Average Attendance: 1,762
After appearing in the IFL and AF2, the Peoria Roughriders would not skip out on trying the UIF, especially after winning a championship in both leagues. However, Peoria’s first year in the UIF was not an easy one. Despite a scheduling quirk, which gave the team five home games in a row to end the season, the Rough Riders did not ride into the postseason. In a similar quirk, the team lost a three-way tiebreaker with Ohio Valley and Tennessee Valley for the eighth and final spot in the playoffs. In 2006, everything for the once great franchise pretty much fell apart. After a few close losses in the early weeks of the season, things got messy. Players began to leave and some were replaced with semipro players. Attendance dwindled into the hundreds, rather than the thousands. Ownership estimated a $1.3M loss over the last three years. The team folded after the regular season.
