Arena Football HQ — The Home of Indoor Pro Football Throwbacks
Authentic AFL, AF1 & AF2 Throwbacks. Custom Names & Numbers. Sizes S–5XL.
Arena Football HQ is the definitive online destination for throwback jerseys, hats, t-shirts, and apparel from every era of American indoor pro football. From the original Arena Football League (1987–2008) through AF1 (the 2010 reboot) and AF2 (the developmental league), Arena Football HQ at Royal Retros covers every team, every era, and every uniform that ever played 50-yard, eight-on-eight, foam-padded-wall arena football. Free name and number on most styles. Sizes S–5XL.
Shop by League
The Arena Football HQ collection is your gateway to every indoor-football league we cover:
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AFL (Arena Football League, 1987–2008) — The original arena football league: Tampa Bay Storm, Albany Firebirds, Iowa Barnstormers, Orlando Predators, San Jose SaberCats, Arizona Rattlers.
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AF1 (2010–2019) — The post-bankruptcy reboot of the original AFL. Tampa Bay Storm, Cleveland Gladiators, Philadelphia Soul, Spokane Shock, Arizona Rattlers, Iowa Barnstormers, San Jose SaberCats, Jacksonville Sharks.
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AF2 (2000–2009) — The Arena Football League's developmental league: Bossier-Shreveport Battle Wings, Spokane Shock, Tulsa Talons, Arkansas Twisters, Manchester Wolves, Quad City Steamwheelers.
What You Can Shop
Arena Football Jerseys — Mesh and twill arena-style jerseys covering every AFL, AF1, and AF2 team. Free name and number on most jerseys. Sizes S–5XL.
Arena Football Hats — Snapback, fitted, unstructured dad caps, and trucker styles featuring AFL, AF1, and AF2 team logos.
Arena Football T-Shirts & Hoodies — Soft cotton tees and pullover hoodies in every team's colorways.
Customization — Free name and number on most jerseys. Custom items are final sale.
Sizes — Small through 5XL on most styles. True family sizing.
Marquee Arena Football Teams
Across thirty-plus years of indoor football, these are the franchises that built the league's identity:
Tampa Bay Storm — Five-time ArenaBowl champions (1991, 1993, 1995, 1996, 2003) and the longest-tenured franchise in arena football history. The gold standard.
Arizona Rattlers — Five-time ArenaBowl champions across the AFL and AF1 era (1994, 1997, 2012, 2013, 2014). Phoenix's longest-running pro football franchise.
San Jose SaberCats — Four-time ArenaBowl champions (2002, 2004, 2007, 2015) and the late-AFL/early-AF1 dynasty that put California arena football on the map.
Albany Firebirds — 1999 ArenaBowl champions and one of the original-AFL franchises that spent the longest stretches in upstate New York. Shop the Firebirds.
Nashville Kats — Tennessee's pro arena football franchise and one of the most beloved late-1990s AFL squads. Shop the Kats.
Orlando Predators — ArenaBowl champions in 1998 and 2000, with one of the great AFL franchise logos.
Iowa Barnstormers — The AFL franchise that gave Kurt Warner his first pro starts before he became NFL MVP and Super Bowl champion.
Philadelphia Soul — Bon Jovi-co-owned franchise that won three ArenaBowls and remains a Philly cult favorite.
Spokane Shock — The Pacific Northwest's arena football franchise; AF1 champions and AF2 champions across multiple eras.
Cleveland Gladiators — Former Las Vegas Gladiators who relocated to Cleveland and became one of the AF1's most consistent late-era contenders.
Why Royal Retros Is the Home of Arena Football
- Officially licensed throwbacks across every arena football era.
- Free name and number customization on most jerseys.
- Period-correct construction and colorways for AFL (original), AF1, and AF2.
- Sizes Small through 5XL — true family sizing.
- The widest selection of indoor-football apparel anywhere on the web.
- One-stop shop spanning the entire history of American arena football.
Quick Buying Questions
What sizes are available?
Small through 5XL on most styles.
Can I customize?
Yes — most jerseys include free name and number. Custom items are final sale.
Is this officially licensed?
Yes. Royal Retros holds the licensing required to make AFL, AF1, and AF2 throwbacks.
How long will my order take?
Stock items ship within a few business days. Custom jerseys typically take 2–3 weeks because each one is sewn to order.
Do you carry both the original AFL and the AF1 reboot?
Yes. From the 1987 inaugural season through the 2019 final AF1 season, every team is in the catalog.
