The Tampa Bay Storm are an Arena Football League (AFL) team based in the Tampa Bay Area of Florida. They play their home games in the Tampa Bay Times Forum in downtown Tampa.

The team began play in 1987 as the Pittsburgh Gladiators, one of the AFL's four charter franchises, and the only one still operating. They relocated to Tampa in 1991 and adopted their current name. They played in Tampa from 1991–2008, after which point the AFL folded, and resumed operations for the 2010 season following the league's restructuring. Together with the Orlando Predators they have been in their city for longer than any other AFL team. During their tenure they have won five ArenaBowl championships. They are coached by Dave Ewart.

Along with their traditional rivals, the Orlando Predators, they share the Arena Football League record for the longest tenure by a franchise in a single market area. They are also the last of the original four franchises (the Chicago Bruisers, Denver Dynamite and Washington Commandos were the other three) to have operated in continuous existence from the formation of the league in 1987 until the present.

Tampa Bay is a large, natural harbor and estuary along the Gulf of Mexico on the west central coast of Florida, comprising Hillsborough Bay, Old Tampa Bay, Middle Tampa Bay, and Lower Tampa Bay.

"Tampa Bay" is not the name of any municipality. This misconception probably stems from the naming of several professional sports franchises (including the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Tampa Bay Lightning, Tampa Bay Rays, and FC Tampa Bay) whose names represent the collective Tampa Bay Area, the hub of which is the city of Tampa, Florida.

Approximately 6,000 years ago, Tampa Bay formed as a brackish drowned river valley typeestuary with a wide mouth connecting it to the Gulf of Mexico. Prior to that time, it was a large fresh water lake, possibly fed by the Floridan Aquifer through natural springs. Though the exact process of the lake-to-bay transformation is not completely understood, the leading theory is that rising seas levels following the last ice age coupled with the formation of a massive sink hole near the current mouth of the bay created a connection between the lake and the gulf.

Riley Swanson, Jr. (born April 20, 1984 in Atlanta, Georgia) is an American football defensive back for the Tampa Bay Storm of the Arena Football League. He was signed by the Buffalo Bills as an undrafted free agent in 2007. He played college football at Wake Forest.