Meet the Chupacabras, New Mexico's new indoor football team

Professional football is officially headed back to New Mexico — complete with a new look and coach.

Formerly the Duke City Gladiators, the team will resume play as the New Mexico Chupacabras during the 2026 Indoor Football League season. The Chupacabras will play at Tingley Coliseum, the franchise’s previous home from 2015 to 2019, and will be led by new head coach Kyle Moore-Brown, who is currently an assistant head coach and offensive line coach for the IFL finalist Las Vegas Knight Hawks.

The logo, coach and venue were unveiled during the IFL National Championship media event in Tucson on Friday. The Chupacabras introduction came complete with slick promotional video.

"Born of fear, bred for battle. The Chupacabras aren’t just a story anymore. They’re real, and they’ve come to eat. This is more than football. This is survival …They don’t come to play. They come to hunt. Our state, our team, your nightmare. The New Mexico Chupacabras," the video proclaims.

According to ancient lore, the Chupacabra is a terrifying, vampiric creature known for draining the blood of livestock. For co-owner Mike Fietz, selecting the new moniker was about finding something that resonated throughout the Land of Enchantment.

“The best part is it's about our culture and just celebrating who we are as a state. And it's going to be fun,” Fietz said. “We had probably a dozen names that we looked at, and that was just one that kind of stuck. It just fit what we're trying to do. And, again, the legend, the folklore of New Mexico, we just wanted to do something different.

“…We also wanted to re-brand, be inclusive with the whole state.”

Tingley, meanwhile, is a familiar venue. When previous owner Gina Prieskorn-Thomas, announced that the team was going dormant for the 2025 campaign, she cited waning attendance and season ticket purchases at the Rio Rancho Events Center as a significant factor. Fietz cited the efforts of Tingley general manager Dan Mourning as being integral to bringing the franchise back to the location where it won Champions Indoor Football League titles in 2018 and 2019.

“It's kind of where it all started. And I think it's important to bring it back to there,” Fietz said. “It's a central location for all of New Mexico, and certainly Albuquerque ..Dan and the state have done some incredible improvements already to the fairgrounds.

“The ultimate goal is for there to be a new arena in New Mexico and that we play there. But for the time being, being back in that central location is really important to us.”

On the coaching side, Moore-Brown is a football lifer who played collegiately at Kansas University before spending 15 seasons in the Arena Football League, where he won two titles, played in a record 236 consecutive games and was eventually inducted into the AFL’s Hall of Fame. He has previous head coaching experience with the IFL’s La Crosse Spartans and Cedar Rapids Titans.

Moore-Brown says the No. 1 thing to expect from him as a coach is “support.”

“I think it's a big part of who I am as a person is I kind of just jump into community,” he said. “I think it's an extension of my team, an extension of the outside. I don't want it to be two entities. I want to say, ‘Listen, we're part of you. We're proud of what we have before you and come support it.’ With me, I believe in a brand.”

Moore-Brown has manned both sides of the trenches during his playing career, and he expects that lineman’s mentality to carry over to his teams.

“I think you start from the front back to build that culture,” he said. “We're good character guys that understand the importance of making sure that we do all the things that we need to do to make sure that we're representing New Mexico well. My coaching philosophy is we're going to leave everything on the field.”

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