The History of Arena Football
Arena football is one of the great American sports inventions. Conceived by Jim Foster in 1981 on the back of a Madison Square Garden envelope during a Major Indoor Soccer League game, the sport debuted as a test event in 1986 and launched as the Arena Football League in 1987. The rules were unlike anything in football: a 50-yard field, eight players per side, padded boundary walls in play, rebound nets behind the goal posts that kept missed kicks live, no punting, and an emphasis on continuous high-scoring action.
The Original AFL (1987–2008) — Twenty-Two Seasons of Indoor Football
The Arena Football League launched in June 1987 with four teams: the Pittsburgh Gladiators, Denver Dynamite, Chicago Bruisers, and Washington Commandos. Denver won the inaugural ArenaBowl. Across the next two decades the league expanded to as many as nineteen franchises, signed national TV deals (NBC carried games for years), and developed a cult fanbase across the South, Midwest, and West Coast.
Tampa Bay Storm became the league's signature franchise, winning five ArenaBowls between 1991 and 2003. The Arizona Rattlers, San Jose SaberCats, and Albany Firebirds emerged as the rest of the league's competitive elite. The Iowa Barnstormers became famous as the launching pad for Kurt Warner, who played there before grocery-store-clerking his way to the St. Louis Rams and a Hall of Fame career.
The original AFL canceled its 2009 season due to financial pressure and filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy reorganization that summer.
AF2 (2000–2009) — The Developmental League
Arena Football 2 launched in 2000 as the AFL's affiliated developmental league, featuring teams in smaller markets that couldn't support full AFL franchises. The Spokane Shock, Bossier-Shreveport Battle Wings, Tulsa Talons, Arkansas Twisters, Manchester Wolves, Florida Firecats, and Quad City Steamwheelers became cult favorites in their respective markets. AF2 ran for ten seasons before folding alongside the original AFL in 2009. Many AF2 alumni went on to NFL careers including James Harrison, who started his pro career with the Carolina Speed.
AF1 (2010–2019) — The Reboot
The Arena Football League returned in 2010 as a slimmed-down operation legally distinct from the bankrupt original (technically organized as a 501(c)(6) nonprofit owned by its teams — hence sometimes referenced as "AF1"). The reboot fielded fifteen franchises in its peak years, including legacy names (Tampa Bay Storm, Iowa Barnstormers, Arizona Rattlers, Orlando Predators) and new entries (Cleveland Gladiators, Philadelphia Soul, Spokane Shock).
The Arizona Rattlers won three consecutive ArenaBowls (2012, 2013, 2014), establishing themselves as the dominant franchise of the rebooted era. The San Jose SaberCats won the 2015 ArenaBowl. The Philadelphia Soul — part-owned by Bon Jovi — won three ArenaBowls in the AF1 era. The reboot survived a decade despite consistent franchise turnover and ownership instability before folding after the 2019 season.
An attempted second reboot launched briefly in 2024 as the new "AFL" but failed to complete its inaugural season. American arena football has been on hiatus since.
The Players Arena Football Built
Arena football has been the launching pad and the comeback path for some of the great football careers of the past forty years:
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Kurt Warner — Iowa Barnstormers (AFL) before St. Louis Rams Super Bowl MVP and Hall of Fame.
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James Harrison — Carolina Speed (AF2) before Pittsburgh Steelers two-time Super Bowl champion and Defensive Player of the Year.
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Aaron Garcia — the all-time AFL passing leader, four-time ArenaBowl champion across multiple franchises.
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Eddie Brown — Iowa Barnstormers and Tampa Bay Storm great, AFL Hall of Fame inductee.
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Damian Harrell, Hunkie Cooper, Sherdrick Bonner — AFL legends who never got NFL respect but built careers in the indoor game.
Why Arena Football Matters
For thirty-two years — longer than the modern NBA, MLB free agency era, or modern NHL — arena football was the alternative football most American fans actually had access to. It played in indoor markets the NFL ignored. It gave us a fundamentally different version of the sport with its own rules, its own stars, its own great franchises. The Tampa Bay Storm dynasty and the Arizona Rattlers dynasty are bona fide American sports stories that deserve to be remembered alongside any pro sports run.
Royal Retros is built to honor that legacy. We carry every arena football league we can license, in every era, with the same construction quality and customization options as our NFL-adjacent throwbacks. If you packed Tampa's USF Sun Dome to watch the Storm in the 1990s, or wore an Arizona Rattlers jersey through three straight ArenaBowls in the 2010s — Arena Football HQ is the home of your team.
Arena Football HQ at Royal Retros — Indoor Football Forever. Custom Names & Numbers. Sizes S–5XL.
