A local ownership group will announce the return of Arena Football to Albany on Tuesday.

The team, which the public will get chance to name, will play its 2018 season at the Times Union Center, according to John Adams, president of the Philadelphia Soul.

The Soul’s ownership group is joining with local business owners to run the Albany team. The local ownership group is made up of George Hearst III, publisher and CEO of the Times Union; Dan Nolan, president and CEO of Hugh Johnson Advisors; Ed Swyer, a local businessman.

Members of the Soul's ownership group, including former NFL quarterback Ron Jaworski and former NFL coach Dick Vermeil, will be at the announcement Tuesday.

Adams will be president of a new corporate entity, Trifecta Sports and Entertainment, which will oversee business operations for both teams.

“There’s not a professional team at the Times Union Center so I think there’s a void there,” he said. “Combined with ownership structure we’ve created with strong local owners and our group, who has a lot of experience and success operating an AFL team. … This could be very successful up here.”

The two teams’ football operations will be separate.

Over the next few weeks the team will hire a coach, begin some public outreach and marketing operations.

One of the next steps after the announcement will be working with the public to pick a team name, Adams said.

"That's really the immediate future and by the time we get through that process we'll be signing players and the team will be coming together," Adams said.

The Soul is among the Arena Football League’s most successful franchises and currently the league’s two-time defending champions.

Albany has not had an Arena Football League team in years. The AFL's Albany Firebirds operated downtown from 1990 to 2000. Attendance peaked at 12,240 per game in 1995 before dropping to 9,872 in 2000. The team moved to Indianapolis the next year, citing the need for a larger market.

The Arena Football League plays a four-month season, beginning in early April. The CBS Sports Network televised a Saturday night game each week during the 2017 season. The league currently only has five teams but there have been reports of other expansion teams in 2018, including a team in Newark.

The Times Union Center was without a professional sports team after the American Hockey League’s Albany Devils left at the end of the 2017 season.

The Times Union Center’s General Manager Bob Belber previously said the center is also looking at bringing in a National Lacrosse League team.