Idaho Stallions / Boise Stallions

Indoor Professional Football League (1999-2001)

Background

The Idaho Stallions were a low-budget indoor professional football team that played in the Indoor Professional Football League for three seasons between 1999 and 2001. During the team’s final campaign in 2001, the team was known as the “Boise Stallions”.

Both Boise and nearby Nampa, 30 minutes to the west of the capital city, opened brand new arenas in 1997. The modern buildings brought a surge of minor league sports investors to the state. In the fall of 1997, minor league hockey’s Idaho Steelheads set up shop at Boise’s Bank of America Centre and the Idaho Stampede of the Continental Basketball Association took residence at The Idaho Center in Nampa.

The Stallions arrived in the spring of 1999, initially selecting Nampa as their home. The team averaged 4,316 fans per game for eight home dates at The Idaho Center during their debut season. At the end of the year, owner Jim Carlson announced the team would move to Boise and the Bank of America Centre in 2000, claiming that a survey of season ticket holders & sponsors overwhelmingly supported the move.⁴Samson, Derek. “Fans speak up, Stallions move out of Idaho Center”. The Idaho Statesman (Boise, ID). December 17, 1999 The Stallions would play their final two seasons in Boise.

The IPFL was intended as a lower-budget alternative to the Arena Football League (AFL).  The rules varied slightly from the AFL product as well. The IPFL did not use end-zone nets, for example, which allowed the league to circumvent the patent protections that the older and better-established AFL had secured for its game system. Players earned $200 per game and many were former players at local schools such as Boise State, Idaho State and the University of Idaho.

Off to the Glue Factory

The Stallions’ fortunes deteriorated with each passing season. The 1999 team finished in next-to-last place with a 6-10 record and cycled through three head coaches. That performance was a good as it would get for the perpetually troubled club.

The 2000 Stallions dropped their final 6 games to finish in last place with a 5-11 mark. Attendance dipped with the move to Boise. Following the season, owner Jim Carlson laid off his entire staff. The operator of the Bank of America Centre, Diamond Sports, sued the Stallions over unpaid rent, just as the Idaho Center had done earlier in the year.⁵Crippe, Chad & Samson, Derek. “B of A Centre, Diamond Sports sue Stallions”. The Idaho Statesman (Boise, ID). December 12, 2000

It seemed the debt-ridden Stallions were done in Boise. But the team made an unexpected return to the Bank of America Centre after Carlson sold the team in February 2001. Unfortunately, one of those new owners was a man named Philip Subhan, an American Express Financial Advisor from Princeton, New Jersey. Subhan and his business partner also owned the IPFL’s expansion Trenton Lightning franchise in 2001. It later emerged that Subhan embezzled the funds he used for his indoor football speculation from his clients. He was later convicted and sentenced to prison in 2004.

Within the first three weeks of the 2001 season, Subhan’s schemes started to unravel. Stallions paychecks began to bounce and ultimately the league had to assume ownership of the team. The IPFL cancelled three of the Stallions’ final four games to save money. After weeks of inactivity, the Stallions returned for a meaningless road game on the final weekend of the regular season on August 18th. The demoralized squad suffered a 79-18 blowout loss to the Omaha Beef and then scattered to the winds. The IPFL also went out of business at the end of the 2001 season.

Indoor football returned to Boise in 2007 with the arrival of the Boise Burn of Arena Football 2. The Burn played three seasons from 2007 to 2009.

Idaho Stallions Shop

Links

Indoor Professional Football League Programs

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