Weekly Sports League and Franchise Report
by Dan Krieger
September 30, 2024 - Arena Football One (AF1)
BASEBALL
Atlantic League: The Gastonia (NC) Baseball Club of the independent Atlantic League stated its permanent team name will be announced on October 16, 2024, after eight potential names were put up for fan voting through August 30, 2024. The Gastonia Baseball Club was one of the potential names along with seven team names (Gastonia Gastronauts, Gastonia Bolognia, Gastonia Galactic Dinos, Gastonia Ghost Peppers, Gastonia Zombees, Gastonia Garden Gnomes and the Gastonia Yarniaks) that were tested this season with the team playing under those names as part of seven different "What If?" series.
American Association: Talks have restarted about a possible 3,500-seat ballpark to be built at the Cannonsburgh Village in Murfreesboro (TN), about 35 miles southeast of Nashville, for a possible team in the independent American Association. Initial ballpark plans submitted to the city last November did not seem economically feasible but new plans have scaled back the size of the proposed ballpark.
Major League Baseball: A group called the Austin Baseball Commission has been formed with plans to obtain a team in MLB's potential future expansion plans. Expansion from 30 to 32 teams might not happen for several years and other markets like Nashville, Portland (OR) and Salt Lake City have been mentioned as expansion candidates.
BASKETBALL
The Basketball League: The men's minor professional TBL announced its third Atlantic Canada team has been awarded to Moncton (New Brunswick) where it will be called the Tri-City Tide after the cities of Moncton, Dieppe and Riverview when it starts play in the 2025 season. The two previously announced new 2025 Atlantic Canada teams are the Halifax Hoopers (Nova Scotia) and the Port City Power (St. John, New Brunswick). The city of Moncton had professional teams called the Moncton Miracles for six seasons (2011-17) and the Moncton Magic for three seasons (2017-20) in the former National Basketball League of Canada. The TBL also announced the addition the new Southern Maryland Seahawks (Waldorf) as the league's third Maryland-based team. The league had the Frederick (MD) Flying Cows play its inaugural season in 2024 and recently added the DMV Soldiers (Charles County, MD) for the 2025 season.
American Basketball Association: The men's semi-pro ABA announced teams called the Raleigh (NC) 919 Legends and Vermont Coyotes (Barre) will start play in the 2025-26 season. A team called the Rochester (NY) Royal Ballers has been added for the upcoming 2024-25 season. The ABA also announced the creation of a new player development league called the ABA D-League that will start in the summer of 2025. The owner of the league's Bennington Martens (Pittsfield, MA) will run the new league that will start with a tournament-style prototype in New England before expanding to other parts of the country.
Evolution Basketball Association: The operator of the men's semi-pro EBA, which started its 2024 season early last month with seven teams playing all games at a venue (The Epic) in Grand Prairie (TX), announced the league will not continue due to teams not adhering to league standards. The 2024 season was to run through November.
Women's National Basketball Association: The owner of the National Basketball Association's Houston Rockets has expressed interest in bringing a WNBA expansion team to Houston. A previous WNBA team called the Houston Comets play 12 seasons (1997-2008) in the league before folding. Other markets like Denver, Nashville, Philadelphia and South Florida have expressed interest in a WNBA expansion team.
FOOTBALL
Arena Football One: As the AF1 plans for its inaugural 2025 season, it held the first of what will be the league's annual pre-season meetings to be called the Arena Football University (AFU). This first meeting included the eight founding AF1 teams, the three previously approved expansion teams (Stockton Crusaders, Monterrey Kings and Wilkes-Barre), along with league staff and other prospective expansion candidates. The AF1 clarified that although additional prospective expansion teams were invited to the first AFU, it does not guarantee admission into the league and the AF1 will be making official announcements on any accepted teams.
Midwest Arena Football League: The developmental professional MAFL, also to be called Arena Football 3 (AF3) next season, announced the Syracuse-based New York Smash will not be competing as a travel-only team as planned for the 2024 season. The league now has six teams called the Detroit Bandits, Goshen Guardians (Elkhart, IN), Indianapolis Enforcers (Noblesville, IN), Mid-Michigan Grizzlies (Wixom) Midwestern Bulldogs (home games in Elkhart) and Tri-State Bucks (home games in Toledo, OH) that will play a 2024 regular season from October 19 through December 8, 2024, followed by playoffs.
