What you must understand
- Kentucky Barrels to play at NKU s Truist Arena in April 2026
- First AF1 season for Barrels; league entering year two
- Owned by NKU alum Corey Cunningham; coached by Cedric Walker
- Arena football rules: 8-on-8, no punts, live-ball netting, sideline walls
At Northern Kentucky University, football will soon arrive.
No, it’s not for the Norse, but starting in April 2026, the Kentucky Barrels, an Arena Football One franchise, will call Truist Arena on the NKU campus home. The news was made during a press conference on Monday morning.
As the Barrels enter their second season as a league, it will be their first season in AF1.
Corey Cunningham, an NKU alum, is the team’s owner, while Cedric Walker will serve as coach. Cunningham owns Prestige Worldwide, a Cincinnati-based IT business. Walker has played and coached arena football for more than 20 years.
Starting a professional sports franchise and adding something unique to my alma university is a dream come true for me as a Cincinnati child, Cunningham said. I’m looking forward to seeing how we develop on and off the field, and I’m thrilled about what lies ahead for the Barrels and our community.
Barrels was chosen as a trademark for Kentucky’s primary commodity, bourbon. Attendance for mascot tryouts should be high.
Arena Football One was launched in September 2024, bringing in eight teams that survived the least year of the Arena Football League in the same year. The 2025 season wrapped up in June with an announcement later that month that they planned to add more expansion teams.
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Longtime NFL head coach Jeff Fisher, the league’s commissioner, stated that the goal is to have 10 to 12 clubs by the start of the following season in April 2026. By 2027, there might be as many as 16 teams.
We’re now working on some important things at the league level, and we want to make sure that everyone has been thoroughly vetted,” Fisher stated. We anticipate to develop tremendously because we have plans with national sponsors and everything. We already have teams that have essentially committed to us, albeit not for the 26th season. We’re deliberately placing teams in various geographical areas, which is crucial from a travel perspective as that might get costly.
Walker said that on September 1st, they will begin assembling a Barrels roster, with the intention of including some local players. They will appoint a coaching staff and hold local team tryouts.
According to Walker, it’s fast-paced, inexpensive, and family-friendly. We are looking for guys that will get out in the community and have excellent character. Some of the guys from the Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky areas will be working out with us locally.
The game differs from the regular football games played at the prep, collegiate, and professional levels on Friday through Sunday. No punting is permitted, and it’s 8-on-8. The field has 8-yard end zones and is 50 yards long by 85 feet wide. There is a brief window for field goals, but if one is not made, there is netting next to it that is thirty feet wide and thirty-five feet tall. If the ball strikes the netting, it becomes a live ball that the defense can return. Kickoffs and scrimmage plays also make use of the netting; any ball that bounces off the nets is live and can be grabbed or retrieved by either team. There is also a wall for the sidelines, so the sideline is a wall rather than a line that runs out of bounds.
Walker declared, “The wall is undefeated.”
Twelve regular season games are scheduled for 2026, with playoffs to follow. Vice TV will broadcast the games, and EvergreenNOW! will stream them. The 2025 champions were the Albany Firebirds.
This is not the first time that NKY has hosted Arena Football. The Northern Kentucky River Monsters participated in the Ultimate Indoor Football League in 2011 and the Continental Indoor Football League in 2014 at NKU’s Bank of Kentucky Center in Highland Heights. In 2011, Jared Lorenzen, a former Highlands player, was named league MVP while playing for the River Monsters. The group was established in 2010, had a break in 2012, came back in 2014, and then disbanded later that year.
There was also a brief stint in 2016 as the Northern Kentucky Nightmare played in the American Indoor Football league for a season. They were a road-only team that played just five games before disbanding after the 2016 season.
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