The Lightning are the fourth official Oregon-based team to play major league arena football and are the second to play outside of the Portland, Oregon, area. They are also the first "major" sports team based in Deschutes County. The team will have the smallest arena capacity in the league set at 4,000. Their main geographic rivals in AF1 are the Washington Wolfpack and Billings Outlaws. Their logo was made using Artificial Intelligence.
Oregon Arena Football History
The first team representing the state of Oregon in the original Arena Football League were the Portland Forest Dragons, who played from 1997 to 1999 before relocating to Oklahoma City and being rebranded as the Oklahoma Wranglers. Oregon would not see the AFL again until 2013 when the Portland Thunder were established by Clackamas billionaire Terry Emmert and would take the field a few months later. The Thunder were rebranded as the Portland Steel in 2016 after the league took control of the franchise from Emmert, then abruptly folded at season's end with no explanation. The second incarnation of the league would fold three years later. Both teams played their home games at the Moda Center.[1]
Oregon would get the arena game back in the spring of 2024 with the launching of the Oregon Blackbears of the revived Arena Football League. That team played four games (three at home at the Oregon State Fairgrounds Pavilion in Salem, and one on the road) before being taken off of the schedule for the remainder of the season, being kicked out of that league and eventually folding due to the team's ownership being entangled with a league management company that had been ousted midseason.[2] The league itself would cease operations immediately after the season ended.
American West Football Conference (2021-2024)
Originally the Oregon High Desert Storm from 2020 to 2024
The AWFC postponed the 2020 season due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic[5] and then cancelled the season entirely due to the unavailability of arenas during the pandemic.[6] The AWFC played the 2021 season, adding two teams in the Oregon High Desert Storm and Tri-City Rush, but the Skyhawks were unable to play any home games due to their home arena, the Town Toyota Center, being used for as a pandemic relief center and vaccination site.[7] The Storm began play in 2021 at the First Interstate Bank Center at the Deschutes County Fairgrounds and Expo Center in Redmond.
In 2023, the Storm made it to American West Bowl IV to face the Idaho Horsemen after they defeated the Skyhawks 44–40 in the semi-final. However, they lost the championship to the Horsemen 42–20.[8] Shortly afterward, the team's website and social media pages disappeared as the team and league suspended operations (Idaho joined the National Arena League,[9] effectively shutting the league down because it owned the Storm).
Ownership and name change, Arena Football One (2025-future)
On October 22, 2024, Arena Football One announced the launch of the new Oregon Lightning. Chuck Jones, the former head coach of the now-defunct Blackbears, part-owns the new team along with Sara Gumm and Jay Jenkins, two local business owners.[10] A header on the Lightning's website identifies the team as "formerly known as the Oregon High Desert Storm". The change of brand was necessitated because of the existence of another AF1 team with the Storm name, the Southwest Kansas Storm. In a recent interview with Shady Sports Network, Jones stated that the Lightning name was chosen in homage to the Portland Thunder, a team name used for Oregon-based franchises in both the previous Arena Football League and the World Football League.[11]
Also, the Lightning has no ties to the Blackbears, but it is rumored that several former Blackbears players could join the new Lightning team. Former Blackbears president Patrick Johnson, who had spearheaded the efforts to keep the Blackbears alive, serves as a senior advisor to the Lightning.[12] The former Blackbears coaching staff under coach Jones are now the staff of the Lightning. On November 18, 2024, the Lightning joined the league's West Division along with the Billings Outlaws, Washington Wolfpack and Arizona Bandits.
