MUSKEGON – While tons of teams across the arena football world have come and gone over the past decade, the West Michigan Ironmen have remained a solid, successful franchise.

The only thing they have lacked is a stable league to play in, and now they have come full circle, rejoining the American Indoor Football (AIF) league, which they competed in during their first season back in 2016.

Ironmen owner Mario Flores, other team officials and AIF leaders came together to announce the move on Thursday morning at a press conference at Muskegon’s Trinity Health Arena.

The Ironmen, who are set to begin their 10th season next month, will join the Cedar Rapids River Kings and Coralville Chaos – two Iowa-based teams – in the three-team league in 2025.

Each team will play each other twice during the regular season on a home-and-away basis.

The Ironmen are hoping to play as many as eight games, with up to four against non-league opponents.

There are already four home games on the 2025 schedule.

The Ironmen will open at home on Feb. 14 against Coralville, then will host Cedar Rapids on Feb. 22.

As of now, two non-league opponents are scheduled to visit Trinity Health Arena – the Detroit Ravens on March 7 and the Michigan Avengerz on March 15.

Joining the AIF is a shift in direction for the Ironmen, who spent the past two seasons competing in Great Lakes Arena Football, a league they formed and owned.

Flores and Ironmen General Manager Nate Smith discovered the difficulty of finding ownership groups with the proper funding to keep teams alive in the GLAF. They never knew exactly who was in or out from one season to the next, and sometimes one week to the next.

The GLAF was the most recent of several leagues the Ironmen have competed in. The others were Champions Indoor Football, the Midwest Professional Indoor League and the Professional Arena Football League.

Flores said he has fond memories of the Ironmen’s first season, when they played a lot of competitive games against quality teams in the AIF.

Flores was a team sponsor back then, but now he’s the owner, and he likes the idea of getting back into a league that has roots and durability.

“We’ve been in a lot of different leagues,” Flores said. “There are a lot of teams that want to join, think they can join, but when it comes down to the financial piece, they fold. We tried to get our own league, but that didn’t work, either. There were some great people involved, but you have to have the financing.

“When (AIF official Larry Clark) called me and asked if we had any interest in getting back in, my first reaction was no, we were part of it before. But then I started thinking, that might be a viable option – let somebody else control the league and we just show up to play. We decided that was the best direction to go.”

Clark, one of the league owners who attended the news conference, said the AIF has been around since the early 2000s, with a few years off during the COVID period.

He said the league operated with nine teams last season, but they were spread out throughout the nation, which led to a lot of travel costs and headaches.

Clark said the league decided to start over and begin to rebuild as a Midwest operation, and will work to add teams in the Great Lakes region in coming seasons.

“Last year we were spread out from Pennsylvania to Amarillo, Texas, and what we’re looking for is to be more Great Lakes-centric,” he said. “If we can get a cluster of maybe six to eight solid teams within 500 miles, that’s the direction we want to go.”

Clark said the addition of the Ironmen is a huge boost for the AIF.

“Ten years is a great example of a team that’s done very well in arena football,” he said. “There are only a couple left in the country that have been going strong that long, and that’s great.”

Flores paid tribute to the Ironmen’s loyal fan base, noting that the team started out with average game attendance of about 800 back in 2016, and last year averaged around 2,200.

“Without the fans we would be absolutely nothing,” Flores said. “The buzz is there. We’ve already sold out our suites, and our group ticket sales are going up. Our sponsors and our fans are outstanding.”

Flores said there is no truth to the rumor that he is about to sell the Ironmen, but added that local realtor Eddie Alexander, who is already an Ironmen sponsor, will play a big role with the operation of the franchise this season, with an eye toward possibly becoming a partner in the future.

“He’s always walking around and shaking people’s hands at the games,” Flores said about Alexander. “He will be a perfect fit in helping us move forward.”