Portland Thunder
| Portland Steel | |||||
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 Current season
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Established 2013 Folded 2016 Played in Moda Center in Portland, Oregon PDXSteel.com |
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Arena Football League (2014–2016)
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| Team colors | Navy blue, Royal blue, Silver |
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| Personnel | |||||
| Owner(s) | Arena Football League | ||||
| President | Meadow Lemon | ||||
| Head coach | Ron James | ||||
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| Championships | |||||
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League championships (0) |
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Conference championships (0) |
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Division championships (0) |
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| Playoff appearances (3) | |||||
| 2014, 2015, 2016 | |||||
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Arena Football League (2014–2016)
The Portland Steel were a professional arena football team based in Portland, Oregon and members of the Arena Football League (AFL). The team started as the Portland Thunder, joining the AFL in 2014 as an expansion team along with the Los Angeles Kiss. The team have played their home games at the Moda Center. They were known as the Thunder until the franchise went under league ownership in 2016 and became the Steel.
On October 2, 2013, a press conference was held at the Moda Center where it was announced that sports investor Terry Emmert had purchased the membership rights to an AFL franchise. Emmert purchased the Milwaukee Mustangs, which had been a defunct franchise since the 2012 season. This essentially gave Emmert the right to an expansion franchise, since none of the team's Milwaukee roots, such as players, front office staff or coaches, remained. When asked what the biggest challenge to running a new franchise was, team president Jared Rose said, "Getting new fans to buy into something that the market really hasn’t seen before. Any new product launch is difficult, but we’ve got an exciting product that once people see it, they are hooked."
On November 8, 2013, the franchise announced that the nicknames, "Thunder", "Enforcers", "Sasquatch", "Growlers" and "Stomp" were the finalist for the team. Six days later, Emmert revealed the team's nickname would be the "Thunder." The Thunder nickname has history in Portland dating back to the 1975 Portland Thunder, who played at Civic Stadium as members of the World Football League (WFL).John Canzano, sports columnist for The Oregonian, wrote that a "team source" indicated that team owner Terry Emmert selected the team's nickname himself, despite claiming that fans would have the ultimate say. According to Canzano's source the "Growlers" nickname was the most popular among voters followed by the "Sasquatch".
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Wikipedia