona, it was becoming clear that the IFL ship could be sinking. The IFL had 25 teams in 2010, played with 10 last year, and could be down to as few as four in 2018.

“We’re going to continue to play football,” Riggs said. “There’s five teams committed to the IFL, and Cedar Rapids is barely hanging on. It just didn’t make sense to pass up on this opportunity to get into a league with Sioux City and Omaha and other regional teams. If Todd wanted to keep this thing going he had to make this move.”

Riggs said shortly after the season that a move to the CIF would be difficult because Sioux City and Omaha would likely oppose their inclusion. But when the Storm agreed to the roster restrictions and salary cap, any mistrust became moot.

“I don’t think we had to jump through any hoops,” Riggs said. “I think the CIF was able to come to an understanding that we’ve been a good partner in any league we’ve been in. There was resistance at first. Nobody was welcoming us with open arms, but in the end I think they looked at the foot print and the stability of our franchise, and they voted us in unanimously.”

Riggs acknowledged the caliber of play in the CIF has been, in recent years, a step below the IFL. But he’s confident the infusion of the Storm and other teams will improve that.

And with the new roster and salary rules, it’s likely the Storm will put a greater emphasis on recruiting local players. Riggs and Tryon both sound confident they can add to the 10 indoor football championships they’ve won in Sioux Falls.

“We wanted to play Arizona again in the worst way,” Riggs said. “The IFL was a great league for us for a long time. But this is the right path for us, and it gives us a chance to make a fresh start.”