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Champions Indoor Football

Weekly Sports League and Franchise Report

by Dan Krieger
February 29, 2016 - Champions Indoor Football (CIF)


BASEBALL

Atlantic League: The Virginia Investment Partnership (VIP), which was unable to build a new stadium as planned at the One Loudoun development in Ashburn (VA) for an Atlantic League team to be called the Loudoun Hounds, has had its lease for the stadium site terminated by the courts. The One Loudoun developers were in a court battle trying to remove VIP from the project, so they could find a new group to build the stadium. One Loudoun plans to move forward on the stadium, which would also be used for a proposed new soccer team, previously announced as the Virginia Cavalry.

South Atlantic League: A development firm completed a feasibility study on the Macon (GA) market and concluded the area could support a minor league baseball team, possibly in the low Class-A SAL. Macon officials would need to find funding for construction of a new ballpark and also find a baseball team to relocate to the area. If construction started in 2016 or 2017, a team could start play in 2018. The Macon Braves played in the SAL until moving to Rome (GA) for the 2003 season.

Pacific Coast League: The Fresno Grizzlies of the Triple-A PCL will be renamed the Fresno Tacos for all ten Tuesday home games in the 2016 season as part of its Taco Tuesdays promotion. The team used the Fresno Tacos name at one home game last season for a successful Taco Truck Throwdown promotion. Last season, there was speculation the team would change to the Fresno Tacos name on a permanent basis, but ownership says Grizzlies will continue to be the team's regular name.

Coastal Plain League: The new Savannah (GA) team in the summer-collegiate Coastal Plain League will be called the Savannah Bananas when it starts play in the 2016 season. Other nickname choices were the Ports, Seagulls, Anchors and Party Animals. The city just lost a low Class-A South Atlantic League team called the Savannah Sand Gnats that moved to become the Columbia (SC) Fireflies for the 2016 season

Western Major Baseball League: The summer collegiate WMBL, which has teams in the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan, has added another Alberta-based team called the Fort McMurray Giants for the 2016 season.

BASKETBALL

National Basketball Association Development League (D-League): The new NBA D-League affiliate of the National Basketball Association's Chicago Bulls will be called the Windy City Bulls when the team starts play at the Sears Centre Arena in Hoffman Estates (IL) for the 2016-17 season. The name won out over two other finalists - the Great Lakes Bulls and Heartland Bulls. Two other new D-League teams called the Long Island Nets, an affiliate of the Brooklyn Nets, and the Greensboro (NC) Swarm, an affiliate of the Charlotte Hornets, are to start play in the 2016-17 season as the league grows to 22 teams.

North American Basketball League: The new NABL now lists 12 teams aligned into a six-team West Division and a six-team East Division. The East has five teams called the Bradenton Gym Ratz, Florida Spartans, Music City Kings (Nashville), Missouri Quake (Essex) and Savannah Cavaliers that were part of the Central Basketball Development League (CBDL), along with the Atlanta Show that was to be part of the 2016 spring season in the New Era Basketball Association (NEBA). The West has the Austin Knights and Dallas Hoyas teams from the 2015-16 NEBA winter season, the Gulf Coast Wizards (Gulfport, MS) from the CBDL, the Louisiana Cajun All Stars from the 2015-16 American Basketball Association, and other teams called the San Antonio Lions and the Miss-Lou Warriors (Ferriday, LA).

Florida Basketball Association: The FBA started its 2016 season last weekend with five teams on the schedule. The FBA ended its 2015 season with four teams after the Marion County Showtime Stallions dropped out during the season. A new team called the Space Coast Stars, based in Melbourne (Brevard County), was added as a fifth team for the 2016 season.

