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1.0 History

1.1 Original Nashville Kats (1997-2001)

1.2 Kats revived (2005-2007)

2.0 Season-by-season

3.0 Head Coaches

4.0 Notable players

5.0 AFL Hall of Famers

6.0 Notes

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Nashville Kats Wiki Information

''This page is for the second Nashville Kats franchise, which began play in the Arena Football League in 2005. The original Nashville Kats moved to Atlanta, Georgia, in 2002 and became the Georgia Force. The second incarnation of the Kats assumed the original team's pre-move history.''

The Nashville Kats were an Arena Football League team, located in Nashville, Tennessee. They were last coached by Pat Sperduto, who coached the team's original incarnation to two ArenaBowl appearances prior to the franchise's move to Atlanta in 2002.

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History

The Nashville Kats began play in 2005 at the Sommet Center (formerly Nashville Arena and Gaylord Entertainment Center), also home of the Nashville Predators hockey team. The majority of the team was owned by Bud Adams, the owner of the Tennessee Titans of the National Football League; country music singer Tim McGraw was a minority investor, and when the Kats scored a touchdown, the PA system played one of McGraw's hits, "I Like It, I Love It."

The Kats had a rivalry with the Grand Rapids Rampage which dated back to the original Kats in their ArenaBowl XV appearance in which they lost to the Rampage.

Original Nashville Kats (1997-2001)

The team began as the Nashville Kats in 1997. The original Kats played in the then-named Nashville Arena (AKA "The Alley") in downtown Nashville, and were initially coached by Eddie Khayat in 1997 and 1998, who was succeeded by Pat Sperduto for the balance of the team's time in Nashville. The Kats were the league's Organization of the Year for their inaugural year of 1997, and were in the playoffs for every season of their relatively brief existence, even playing in the ArenaBowl(XIV and XV) each of their final two seasons, albeit losing both times they reached the AFL's championship game.

After disagreements with arena management and the primary tenant, the Nashville Predators of the National Hockey League, majority owner Mark Bloom sold the franchise in December 2001 to Virgil Williams, an Atlanta businessman, for nearly $10 million. The team's departure from the Nashville market was not related to lack of success either on the field or at the box office, but rather their inability to negotiate a favorable lease with the Predators. This team would become the Georgia Force.

The team was named for the 1967 hit "Nashville Cats" by The Lovin' Spoonful. The team's logo featured an anthropomorphic tabby wearing a 1950s-style leather jacket, holding the neck of a guitar in one paw and juggling a football with the other.

Kats revived (2005-2007)

Shortly after the team's exit, Adams purchased the rights to an expansion franchise in Nashville (along with the Kats identity), but could not negotiate an arena lease with the Predators. Because Nashville Municipal Auditorium and Vanderbilt's Memorial Gym are unsuitable for arena football (Vanderbilt has a dry policy for athletic events), Adams explored the idea of building his own mid-size arena (roughly 10,000 seats) to host the Kats and compete with the GEC for concerts and smaller sporting events. Ultimately, the Predators agreed to a deal with Adams, and in the summer of 2004, Adams announced the Kats would return to the Predators' arena in 2005.

When the Kats were revived as an expansion team in 2005, the team re-assumed all its history from the Georgia Force prior to the franchise's move to Atlanta. This was an arrangement similar to the one made in the NFL with the Cleveland Browns and in the CFL with the Montreal Alouettes. The revived logo was identical to the original except for the ball, which was drawn as the lighter colored, brown-with-blue-stripe ball used in the AFL at that time, along with the colors of the logo, which were slightly modified to reflect those of the Titans.

The new Kats' first season started horrendously. After an opening victory on the road, it took until week 8 for the franchise to record another victory. But after that, the Kats won their next five games, and finished the season with a 6-9-1 record. The 41-41 tie at the Dallas Desperados on April 8 was only the second in AFL history, and prompted the League to change its overtime rules to eliminate ties before the start of the 2006 season.

Nashville finished the 2006 regular season with an 8-8 record; good enough to earn the team a playoff berth. The Kats lost in the opening round to the Chicago Rush.

The Kats finished the 2007 season with a 7-9 record and just missed the playoffs after a Utah Blaze win in the final week of the season.

On October 10, 2007, after months of speculation, owner Bud Adams decided to shut down operations for the second time in franchise history. The team had struggled at the box office since its return to Nashville.

The team's mascot was a jersey-and-shorts-clad cat named Kool Kat . ^[1]

Season-by-season

Note: W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties''

Season	W	L	T	Finish	Playoff results
1997	10	4	0	1st NC Eastern	Lost Week 1 (Tampa Bay 52-49)
1998	9	5	0	3rd NC Southern	Lost Week 1 (Orlando 58-43)
1999	8	6	0	2nd NC Southern	Lost Week 1 (Arizona 34-30)
2000	9	5	0	2nd NC Southern	Won Week 1 (Grand Rapids 57-14) Won Week 2 (Iowa 63-56) Won Semifinals (San Jose 51-42) Lost ArenaBowl XIV (Orlando 41-38)
2001	10	4	0	1st NC Southern	Won Week 2 (Toronto 45-38) Won Semifinals (San Jose 71-47) Lost ArenaBowl XV (Grand Rapids 64-42)
Dormant 2002-2004
2005	6	9	1	3rd AC Central	--
2006	8	8	0	2nd AC Central	Lost Wild Card (Chicago 55-47)
2007	7	9	0	4th AC Central	--
Totals	71	55	1	(including playoffs)