You could live in Las Vegas your whole life, know every sports bar and every sportsbook in this town, and never once hear that a professional women's football team plays its home games here. Not flag. Not a novelty act. Tackle football — helmets, pads, 11-on-11 — at Mater Academy, in the Pacific Division of a league whose championship game reached 1.35 million viewers on ESPN2 this summer. The team is called the Silver Stars, the league is the Women's National Football Conference, and both of them deserve a proper introduction.
What the WNFC actually is
The Women's National Football Conference was founded in 2018 by Odessa Jenkins — a former Women's Football Alliance player and championship coach, a Team USA gold medalist, and a former NFL coaching intern — and played its first season in 2019. The idea was simple to say and hard to build: take the best women's tackle football players in the country, put them in real uniforms from real sponsors, and present the games like the professional product they are.
Eight seasons in, the shape of it is clear. Sixteen teams play in two conferences and four divisions — Pacific, Northwest, Central and Atlantic — through a spring season that runs from late March to a June championship. The games are played under college rules with a few twists of the league's own: 12-minute quarters, a kicker's choice of one-, two- or three-point conversions after touchdowns, and the league's signature rule — a defensive touchdown is worth nine points. They call it a Pick IX, and yes, the name is the point. The championship itself is the IX Cup, named in honor of Title IX, and since 2019 it has belonged, almost as a rule, to one team.
New to all of this? The league made an introduction for exactly you:
Meet the league: all 16 teams
Sixteen teams, two conferences, four divisions. Here is the whole league — every club, its colors and its story — with our home team carrying the biggest card of the sixteen.
Western Conference · Pacific
Golden State Storm
Oakland, California · Pacific Division · Home: Laney Field · Head coach Dallas Hartwell · Founded 2026
Navy, teal and gold
The league’s newest club — an expansion team added for 2026 to complete the 16-team map, playing at Laney College’s field in Oakland. The Storm announced themselves fast: a 31–2 win in Las Vegas was part of a debut season that proved the Bay Area belongs in this league.
Las Vegas Silver Stars
Las Vegas, Nevada · Pacific Division · Home: Mater Academy · CEO & head coach Carrie Walters · Founded 2018
Red, black and silver
Our home team — and the fullest story in this section. Founded in 2018 by Carrie Walters, still the club’s CEO and head coach, the Silver Stars were the league’s Team of the Year in 2021. The 2026 season was a hard one on the scoreboard at 0–6, but it closed with a club-record-tying eight WNFC All-Pro selections, and the Stars took two of the league’s best to one score on the road.
The full Silver Stars feature — roster, history and the 2027 recruiting push — is below ↓
Los Angeles Legends
Gardena, California · Pacific Division · Home: Long Beach Polytechnic HS · Head coaches Monique “Moe” Adams and Tim Holmes · Founded 2021, joined 2022
Gold and black
The Silver Stars’ nearest rivals, in the league since 2022. The Legends opened Las Vegas’ 2026 season with a 37–7 win at Mater Academy — and the highlights reel embedded below is from a Legends visit to Vegas.
San Diego Rebellion
Escondido, California · Pacific Division · Home: Escondido HS · Head coach Knengi Martin · Founded 2017, joined 2019
Navy and red
A WNFC original from the league’s first season — and its nearly team. The Rebellion reached the IX Cup in 2021, then went 7–1 in 2026 and got all the way back to the final before running into the dynasty: a 34–14 loss to Texas at The Star.
Western Conference · Northwest
Seattle Majestics
Kent, Washington · Northwest Division · Home: French Field · Head coach Rodney McCurry · Founded 2002, joined 2019
Navy, teal and green
The elder stateswomen of the WNFC. The Majestics were founded in 2002 — they have been playing women’s tackle football for more than two decades — and joined the WNFC for its first season in 2019.
Oregon Ravens
Milwaukie, Oregon · Northwest Division · Home: Milwaukie HS · Head coach Tim Price · Founded 2019
Black and silver
The Pacific Northwest’s other club — Portland-area, based in Milwaukie, and in the league since 2019. The Ravens edged Las Vegas 28–21 in 2026, one of the Silver Stars’ two one-score road losses.
