Weekly Sports League and Franchise Report
by Dan Krieger
August 31, 2015 - Continental Indoor Football League (CIFL)
BASEBALL
Atlantic League: The independent Atlantic League is trying to work out a lease agreement for the stadium in New Britain (CT), which is currently the home of the affiliated New Britain Rock Cats of the Double-A Eastern League. The Rock Cats will be moving to a new stadium in Hartford where the team will become the Hartford Yard Goats starting with the 2016 season. The Atlantic League would like to place either a relocated team or a new team in New Britain, possibly for the 2016 season. A New Britain team would be only a little over ten miles from the affiliated Hartford team, but it could become a natural in-state rival to the Atlantic League's Bridgeport (CT) Bluefish team.
Frontier League: Officials in Fayette County (PA) want to see if the city of Connellsville, about 50 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, could support a new minor league ballpark and a baseball team, possibly in the independent Frontier League. The Frontier League has the current Washington (PA) Wild Things team, which is based about 30 miles south of Pittsburgh and about 40 miles from Connellsville.
United Shore Professional Baseball League: The new minor league ballpark in Utica (MI) that will be home to the proposed three-team independent USPBL is under construction and the league hopes to start play in 2016. Possible nicknames for the three teams include the 59'ers, Beavers, Blue Collars, Diamond Hoppers, Fizz, Mud Pups, Rally Caps, River Rats, Screeching Cicadas, Stags, Steelheads and Unicorns.
United League Baseball: The assets of the San Angelo Colts baseball team, which last played in the 2014 season of the now-dormant ULB, were officially liquidated in an auction held earlier this month. The Colts were part of various independent leagues since the team started play in the 2000 season of the former Texas-Louisiana League.
Northwoods League: The summer-collegiate Northwoods League is in the process of working out an agreement to place a team in Bismarck (ND) for the 2017 season. The league currently has teams based in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and Ontario (Canada).
Great West League: The new summer-collegiate GWL, which plans to start play in 2016 with six teams in Oregon and California, announced its fourth team will be the Marysville (CA) Goldsox. The Goldsox is an established team that has been part of the Horizon Air Summer Series for past ten-plus seasons.
BASKETBALL
National Basketball League of Canada: The NBL-Canada is supposed to make an announcement next week on the return of a team to Halifax (Nova Scotia) to replace the Halifax Rainmen team that ceased operations after the 2014-15 season. A proposed new team in Sydney (Nova Scotia) lost one of its investors, but a potential owner is still trying to get the team off the ground for the 2015-16 season.
American Basketball Association: The ABA announced a couple more new teams called the Daytona Beach Sharks and the Memphis Dons will be part of the 2015-16 season. The owner of the Memphis Dons owns the ABA's new Mid-South Echoes team that also will start play in the Memphis area in 2015-16. The ABA also announced a new Certified Affiliate League program to set up relationships with other pro and semi-pro basketball leagues. The first of these affiliated leagues will be the Christian Basketball League that operates with teams in Louisiana, Texas and Florida.
Portland Pro-Am League: The summertime Portland Pro-Am League, which basically replaced the International Basketball League for the 2015 season, recently completed its inaugural season with six teams called the Beaverton Soldiers, Vancouver (WA) Volcanoes, Terrence Ross Huskies, Terrence Jones Takeover, AC Green Team and Mike Jones Next Level.
Liga Nacional de Baloncesto Profesional: Mexico's top professional basketball league known as the LNBP has signed an affiliation agreement with the FIBA international basketball governing body and will operate its 2015-16 season from late October 2015 to April 2016.
FOOTBALL
Indoor Football Alliance: The new IFA was recently announced as an alliance between two leagues - a new version of the Continental Indoor Football League (CIFL) and the new Supreme Indoor Football (SIF) - for the upcoming 2016 season. Each league will operate its own schedule during the regular season with a national championship game to be played at the end of the season between the two leagues. The CIFL will return in 2016 after it disbanded following the 2014 season. Three former CIFL teams - the Erie Explosion from the 2015 Professional Indoor Football League, the Saginaw Sting from the 2015 American Indoor Football and the Marion Blue Racers from the 2015 X-League Indoor Football - are the initial members of the new CIFL. The Cape Fear Heroes (Fayetteville, NC) team from the 2015 X-League is the initial member of the new SIF. The CIFL plans to have its teams based in the Midwest, while the SIF will try to establish teams in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia.
