The Albany Empire will soon be ending business operations.

According to a statement released Tuesday night, five other teams in the Arena Football League will also reportedly follow suit.

"Earlier today, the Arena Football League was forced to make the difficult, but necessary decision to close our team services and business operations units in our local markets," said Arena Football League Commissioner Randall Boe in the statement. "Looking forward, the AFL will continue to push ahead with efforts to identify solutions to address the aforementioned financial constraints."

According to an Albany Times Union report, coaches, players and other team staff were notified Tuesday afternoon that the league will shut down services in individual markets. The move is to reportedly help the league financially as it faces a lawsuit related to workers compensation from 2009 to 2012.

"The financial challenges we are now dealing with do not, however, reflect the determined efforts of our current shareholders to maintain the viability of the AFL," stated Boe. "Our shareholders have made significant investments to restructure and re-launch the AFL and make it successful."

The Empire are the defending AFL champions, defeating Philadelphia in August's Arena Bowl. It was Albany's first AFL championship since 1999, when the Firebirds won the crown. The team has played two seasons at the Times Union Center.