Weekly Sports League and Franchise Report
by Dan Krieger
October 30, 2023 - Arena Football One (AF1)
BASEBALL
American Association: The independent American Association has expressed interest in placing a team in Murfreesboro (TN), about 35 miles southeast of Nashville, and developers are working on plans to build a new 4,500-seat downtown ballpark for the team. If plans move forward, it will take two to three years to develop and construct a new ballpark.
Frontier League: The group called New England Professional Baseball, which is behind the independent Frontier League's 2024 New England expansion team to be based in Brockton (MA), has initiated a name-the-team contest.
Banana Ball: The game of Banana Ball, which has featured a timed two-hour modified version of baseball with circus tricks and performance art and played by professional teams called the Savannah Bananas and the Party Animals, will add a third team called the Firefighters for the 2024 Banana Ball World Tour. In addition to games played in Savannah and at various minor league ballparks, the 2024 tour will include stops at six Major League Baseball stadiums.
BASKETBALL
American Basketball Association: The semi-pro ABA announced a team called the Louisiana Cajun Gators will be added for the 2024-25 season but no specific home market was mentioned. The league also announced the San Diego-based Guy Levy Legends team is a late entry for the upcoming 2023-24 season.
National Basketball Association: The NBA started its 2023-24 regular season this week with the same 30 teams and alignment as last season. The Eastern Conference features five-team Atlantic, Central, and Southeast divisions while the Western Conference features five-team Northwest, Southwest, and Pacific divisions. Each team will play an 82-game schedule through mid-April 2024. Included in the 82-game schedules will be the new NBA In-Season Tournament, which will include group-play in November followed by quarterfinals, semifinals, and a championship in December. The 30 teams will be aligned in six five-team groups for tournament group-play with eight teams moving to the quarterfinals.
FOOTBALL
Arena Football League: The new 2024 version of the AFL officially announced its Salem (OR) team will be called the Oregon Blackbears when play starts in 2024. After conducting online fan voting, the AFL's Everett (WA) team announced it will be called the Washington Wolfpack when it starts play in 2024. Other nickname choices were the Night Howlers, Werewolves, and Cascades. Everett has had a couple of former indoor football teams called the Everett Hawks, which played one season (2005) in the former National Indoor Football League and two seasons (2006-07) in the former arenafootball2, and the Everett Raptors, which played the 2012 season in the Indoor Football League. The AFL now has 11 logos and team names announced for a potential total of 16 teams.
Indoor Football League: The IFL announced a new Indianapolis team will be added for the 2025 season. The team will play in the northeast suburb of Fishers (IN) where a new 6,500-seat arena is under construction. The IFL team will share the arena with the ECHL's Indy Fuel hockey team whose owner will also operate the IFL team. The IFL's Massachusetts Pirates confirmed the team will not be returning to the DCU Center in Worcester for the 2024 season but it is apparently close to signing a deal to play out of the Tsonga Center in Lowell (MA), about 40 miles northeast of Worcester.
United Indoor Football League: The new semi-pro UIFL started its inaugural 2023-24 season this weekend with five participating teams called the Pittsburgh Outlaws (Canonsburg), The Pack Gang (Columbus), Ohio Boom (Dayton), Ohio Blitz (Celina/Lima), and Ohio Extreme (Toledo). Teams will play between six and nine games through January 6, 2024, and three teams are playing mostly away games.
United States Football League: As the springtime USFL and XFL work out a potential merger for the 2024 season, the USFL's Michigan Panthers announced the team will return to Detroit's Ford Field. Last season, the league had two teams each based in four different hub cities with Detroit serving as home to the Panthers and the New Jersey Generals. It is uncertain how many teams the merged league will have and whether or not team co-location will be used, but last season's hub cities-Detroit, Birmingham, Canton (OH) and Memphis-are making plans to sell tickets for 2024. Of the eight XFL teams from last season, six are reported to be selling tickets for 2024.
HOCKEY
American Hockey League: The AHL's Rockford IceHogs played a game this weekend as the Screw City IceHogs to pay homage to the region's manufacturing history and the city's identity as the ¬ÅScrew Capital of the World ¬Â for its production of various screws, bolts, and fasteners. The team will play two additional games as the Screw City IceHogs during the 2023-24 season.
Professional Women's Hockey League: Although there has been no official announcement on the names of the six teams that will comprise the new PWHL when it starts play in January 2024, the league has filed trademark registrations for six potential team names-the Toronto Torch, Montreal Echo, Ottawa Alert, Minnesota Superior, Boston Wicked, and New York Sound.
SPHL: The A-level SPHL's Peoria Rivermen and Huntsville Havoc played a preseason game earlier this month at the recently opened 5,000-seat F&M Bank Arena in Clarksville (TN), about 50 miles northwest of Nashville, to showcase the league's style of play. The arena is operated by a group owned by the National Hockey League's Nashville Predators and there is talk of a future SPHL or ECHL team for Clarksville.
SOCCER
Major Arena Soccer League 2: The MASL2 (M2), which is the second-division developmental league for the Major Arena Soccer League, announced the 2023-24 season schedule for its new East Division will feature four teams each playing a 12-game schedule from December 9, 2023, through March 31, 2024. The division includes the returning Rochester (NY) Lancers from last season's North Division and three new teams called the Baltimore Arsenal, United Elite Krajisnik FC (Utica, NY), and Atletico Orlando. Schedules are still to be released for the four-team North Division, five-team Midwest Division, and six-team West Division.
Premier Arena Soccer League: The men's Division-II professional USL Championship's Detroit City FC ¬ÅLe Rouge ¬Â, which also operates a women's pre-professional team under the Detroit City FC name in the summertime USL W-League, recently announced plans to expand its women's program by adding a women's winter indoor team to the 2024 PASL Women's Division.
USL League One (United Soccer League): The men's Division-III professional USL League One announced a partnership with a group called USL Texoma, which plans to bring a USL League One team to Sherman in the Texoma region of Texas starting with the 2025 season. The team will use the city's Bearcat Stadium as a temporary site with plans to build a new soccer stadium and add a women's pre-professional team in the future. The USL Texoma will announce the team's name in December.
OTHER
Northwoods League Softball: The proposed new women's summer-collegiate softball league known as Northwoods League Softball has confirmed Mankato (MN) will be the location for the league's second team in the inaugural 2024 season. The team will be operated by the Mankato MoonDogs baseball team in the men's summer-collegiate Northwoods League. The team has started a name-the-team contest allowing nickname suggestions through November 3, 2023, after which five names will be selected for final voting. La Crosse (WI) was recently announced as the first location for the softball league.
Athletes Unlimited - Volleyball League: The Athletes Unlimited four-team women's professional indoor volleyball league started its five-week 2023 season earlier this month and it will run through November 3. The league switched its season to the fall this year and moved to Legacy Park (formerly Bell Bank Park) in Mesa (AZ). The league played a February-March season in 2021 and a March-April season in 2022, with both of those seasons played at the Fair Park Coliseum in Dallas. Players earn points during each week of play based on various aspects of the game. Teams change players each week with the top four points leaders serving as captains and drafting their teams for the next week.
Dan Krieger is the creator of the Weekly Sports League & Franchise Report, which has been tracking the changes in the sports world's leagues, teams, and nicknames since April 2007.
Arena Football One Stories from October 30, 2023
- 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.
