The AIFL began as a regional league with six franchises on the East Coast of the United States in 2005; after a rapid, and largely failed, expansion effort in 2006, most of the league's remaining teams jumped to the new AIFA (the rest joined the short-lived WIFL). The AIFA expanded throughout existing territory and, in 2008, expanded into the Western United States. The league legally divided into two entities to allow for a partial merger with the Southern Indoor Football League, which resulted in all of its Eastern teams merging into the SIFL and the AIFA only maintaining its western teams. As such, none of the charter teams or markets of the AIFL have teams in the AIFA. Only one market (Erie, Pennsylvania) had continuously held an AIFL/AIFA team from the time of the league's founding unt