X-League: The women's 7-on-7 X League, which held its inaugural season in 2022 with eight teams playing a 7-on-7 hybrid of indoor football on a 70-yard field, is again preparing for a restart in May 2025 with a schedule to be announced next month. The league recently announced a new team called the Miami Tequestas, named after a former Native American tribe in the area, has been added to the league. 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 cancelled both the 2020 and 2021 seasons due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. After playing the 2022 season, the X-League held tryouts for proposed 2023 and 2024 seasons that never developed.
HOCKEY
Eastern Hockey League: The 21-team Tier-III junior-level EHL and its 16-team developmental EHL Premier (EHL-P) league started their 2024-25 seasons last week with schedules running through March 10, 2025. Of the 23 EHL teams from last season, the Boston Jr. Rangers, Railers Junior Hockey Club (Worcester, MA) and Seacoast Spartans (Exeter, NH) left to move up to the United States Premier Hockey League's Tier-II junior-level National Collegiate Development Conference for the 2024-25 season, and the EHL added the Boston Eagles. Other changes included the sale and relocation of the Newington-based Connecticut Chiefs to become the Connecticut Nor'Easter (Simsbury) in the EHL and the EHL-P; the Providence Hockey Club name changed to the Providence Capitals; and the sale and relocation of the EHL's Team Maryland (Odenton) to become the Boston Dukes (Tewksbury, MA). EHL teams are aligned in a six-team East Division and five-team North, South and Central divisions. The EHL-P remains at 16 teams after losing the Boston Rangers and Railers Hockey Club teams and adding the New Jersey Bears and Providence Capitals. The EHL-P teams are aligned in a six-team South Division and five-team North and East divisions.
Greater Metro Hockey League: Canada's independent junior-level GMHL recently started its 2024-25 season with 16 teams (2 in Quebec and 14 in Ontario) aligned in a six-team North Division and a nine-team South Division. The GMHL had 15 teams last season but the Quebec-based Temiscaming Titans are sitting out this season and the league added two new Ontario-based teams called the Richmond Hill Rampage and the Wasaga River Dragons (Wasaga Beach). A third announced expansion team called the Ottawa Valley Wolves never joined as planned. Teams will play 39 to 41 games through February 16, 2025.
National Hockey League: Although Houston and Atlanta have been mentioned as being under consideration for NHL expansion from 32 to 34 teams, the NHL commissioner stated these rumors are not true and the league is not undergoing any type of expansion process at this time.
Ontario Hockey League: The major-junior OHL, which is one of three major-junior leagues that comprise the Canadian Hockey League, started its 2024-25 season this week and it will again feature 20 teams aligned in an Eastern Conference with five-team East and Central divisions, and a Western Conference with five-team Midwest and West divisions. The only change was the move of the Mississauga Steelheads to Brampton as the Brampton Steelheads and the team remains in the Central Division. Each team will play a 68-game schedule through March 23, 2025.
SOCCER
National Premier Soccer League: The men's elite-level NPSL, which traditionally plays a spring-summer schedule, announced its first new fall-season NPSL Regional Conference will be based in Northern California starting in the fall of 2024. Initial teams will include the JASA Redwood City, Marin County SC, Racing Sacramento City FC, Real San Jose, San Leandro United FC and Yemen United California. The NPSL Regional Conference will be a level below the NPSL's Tier-1 national amateur level and will provide teams an opportunity to work towards joining the Tier-1 amateur NPSL.
Women's Premier Soccer League: The elite amateur-level WPSL announced the FC Monmouth (Monmouth County, NJ) as the league's first expansion team for the 2025 season.
OTHER
Women's Elite Rugby: The proposed new WER, which plans to become America's first professional women's rugby league and starting play in March 2025 under the 15-player rugby union rules, recently announced three additional markets for teams to be based in New York City, San Francisco Bay Area (Berkeley), the Twin Cities (Minneapolis/St. Paul). In late July, the league announced Boston, Chicago and Denver as its first three markets. The WER hopes to start with six to eight teams and all team names and stadiums will be announced at a later date. The WER is trying to evolve from the amateur-level pay-to-play Women's Premier League (WPL) that operated with seven teams in 2024. All six of the recently announced WER markets had teams in the 2024 WPL.
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.
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Arena Football One Stories from September 30, 2024
- Weekly Sports League and Franchise Report - OSC Original by Dan Krieger
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