Kansas City Glory
Overland Park, Kansas · Northwest Division · Home: Robert L. Hicks Field · Head coach KeKe Blackmon · Founded 2019
Gold and red
In the league since 2019 out of Overland Park. The Glory closed the Silver Stars’ 2026 season with a 53–0 win in Las Vegas — the toughest night of Vegas’ year.
Utah Falconz
Murray, Utah · Northwest Division · Home: Cottonwood HS · Head coach Keith Barnes · Founded 2014, joined 2019
Royal blue and silver
The dynasty’s most familiar dance partner. Founded in 2014, the Falconz lost the first IX Cup to Texas in 2019 and the 2022 final as well — and beat Las Vegas 26–19 in 2026.
Eastern Conference · Central
Chicago Winds
Elmhurst, Illinois · Central Division · Home: Perspectives HS of Technology · Head coach Allan Williams · Founded 2024
Sky blue and navy
One of the league’s newest clubs — founded and launched in 2024 to carry the WNFC into Chicago, playing out of Elmhurst.
Texas Elite Spartans
Lewisville, Texas · Central Division · Home: Maverick Stadium · Founder & head coach Odessa Jenkins · Founded 2017
Black, navy and gold
The standard. The Spartans have won six of the seven IX Cups played — 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2025 and 2026 — and the dynasty is coached by the woman who founded the league, Odessa Jenkins. In 2026 they went 8–0 and beat San Diego 34–14 in the final behind championship MVP Michelle Angel.
Mississippi Panthers
Madison, Mississippi · Central Division · Home: Madison Ridgeland Academy · Head coach LeSteven Jackson · Founded 2018, joined 2020
Black and teal
The only other club holding an IX Cup. The Panthers broke the Texas run in 2024 — a 13–6 win over the Spartans in the final — one season after losing the 2023 title game. Champions get remembered differently, and Mississippi earned it.
Tennessee Trojans
Nashville, Tennessee · Central Division · Home: Rossview HS · Head coach Kim Corbett · Founded 2022, joined 2023
Navy, red and silver
Nashville’s club, in the league since 2023 — part of the WNFC’s southern spine alongside Mississippi and Atlanta.
Eastern Conference · Atlantic
Jersey Shore Wave
Paterson, New Jersey · Atlantic Division · Home: Hinchliffe Stadium · Head coach Fabian Alesandro · Founded 2024
Teal and black
New Jersey’s entry, in the league since 2024 — and owners of its most historic home field: Hinchliffe Stadium in Paterson, a National Historic Landmark that once hosted Negro league baseball.
Washington Prodigy
Washington, D.C. · Atlantic Division · Home: Theodore Roosevelt Senior HS · Head coach LaMont Jordan · Founded 2012, joined 2020
Navy and red
Founded in 2012 and a WNFC club since 2020, the Prodigy came within two points of the title in 2025 — losing the IX Cup 21–19 to Texas in the closest final of the dynasty era.
Atlanta Truth
Lawrenceville, Georgia · Atlantic Division · Home: Central Gwinnett HS · Head coach Kameron Marks · Founded 2024, joined 2025
Purple and magenta
The league’s Georgia outpost — founded in 2024 and in the league since 2025, one of the newest clubs in the 16.
Florida Avengers
Jacksonville, Florida · Atlantic Division · Home: First Coast HS · Head coach Damien Grimes · Founded 2019, joined 2020
Blue, red and silver
The WNFC’s Florida flagship out of Jacksonville, in the league since 2020 — the Atlantic Division’s southern anchor.
The dynasty at the top
The Texas Elite Spartans have won six of the seven IX Cups ever played, including the first one in 2019 and the last two in a row. This June, at Ford Center at The Star in Frisco — the Dallas Cowboys' headquarters — Texas beat the San Diego Rebellion 34–14 to finish 8–0, in front of one of the largest crowds in the championship's history and a national audience on ESPN2. Quarterback Michelle Angel accounted for four touchdowns and took MVP honors. Maria Jackson scored twice, including a catch spectacular enough to land on SportsCenter's Top 10. Jamie Lock returned a punt for a touchdown and intercepted two passes. The only team to interrupt the dynasty is the Mississippi Panthers, who beat Texas 13–6 in the 2024 final — proof the rest of the league can get there, and a measure of how high the bar sits.
