Weekly Sports League and Franchise Report
by Dan Krieger
April 11, 2022 - XFL (XFL)
BASEBALL
International League: The 20-team Triple-A International League, which operated as the Triple-A East League in the 2021 season, started its 2022 season this week with the same 20 teams now aligned in ten-team East and West divisions. Last season the league was aligned in a six-team Northeast Division, a seven-team Midwest Division and a seven-team Southeast Division.
Pacific Coast League: The ten-team Triple-A PCL, which operated as the Triple-A West League in the 2021 season, started its 2022 season this week with teams aligned in five-team East and West divisions. The only change was the Sugar Land Skeeters changing its name to the Sugar Land Space Cowboys.
Eastern League: The 12-team Double-A Eastern League, which operated as the Double-A Northeast League in 2021, started its 2022 season this week with same teams aligned in a six-team Northeast Division and a six-team Southwest Division.
Southern League: The eight-team Double-A Southern League, which operated as the Double-A South League in 2021, started its 2022 season this week with the same eight teams aligned in four-team North and South divisions.
Texas League: The 10-team Double-A Texas League, which operated as the Double-A Central League in 2021, started its 2022 season with the same ten teams aligned in five-team North and South divisions.
Midwest League: The 12-team High-A Midwest League, which operated as the High-A Central League in 2021, started its 2022 season this week with the same teams aligned in six-team East and West divisions.
Northwest League: The six-team High-A Northwest League, which operated as the High-A West League in 2021, started its 2022 season this week with the same six teams as last season and aligned in one table.
South Atlantic League: The 12-team High-A South Atlantic League, which operated as the High-A East in 2021, started its 2022 season with the same teams aligned in a five-team North and a seven-team South.
California League: The eight-team Low-A California League, which operated as the Low-A West League in 2021, started its 2022 season with the same eight teams aligned in four-team North and South divisions.
Carolina League: The 12-team Low-A Carolina League, which operated as the Low-A East League in 2021 and was aligned in four-team North, South and Central divisions, started its 2022 season this week with the same 12 teams now aligned six-team North and South divisions.
Florida State League: The ten-team Low-A Florida State League, which operated as the Low-A Southeast League in 2021, started its 2022 season with the same teams aligned in a four-team East and a six-team West.
BASKETBALL
Universal Basketball Association: The semi-pro UBA recently started its 2022 season that features a ten-team National League along with one travel team. Teams are located in Georgia, Texas and Tennessee and each National League team will play a ten-game schedule through the first week of June 2022.
Professional Basketball Association: As the men's PBA prepares for its second season, which will start next month and will also include a women's league (LPBA), the PBA's Columbus (GA) Blackhawks team has rebranded as the Georgia Vipers. The league also announced additional new teams called the Montrose (NY) Veterans, Southwest Florida Blazers (Fort Myers), New York Lights (Troy) and the Shoreline Wolves (Holland, MI), which just competed in the 2022 season of the Premier Basketball League.
FOOTBALL
Arena Football Association: The new six-team AFA had to cancel the first game of its inaugural 2022 season this weekend between the Wichita Force and Magnolia State Spartans (Philadelphia, MS) due to arena problems. This was the only AFA game scheduled this week but other teams will start next week.
Arena Professional Football League: The new APFL started its inaugural 2022 season this weekend. The original 2022 schedule included the Charlotte Thunder, West Michigan Ironmen (Muskegon), Reading (PA) Raptors and Jersey Ballaz (Trenton), but the Reading and Jersey teams have since dropped out. The Birmingham-based Alabama Empire, which is also a member of the Elite Indoor Football, and the Carolina Predators (Fayetteville, NC), which had been listed as a member of the new American Indoor Football Alliance and played in the AIFA's Kickoff Classic last month, are now listed as APFL teams.
Extreme Football League (X League): The women's 7-on-7 indoor X League recently announced its 2022 season schedule that will feature eight teams each playing two games from June 10 to August 13, 2022. After a 2019 season, the Legends Football League (formerly the Lingerie Football League) morphed into the X League, which kept the LFL markets and rebranded the team names. The X League then cancelled both the 2020 and 2021 seasons due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Since the X League was formed, the Nashville Knights team was relocated to become the Kansas City Force and the Omaha Red Devils team moved to Scottsdale as the Arizona Red Devils.
