The Augusta Spartans will have additional competition next summer in defense of their World Indoor Football League championship.

The second-year league announced Monday it has added a fifth team for next season, the Tallahassee Titans, and is in "serious negotiations with other existing teams, as well as new ownership groups, for new markets for its second season in 2008."

The Titans join the Spartans, the Columbus Lions, the Daytona Beach Thunder and the Osceola Ghostriders.

This past season Tallahassee went 11-4 in the American Indoor Football Association - formerly the American Indoor Football League, which the Spartans left after the 2006 season.

WIFL commissioner Gary Tufford said at the June 30 World Indoor Bowl that the league could add two to four expansion teams this off-season. The Titans became the first.

"The WIFL is in talks with many teams on the East Coast and we are proud to be the first to commit to them," Titans owner David Morris said in a team release. "I would like to thank a league like the WIFL for offering to help the Titans and for their guidance."

The WIFL was created last summer by its charter members to be a more owner-friendly league, after the AIFL saw its share of stability problems in 2006.

"This is a serious, intense time," Tufford said in a release. "The entire sport of indoor football remains in a state of flux and teams and organizations are looking for a situation that ensures stability. The WIFL feels that, with our management experience and owner-based operations, we provide the best option for a stable league at this level."

Tufford also said he is pleased to have a market in Tallahassee that has proven to be a hotbed for college football and fans.

The new team also falls conveniently in the area between the league's Georgia and Florida teams.

"Strategically this market is very important to the growth of our league," Tufford said in the release. "It also doesn't hurt to have two premier college football programs, such as Florida State and Florida A&M, that can provide talent for this franchise both on and off the field."