Meet the Silver Stars
Las Vegas has been in this league from the very first snap. The Silver Stars were founded in 2018 by Carrie Walters, who still runs the team as its CEO and head coach, and they were one of the new clubs that launched with the WNFC in 2019. Their own stated mission is to empower women and girls in the Las Vegas community through the highest caliber of football — and the early years tested exactly that. The Silver Stars went winless in their first WNFC season. By 2021 they had climbed to 4–3 and were named the league's Team of the Year. By 2024, the Las Vegas Review-Journal was writing about an underdog that had become a contender, and that summer the Silver Stars hosted the league's Western Conference Tournament right here in Las Vegas. KLAS has covered them the same way — local women tackling barriers, hoping to inspire more girls to join them.
This is what the product looks like up close — the league's own highlights from a Silver Stars home date with Los Angeles:
An honest look at 2026
Here is the part a puff piece would skip: the Silver Stars went 0–6 in 2026. Six games, no wins, and a season finale they would rather forget. But read the schedule before you judge the roster. Two of those losses — at Utah, 26–19, and at Oregon, 28–21 — were one-score games on the road. And when the league announced its 2026 All-Pro teams, voted on by the coaches and players who lined up against them, eight Silver Stars were on the list. Wide receiver Izzy Warren and offensive lineman Barbie Crudup made the first team. Running back Dominique Maloy — who had 112 rushing yards through the season's first three weeks — led a second-team group that also included receiver Christina Vollrath, lineman Dominik Jones, defensive lineman Courtney Powell and linebackers Jessica Hill and Jaynna Valdez. The record says rebuild. The All-Pro ballot says the talent is already in the building.
Where the WNFC sits in women's football
The WNFC is not the only women's tackle league in America, and it does not pretend to be the biggest. That title belongs to the Women's Football Alliance, founded in 2009, which runs more than 50 teams and over 2,500 athletes across three competitive tiers, with its championships in Canton, Ohio. The WNFC is the other model: smaller, concentrated and built for television — one top tier of 16 clubs, every regular-season game streamed free, and a final on ESPN2 inside an NFL facility. Jenkins herself came out of the WFA as a player and coach before building the WNFC, so the two leagues are less rivals than two answers to the same question — one a wide grassroots pyramid, the other a single polished top flight.
| League at a glance | WNFC | WFA |
|---|---|---|
| Founded / first season | 2018 / 2019 | 2009 / 2009 |
| Teams | 16 | 50+ |
| Structure | One top tier, 4 divisions | Three tiers (Pro, D2, D3) |
| Championship | IX Cup — The Star, Frisco | Hall of Fame Village, Canton |
| How to watch | Victory+ (free), final on ESPN2 | League streams, ESPN finals broadcasts |
The business is starting to move
The 2026 season was, by the league's own reported numbers, the most-watched in its history: the IX Cup's 1.35 million unique viewers on ESPN2 made it the largest publicly reported television audience ever for a women's professional tackle football game, streaming viewership on Victory+ grew by roughly half, and attendance across the league rose 63 percent to 30,912. The partners on the wall are real — adidas, Dove, Riddell — and last week the league hired Integrity 9 as its first exclusive sponsorship sales agency, a sign it is moving from building an audience to selling one. The honest frontier is pay: WNFC players do not yet draw salaries, a gap the league has been public about closing as the money arrives. That is the next barrier, and everybody in the sport knows it.
How to watch, and what happens next
Every WNFC game streams live and free on Victory+, and the IX Cup airs on ESPN2 — there is no paywall between you and this league. The eighth season arrives in the spring of 2027; recent seasons have kicked off in late March. And if you are in Las Vegas, the Silver Stars are not hard to find or even to join: the team is already taking player interest for 2027 through its website and the league's National Tryout Day, all positions, no football experience necessary. A pro team in your own city, recruiting in public, playing a spring schedule at a neighborhood stadium — that is about as accessible as professional sports gets.
The Sports Desk's read: Las Vegas collects professional teams the way it collects marquees, and this one has been lit for seven seasons without most of the city noticing. The Silver Stars are not a charity story — they are a founding member of a growing national league, coming off a winless season with eight All-Pros and something to prove. Season eight is the one to get in on. The tickets are cheap, the hitting is real, and the bandwagon has plenty of room — for now.
