Weekly Sports League and Franchise Report

by Dan Krieger
October 26, 2015 - American Indoor Football (AIF)

BASEBALL

Atlantic League: The Camden (NJ) Riversharks team in the independent Atlantic League has ceased operations after it was unable to renew its lease at Campbell's Field. The Atlantic League is now expected to replace Camden next season with a new team in New Britain (CT), which will be losing the New Britain Rock Cats of the Double-A Eastern League as that team becomes the Hartford Yard Goats in 2016. The Camden Riversharks joined the Atlantic League as an expansion team for the 2001 season. There has been talk that a team in the short-season Class-A New York/Penn League could move into the Camden market.

Western Major Baseball League: An investor is looking at the new stadium in Fort McMurray (Alberta), about 270 miles north of Edmonton, for a possible 2016 team in the Canadian amateur summer-collegiate WMBL, which currently has ten teams throughout Alberta and Saskatchewan. A few years ago, Fort McMurray was being targeted to become home to a franchise in the now-defunct professional North American League. In 2012, officials from Fort McMurray were talking with the independent professional American Association about a team and this summer the independent professional Pecos League talked of adding teams in both Edmonton and Fort McMurray as part of its Northern Division.

West Coast League: The amateur summer-collegiate WCL announced a new team in Gresham (OR), a Portland suburb, will start play in the league in 2016 with home games to be played at Mount Hood Community College. The Gresham team will replace the Klamath Falls Gems team for the 2016 season.

Perfect Game Collegiate Baseball League: The Oneonta (NY) Outlaws team will join the PGCBL from the New York Collegiate League (NYCL) for the 2016 season. The Oneonta Outlaws were a member of the PGCBL for the 2012 season, but the team was sold and a new Oneonta Outlaws team was started in the 2013 NYCL.

Prospect League: The owner of two teams in the summer-collegiate Prospect League is still trying to build a 4,000-seat ballpark in the Milwaukee suburb of Franklin. Originally, the ballpark was planned for a proposed independent professional Frontier League team, but it could be for a Prospect League team.

BASKETBALL

National Basketball League of Canada: The NBL-Canada announced the new Halifax (Nova Scotia) team will be called the Halifax Hurricanes when its starts play in the 2015-16 season. The Hurricanes replace the Halifax Rainmen team, which played in all of the league's first four seasons (2011-15) before folding this past summer. The league will again have eight teams aligned into four-team Atlantic and Central divisions. Halifax joins the returning Island Storm (Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island), Moncton Miracles (New Brunswick) and Saint John Mill Rats (New Brunswick) in the Atlantic Division. The Ontario-based Central Division lost the Mississauga Power after the 2014-15 season with the arrival of the new National Basketball Association D-League team called the Raptors 905 for the 2015-16 season. The expansion Niagara River Lions (St. Catharines) team was added and will join the returning London Lightning and Windsor Express in the Central Division, along with last season's Brampton A's team that relocated to become the Orangeville A's for the 2015-16 season. Each team will play a 40-game schedule from late December 2015 to late April 2016.

New Era Basketball Association: The 20-team NEBA, which plans to start a nationwide league in the spring of 2016, will have 10 teams playing a schedule of games from mid-November 2015 through January 2016. New teams called the Austin Knights and Garland (TX) Hoyas were recently added to the league.

Florida Basketball Association: The FBA announced the new Space Coast Stars have joined as a fifth team for the 2016 season. The team will be based in Brevard County and play home games in Melbourne. The FBA plays a spring-summer schedule and will be entering its fifth season in 2016.

American Professional Basketball League: The APBL started its fourth season last weekend. After having two conferences each with two divisions the past three seasons, the league now has all 13 teams aligned in one table. The D.C. Drew All Stars, Metropolitan All Stars, Long Island United, Philadelphia Destroyers, The Revolution, Brooklyn All-Game and Hudson Valley Hype did not return. The Brooklyn Blazers from the 2013-14 season returned and the league added a new team called the New York Fearless.

FOOTBALL

American Indoor Football: The Myrtle Beach (SC) Freedom, which was announced this past summer as a 2016 expansion team for the now-defunct X-League Indoor Football (X-League), has officially joined the AIF for the 2016 season. The Freedom will join another proposed X-League expansion team called the New Mexico Stars that has since joined the AIF, along with four other 2015 X-League teams called the Corpus Christi Fury, Florida Tarpons (Estero), Marion (OH) Blue Racers and St. Louis Attack. The X-League had ten teams last season and the rest of the 2015 teams have folded or moved to other leagues.

