An Arena League football team is coming to Hot Springs with a name that pays homage to two of the many things that make this Spa City so unique.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. — The Arena League is coming to Hot Springs, and with it the excitement of having a new 6-on-6 indoor American Football League team in the Spa City comes excitement as well as excitement over the team name.
On Thursday afternoon, Arena League consultant Tommy Benizio joined new general manager Chris Goodman inside the Gangster Museum in downtown Hot Springs to announce the new team name: the Hot Springs Wiseguys.
The name pays homage to two of the many things that make Spa City so unique: its gangster and horse racing history.
“I love it because I think it's cool because it makes me feel like a 'wise person' or a 'leader' or something,” Goodman explained.
Goodman and Benizio said they were proud and impressed by the support they received from the community in deciding on a name for the new Arena League team.
“We received hundreds of submissions for the name, ranging from spring-water references to some really outlandish ideas,” Goodman said, “but we believe this team's theme is tough but fun and will be something Arkansans will be proud to root for and be represented by for years to come.”
“We had a great 'team name contest,'” Venizio said.[We| got close to a thousand people in the community to submit entries and it was very clear – like four out of ten were something to do with the gangsters, the mobsters, that enjoyed our city all those years ago so it became clear to us, we got to focus around that area.”
The Arena League, not to be confused with the Arena Football League, is currently in its first season of existence with four teams: Ozarks Lunkers (Springfield, MO), Duluth Harbor Monsters (Duluth, MN), Iowa Woo (Waterloo, IA) and Kansas City Goats (Kansas City, MO).
Arkansas’s newest professional team will begin playing in the summer of 2025 and its home games will be played inside Bank OZK Arena.
For more information on the Hot Springs Wiseguys, please click here.