XFL: Although the XFL introduced a new logo this week and made some announcements for its planned return in the spring of 2023, it has yet to identify which markets will have teams. There have been reports about head coaches being hired for proposed XFL teams in Orlando and San Antonio, which are two markets that did not have teams in the XFL's shortened inaugural 2020 season.
HOCKEY
North American Hockey League: The Tier-II junior-level NAHL announced the Wichita Falls (TX) Warriors team will be moving to Oklahoma City for the 2022-23 season where the team will be renamed the Oklahoma Warriors. The Wichita Falls Warriors joined the NAHL as an expansion team for the 2020-21 season. A team called the Oklahoma City Ice Hawks (Edmond, OK) is part of the NAHL's affiliated Tier-III junior-level league called the North American 3 Hockey League.
United States Premier Hockey League: The independent Tier-III USPHL announced the addition of a new team called the Battle Creek (MI) Kernels to the Premier Division Midwest East for the 2022-23 season. Battle Creek had previous junior-level teams called the Battle Creek Jr. Revolution (2010-14) and the West Michigan Wolves (2014-17) as part of the Tier-III North American 3 Hockey League. The USPHL also announced the new Nashville Spartans will operate teams in both the Premier and Elite divisions for the 2022-23 season.
SOCCER
League1 Canada: An organization called League1 Canada has been formed as an alliance of Canada's three provincial Division-3 pro-am men's and women's leagues called League1 Ontario, the Première Ligue de Soccer du Québec, and the new League1 BC (British Columbia), which starts play this season.
Canadian Premier League: Canada's Division-II professional CPL started its 2022 season this week with the same eight teams as last season and each team playing 28 games through October 9, 2022. The CPL is looking for new ownership of the FC Edmonton team after the league took control of the team in the off-season. The league has already announced an expansion team for Vancouver in 2023 and awarded conditional franchises for ownership groups in Saskatoon and Windsor (Ontario).
Liga de Balompié Mexicano: Mexico's independent professional LBM (Mexican Football League) started its 2022 season last week and again has eight teams aligned in a single table format. Teams called the Club Jaguares Jalisco and Real Tlamazolan Deportivo (Ciudad Guzman, Jalisco) did not return from last season, but the league added two new teams called the Inter Amecameca FC (State of Mexico) and the Mezcaleros de Oaxaca for the 2022 season.
United Women's Soccer: As the UWS finalizes its teams and alignments for the upcoming 2022 season, the league recently announced the addition of the Erie (PA) Commodores to the East Conference Penn-NY Division of the UWS national pro-am league and the Middletown Sporting CT (Connecticut) to its lower-level reserve league called the UWS League2 for the 2022 season.
USL Championship (United Soccer League): The owner of the Division-II USL Championship's Sacramento Republic FC plans to build a 12,000-15,000 seat soccer stadium for the team at the downtown Sacramento site where a Major League Soccer-style stadium was to have been built for a move of the Republic FC to the MLS. The investor pulled out of plans for the Sacramento MLS team and stadium. The proposed new USL stadium could be expanded to fit 20,000 fans for an MLS team. The Republic FC stated they will continue to try to find MLS investors for a potential future MLS expansion team.
OTHER
Premier Rugby Sevens League: After holding its inaugural pilot tournament in Memphis this past October, the new PR7s league announced its schedule of tournament-style events that will feature four teams called the Loonies, Headliners, Loggerheads and Experts playing seven-player rugby. Each of the four clubs will have both men's and women's teams playing two regular-season events at Major League Soccer stadiums in San Jose (July 9) and Washington, DC (July 16) followed by a championship event at the MLS stadium in Austin (July 30).
Dan Krieger is the creator of the Weekly Sports League & Franchise Report, which has been tracking changes in the sports world's leagues, teams and nicknames since April 2007.
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