Philadelphia Soul
indoor American football team (2004-2019)
The Philadelphia Soul was a professional arena football team based in Philadelphia that competed in the Arena Football League (AFL) from 2004 to 2007 and from 2011 to 2019. The Soul made five ArenaBowl appearances, winning their first appearance (2008 against the San Jose SaberCats) and losing their next two appearances (2012 and 2013 both to the Arizona Rattlers). The Soul won in their fourth appearance, against the Rattlers in 2016, winning 56–42. They also won in their fifth appearance in 2017 against the Tampa Bay Storm, winning 44–40.
The club was established in 2004 when a group, led by Jon Bon Jovi, secured the rights to an AFL franchise in Philadelphia. The AFL folded before the proposed 2009 season was to begin, but was purchased and revived in 2010. After two seasons of inactivity in 2009 and 2010, the Soul returned in 2011 headed by Ron Jaworski. Following the 2019 season, the AFL ceased operations again.
History
Jon Bon Jovi era (2004–2008)
The team was owned by co-majority owners Jon Bon Jovi and Craig Spencer along with minority owners Richie Sambora, Ron "Jaws" Jaworski (former QB of the NFL's Philadelphia Eagles) and Leo Carlin, Jr. The Soul began play in February 2004, and played its home games at the Wells Fargo Center (then known as the Wachovia Center), home of the Philadelphia Flyers of the NHL and the Philadelphia 76ers of the NBA. When there was a scheduling conflict with the NBA or NHL, games were played at the now-demolished Wachovia Spectrum—the former home of the Flyers, 76ers, Philadelphia Phantoms AHL hockey team and the Philadelphia KiXX MISL soccer franchise.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Philadelphia Soul” is indoor American football team (2004-2019). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Philadelphia, Soul and indoor, not as a finished interpretation.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q13561228. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2004, 2007, 2011 and 2019.
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This entry incorporates text from “Philadelphia Soul” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.