Indoor Football League: The Spokane (WA) Shock, which left the Arena Football League (AFL) after the 2015 season to join the IFL, announced the team will change its name because the AFL owns the rights to the Spokane Shock name and will not transfer those rights to the IFL team. The Spokane IFL team plans to announce some possible new names in the future as part of a name-the-team contest.

North American Football League: The proposed springtime professional NAFL still plans to start play in 2016 with 8 teams and eventually grow to 16 teams by adding four teams each of the next two years. A current league map of potential markets has the continental United States split into West, Mountain, Central and East regions. The inaugural 2016 NAFL regular season will be played in May and June.

HOCKEY

Southern Professional Hockey League: The SPHL started its 2015-16 season this week with nine teams. All eight teams returned from last season and the league added the new Macon (GA) Mayhem team, which last operated as the Augusta Riverhawks in the 2012-13 SPHL season. The SPHL announced an ownership group has purchased the league's dormant Biloxi-based Mississippi Surge franchise and will move it to Roanoke (VA) for the 2016-17 season. This move is separate from efforts of a local Biloxi-based ownership group that has applied to the SPHL for a new franchise to start playing again in Biloxi for the 2016-17 season. The Biloxi-based Mississippi Surge played five seasons (2009-13) in the SPHL before folding. Roanoke's most recent minor professional hockey teams were the Roanoke Express (1993-2004) in the ECHL and the Roanoke Valley Vipers (2005-06) in the defunct United Hockey League.

United States Hockey League: The city of Coralville near Iowa City (IA) is working to build a 7,000-seat arena to serve as home to the University of Iowa hockey program, along with a possible team in the Tier-I junior-level USHL. The city is in discussions with a group wanting to establish a USHL team at the new arena, but a formal USHL franchise application has yet to be filed with the league. The 17-team USHL, which is the top level of junior hockey under USA Hockey, currently has five Iowa-based teams in the markets of Cedar Rapids, Dubuque, Des Moines, Sioux City and Waterloo.

North American Hockey League: The Tier-II junior-level NAHL has confirmed a new team called the Shreveport Mudbugs will join the league for the 2016-17 season. The city had a minor professional hockey team called the Shreveport Mudbugs and Bossier-Shreveport Mudbugs in both the Western Professional Hockey League and Central Hockey League from the 1997-98 season through the 2010-11 season.

SOCCER

National Women's Soccer League: The women's professional NWSL announced a tenth team called the Orlando Pride will join as an expansion team for the 2016 season. The Pride will be owned and operated by the men's Orlando City SC Lions of Major League Soccer. Two other MLS teams, the Portland Timbers FC and Houston Dynamo, own NWSL teams called the Portland Thorns FC and Houston Dash in their respective markets.

United Soccer League: Sporting Kansas City of Major League Soccer announced plans to own and operate its own USL developmental/reserve team based out of Swope Park (Kansas City, MO) starting with the 2016 season. The new team called the Swope Park Rangers KC will become the 11th USL team directly owned by a MLS team. With this announcement, Sporting Kansas City has ended its two-year affiliation with the USL's Oklahoma City Energy FC. Starting with the 2015 season, the MLS dissolved its Reserve League and required all teams to either own or have an affiliation with a USL team for developmental purposes and placement of reserve players.

Major League Soccer: The ownership of Minnesota United FC, currently a member of the Division-II North American Soccer League, announced a commitment to build an 18,000-seat soccer stadium in St. Paul for an MLS franchise that was granted earlier this year. St. Paul appears to have won out over a proposed stadium site in downtown Minneapolis. Details for the new stadium still need to be worked out and it is not expected to be ready until the 2018 season. The new Minnesota MLS team might start play in 2017 at a temporary location. With the previously announced Miami MLS expansion franchise now moving forward on a proposed new stadium, the league could get to its expansion goal of 24 teams by the 2020 season. Currently, the league has 20 active teams, but the new Atlanta United FC will start play in 2017 and Los Angeles FC in 2018 with Minnesota and Miami rounding out this phase of expansion.

OTHER

National Pro Fastpitch: The women's NPF announced it will add an expansion team based in the Houston suburb of The Woodlands as a sixth team for the 2016 season. The new team will be called the Scrap Yard Dawgs and will join the league's five returning teams called the Akron Racers, Chicago Bandits, Dallas Charge, Pennsylvania Rebellion (Washington, PA) and the USSSA Florida Pride. The NPF had a previous Houston-based team called the Texas Thunder for three seasons (2004-06).

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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