X-League Indoor Football: After playing the past four seasons, the Lakeland-based Florida Marine Raiders announced earlier this month that the team will not return in 2016 due to financial losses. The team started as the Lakeland Raiders in the 2012 United Indoor Football League and played in the 2013 Ultimate Indoor Football League before moving to the X-League as the Florida Marine Raiders for the 2014 season. Although the X-League lost a few other teams to other leagues after the 2015 season, the league plans to return for a third season in 2016.
Professional Indoor Football League: After one season in the PIFL, the Erie (PA) Explosion has left to become part of the new Continental Indoor Football League, which is affiliated with the new Indoor Football Alliance. The PIFL's Trenton Freedom announced the team has ceased operations after two seasons in the league. This is the third Trenton-based pro indoor football team to fold. The Trenton Lightning was a 2001 expansion team in the now-defunct Indoor Professional Football League, but folded during the season with an 0-6 record. The American Indoor Football Association announced the Trenton-based New Jersey Kings as a 2010 expansion team, but the Kings never played and the AIFA replaced them with a 2011 expansion team called the Trenton Steel. The Steel and several other AIFA teams eventually became part of the restructured Southern Indoor Football League for the 2011 season, but the SIFL disbanded after the season and the Trenton Steel did not return in 2012.
Champions Indoor Football: After operating with 9 teams for its inaugural 2015 season, the CIF plans to have 12 teams for the 2016 season. The Salina (KS) Liberty replaces last season's Salina Bombers team and the league added three new teams - the Illiana Eagles (Chicago), Mesquite (TX) Marshals and the Bloomington (IL) Edge, which was part of X-League Indoor Football in 2015. The Illiana Eagles replaced a proposed team called the Gary (IN) Dawgs that never got off the ground for the 2015 season.
HOCKEY
ECHL: The ECHL's Greenville (SC) Road Warriors team has changed its name to the Greenville Swamp Rabbits for the 2015-16 season. The name pays homage to the historic Swamp Rabbit train line that linked Greenville to coal areas in Tennessee. The Road Warriors entered the ECHL when the Johnstown (PA) Chiefs moved to Greenville for the 2010-11 season.
SOCCER
United Soccer League: Major League Soccer's Philadelphia Union club announced it will own and operate a Division-III USL team based in Bethlehem (PA) on the campus of Lehigh University starting with the 2016 season. The league has 24 teams this season and previously announced other new teams in Cincinnati and the Rio Grande Valley (Edinburg, TX), along with a new Orlando City FC affiliate. The Orlando City FC of the MLS is considering Brevard County with Eastern Florida State College in Melbourne as a possible location for its USL affiliate team next season.
North American Soccer League: The proposed Division-II NASL team called the Oklahoma City FC never got off the ground as planned in 2015 after one of the co-owners joined forces to bring the United Soccer League's Division-III Oklahoma City Energy FC to Taft Stadium. The Rayo Vallecano club from Madrid, Spain will reportedly purchase the majority of shares in the Oklahoma City FC, but it is uncertain whether the team will remain in Oklahoma City. The NASL has been hoping to expand in Canada, which is currently home to NASL teams in Edmonton (Alberta) and Ottawa (Ontario), but proposed new teams in Hamilton (Ontario) and Winnipeg (Manitoba) do not appear to be moving forward.
American Soccer League: The professional ASL, which completed its inaugural season in a 2014-15 Fall-To-Spring format to be in line with the international soccer calendar, will switch to a Spring-To-Fall season starting up again with a Spring Season in 2016. The league had 8 teams for its inaugural 2014 fall season and only 7 teams for the 2015 spring season, but hopes to have 14 to 16 teams when it restarts league play in 2016. In the fall of 2015, the league will have some teams playing a limited number of exhibition games and a limited tournament format.
Dan Krieger is the creator of the Leagues, Teams & Nicknames 2013-14: "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.
Continental Indoor Football League Stories from August 31, 2015
- Weekly Sports League and Franchise Report - OSC Original by Dan Krieger
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer(s), and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts or opinions of OurSports Central or its staff.