FOOTBALL

Champions Indoor Football: The CIF started its second season this weekend with 12 teams aligned into six-team North and South divisions. The league had nine teams last season, but the Salina (KS) Bombers were suspended near the end of the 2015 season and did not return. The CIF added a new team in Salina called the Salina Liberty, along with the Bloomington (IL) Edge from X-League Indoor Football and two other new teams called the Mesquite (TX) Marshals and Chicago Eagles. The Chicago Eagles evolved from a proposed team called the Gary (IN) Dawgs that never started play for the CIF's first season in 2015. One of the owners of the Gary Dawgs backed out, so the team was reorganized as the Illiana Eagles for the 2016 season. The team then became the Chicago Eagles based out of the Pavilion on the campus of the University of Illinois-Chicago.

American Indoor Football: The AIF announced an expansion team called the Northern Kentucky Nightmare has been added as a travel-only team for the 2016 season as part of the Mid-West Division. The AIF hopes the team will play a full home-and-away schedule in 2017. The team's home is listed as Highland Heights (KY), which was home to the former Northern Kentucky River Monsters in the 2011 Ultimate Indoor Football League and the Northern Kentucky Monsters in the 2012 United Indoor Football League. The AIF expansion team called the Northshore Gators (Slidell, LA) announced it will not participate in the 2016 season, but plans to try again in 2017.

Canadian Football League: Fans of the National Football League's departed St. Louis Rams have asked the CFL to consider expanding into St. Louis, but the CFL stated expansion into the United States is not a priority. In the 1990s, the CFL added teams based in the United States with no much success. At various times over three seasons (1993-95), the league had teams in Baltimore, Birmingham, Las Vegas, Memphis, Sacramento, San Antonio and Shreveport.

Arena Football League: The Portland Steel was announced as the new name for the AFL's Portland Thunder franchise, which was taken over by the league last month. Two other indoor teams called the Trenton Steel in the 2011 Southern Indoor Football League and the Macon Steel in the 2012 American Indoor Football recently used this nickname.

HOCKEY

ECHL: The city of Owensboro (KY) has given the owner of the ECHL's Evansville IceMen team an extension until March 5, 2016 to show that the team has secured financing for the move to Owensboro and the planned renovations to the local arena. The ECHL has yet to officially approve the relocation of the IceMen to Owensboro. Since the IceMen announced the move to Owensboro, a new owner in Evansville plans to bring a Southern Professional Hockey League team to the city to replace the IceMen.

SOCCER

Major League Futsal USA: The MLF, which is a professional futsal league sanctioned by the U.S. Futsal Federation and the U.S. Soccer Federation, announced the current teams and conferences for its 2016 national league. The 12-team Western Conference lists teams from Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Oregon, Arizona, California and Mexico; the 10-team Eastern Conference has teams from Michigan, Virginia, Maryland, Massachusetts and Canada; and the 10-team Tex-Mex Conference has five teams from south Texas and five teams from northern Mexico. The MLF also plans to operate the National Premier Futsal League as a developmental league consisting of amateur and semi-pro teams. The MLF started in 2015.

United Soccer League: The 2017 USL expansion team to be based in Reno (NV) announced it will be called the Reno 1868 FC after the year the city was founded. The other team name finalists were the Reno FC and Reno United.

OTHER

American Ultimate Disc League: The professional AUDL announced its 2016 schedule that will feature 26 teams aligned into four regional divisions. The league had 25 teams lasts season, but lost the Rochester Dragons from the East Division in the off-season. Two new teams called the Austin Sol and the Dallas Roughnecks were added to the South Division for the 2016 season that will run from April 2 to July 10.

PRO Rugby: The Professional Rugby Organization, known as PRO Rugby, announced it will start its inaugural season in April 2016 with five teams - the previously announced teams in San Francisco, San Diego and Sacramento, along with recently announced teams in Columbus (OH) and Denver. PRO Rugby is a professional 15-a-side rugby union league in North America with expansion plans for 2017 that will include teams in Canada. The 2016 season will run from April to July with the month of June taken off for international play.

Dan Krieger is the creator of the Leagues, Teams & Nicknames 2014-15: "The Leagueology Almanac" , which tracks the changes in league alignments, franchise movements and team nicknames in today's sports world. The publication is currently available at www.amazon.com.

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