ARLINGTON, TX – October 2, 2026 – As the UFL prepares to land in Rhode Island in 2027, football has a long history in the Ocean State, including an NFL Championship. In fact, one of the earliest college football programs began in the 1870s. Now, nearly 150 years later, a new professional franchise is set for its debut.
On September 23, 2026, the United Football League announced its two newest markets for the 2027 spring season, which included Rhode Island. The Rhode Island franchise will play its games at Centreville Bank Stadium in Pawtucket.
The UFL will share the venue with Rhode Island FC, Boston Legacy FC, Premier Lacrosse League, Women’s Lacrosse League, and even URI Rams and Brown University football games. The stadium recently opened in 2025 and is located at Tidewater Landing along the Seekonk River.
Rhode Island is the smallest U.S. state by area, located in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. Approximately 1.1 million people reside in Rhode Island, which is nicknamed the Ocean State due to its 400-plus miles of coastline. Pawtucket is a city located in northeastern Providence County, right along the Blackstone River just north of Providence.
As Rhode Island prepares for its first professional football team in nearly 40 years, a winning tradition has been embedded in the culture of the state since the 1870s. Some of the earliest organized college football took place at Brown University.
In 1878, Brown’s college football program began and became one of the major early football programs in the country. The program produced a number of historical football talents, including John Heisman, Edward North Robinson, W. Wallace Wade, Fritz Pollard, Joe Paterno and Tuss McLaughry. Pollard was one of the first Black players in the NFL and became the first Black head coach in NFL history.
High school football began in 1899 when the Rhode Island Interscholastic League was formed with Cranston High, Hope High, East Providence High and Classical High, helping establish more than 125 years of high school football in the small state of Rhode Island.
Finally, in 1916, the first independent professional football team was formed. The Providence Steam Rollers were born, and in 1925, they joined the NFL. They remained in the league for seven seasons and finished with an all-time record of 41-32-11, but no year sticks out more than 1928.
The Steam Rollers clinched the NFL Championship and became the first New England team to win an NFL Championship, only to be joined by Tom Brady and the New England Patriots more than 75 years later. The Pro Football Hall of Fame describes Providence’s 1928 title as the last championship won by a team that is no longer in the NFL.
Providence additionally produced the first NFL game played in a bicycle-racing stadium and one of the league’s earliest games played at night under the lights.
Twenty-nine years after the departure of the Steam Rollers, the name lived on in the New England Football League and Atlantic Coast Football League in 1960. Other football teams in Rhode Island consisted of the Rhode Island Indians in 1965 of the Continental Football League, and then again in 1988 in the Arena Football League. The New England Steam Rollers were the first professional team since the original Steam Rollers, ending a 57-year drought. However, it didn’t last.
And now, almost 40 years later, professional football is back in the Ocean State. Pawtucket will be the host of the newest UFL franchise. Pawtucket has been the home of the Pawtucket Red Sox for 50 years, the Triple-A minor league affiliate of the Boston Red Sox, giving the city a long history of professional sports of its own.
Now, a new chapter is set to begin. The UFL is slated to arrive this spring, with the home opener scheduled for April 2 at 8:00 p.m. ET for the season’s second edition of FOX UFL Friday.
Nearly 150 years after football first began taking root in Rhode Island, the sport is returning to the Ocean State at the professional level. And this time, it’s the UFL’s turn to make history.