Weekly Sports League and Franchise Report
by Dan Krieger
November 4, 2024 - Frontier League (FL)
BASEBALL
Frontier League: The independent Frontier League announced its 2025 season schedule will feature 18 teams each playing 96 games from May 8 through August 31, 2025. All 16 teams that were aligned in eight-team East and West divisions last season will return along with expansion teams called the Mississippi Mud Monsters (Pearl) and the Down East Bird Dawgs (Kinston, NC). The league has been realigned into an Atlantic Conference to include a four-team East Division and a five-team North Division, and a Midwest Conference to include a four-team Central Division and a five-team West Division.
California League: Major League Baseball's Los Angeles Dodgers plan to move their Low-A California League affiliate, currently the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes, to a new sports complex to be built in Ontario (CA) for a start in the 2026 season. A name-the-team campaign has begun for the new Ontario team. The city of Rancho Cucamonga, about six miles northeast of Ontario, just signed a 15-year lease agreement with the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes, who are expected to become an affiliate of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in 2026. The Angels' current California League affiliate is the Inland Empire 66ers, based about 25 miles east of Ontario in San Bernardino. The Seattle Mariners are reported to be moving their Modesto Nuts California League affiliate to San Bernardino for the 2026 season.
Women's Pro Baseball League: The new WPBL is organizing for a proposed start in 2026 with six independently owned teams to be based in the northeastern United States.
BASKETBALL
Basketball Super League: The Montreal Toundra of the men's professional BSL has withdrawn from the league's upcoming 2024-25 season that will now include eight teams.
The Basketball League: The minor professional TBL announced the Tampa Bay Titans, a team that previously played four seasons (2019-22) in the league, is returning under new ownership for the league's 2025 season. The TBL also announced an expansion team based in Logansport (IN), about 80 miles north of Indianapolis, will be added for the 2025 season with a name-the-team contest to follow.
Women's National Basketball Association: Two current professional sports stars are pushing for the WNBA's next expansion team to be located in Kansas City or St. Louis. Patrick Mahomes, quarterback of the National Football League's Kansas City Chiefs and part owner of the Kansas City Current in the National Women's Soccer League, is behind the Kansas City effort, while Jayson Tatum of the National Basketball Association's Boston Celtics is behind the expansion effort in his hometown of St. Louis. The WNBA wants to add one more team in its current round of expansion to reach 16 teams by the 2028 season. Groups in Denver, Philadelphia, Milwaukee and Miami are also interested in an expansion team.
FOOTBALL
Indoor Football League: The IFL's Sioux Falls (SD) Storm announced the team will sit out the 2025 season since its home arena declined to offer the team a lease agreement. The Sioux Falls Storm, which joined the IFL for the league's inaugural 2009 season, hopes to return for the 2026 season. The IFL announced its 2025 season schedule will now feature 14 teams aligned in seven-team Eastern and Western conferences with teams playing 16 games from March 21 through July 27, 2025. The IFL had 16 teams last season but the Duke City Gladiators (Albuquerque), Frisco (TX) Fighters and Sioux Falls are sitting out the 2025 season, and the league added the Fishers (IN) Freight expansion team.
International Football Alliance: The proposed new outdoor minor professional IFA, which plans to start play in May 2025 with teams based in Mexico and the United States, has added a seventh team called the Ohio Valley Ironmen. No specific home has been announced for the team but it will represent Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania. Most of the IFA teams have posted their 2025 season schedules that feature eight games being played from May 31 through August 2, 2025.
The Arena League: After announcing its 2025 season schedule last month, the 6-on-6 indoor TAL has undergone two more changes for its second season. The 2025 expansion team originally announced as the Eau Claire (WI) Jammers has changed its name to the Eau Claire Axemen. The Kansas City (MO) Goats team from the 2024 season will be moving about 55 miles north to St. Joseph (MO) for the 2025 season due to a lack of available arena dates in Kansas City. The Goats will keep their name for now but could change it once a new majority owner is found. The TAL was interested in the St. Joseph market for the inaugural 2024 season but could not work out arena dates and placed the team in Kansas City.
HOCKEY
Greater Metro Hockey League: Canada's independent junior-level GMHL, which started the 2024-25 season with 16 teams (2 in Quebec and 14 in Ontario), announced the Ontario-based Almaguin Spartans have ceased operations after playing only eight games.
Professional Women's Hockey League: As the six-team PWHL prepares for its second season that starts later this month, the league announced plans to expand by two teams for the 2025-26 season. The single-entity PWHL is reported to be considering 20 cities across North America with market proposals due at the end of December. Some of the markets the PWHL could consider are Chicago, Seattle, Washington (DC), Detroit, Pittsburgh, Denver and Philadelphia in the United States, and Vancouver, Winnipeg, Calgary and Quebec City in Canada. Detroit and Pittsburgh held PWHL neutral-site regular-season games last season and Quebec City was announced this week as the host of a PWHL neutral-site game in January 2025.
SOCCER
Major Arena Soccer League 2: The MASL2, which is affiliated with the top professional MASL, recently announced its 2024-25 season schedule that will feature 16 teams aligned in a four-team East Division, a five-team North Division and a seven-team Midwest/West Division. Each team will play a 12-game schedule within their division from November 23, 2024, through March 30, 2025. The league had 13 teams last season but lost 6 teams and added 9 teams for the 2024-25 season. The El Paso Rhinos Uno Seis FC did not return; the Amarillo Bombers and Atletico Orlando moved to the Major League Indoor Soccer; and the Iowa Raptors FC (Cedar Rapids), Kansas Bandits (Dodge City), and Rochester (NY) Lancers are currently listed as inactive MASL2 teams. Of the nine teams added for 2024-25, the Chihuahua Savage II, San Diego Sockers 2, Turlock Cal Express and Empire Jets (Ontario, CA) are returning after sitting out the 2023-24 season. The other new teams are the Minnesota Blizzard FC (St. Paul), Wisconsin Conquerors (Marshfield), Spice City FC (Danbury, CT), the Salisbury (MD) Steaks from the MASL3, and the Oklahoma City Certified Lions from the 2023-24 Premier Arena Soccer League's Pro Division. The league also lists a proposed expansion team called the Santa Fe (NM) Gloom as an inactive team.
Women's Premier Soccer League: The elite-amateur WPSL's second tier league called the WPSL U21, which was started back in the 2021 season, has been renamed the WPSL Division II.
USL League One (United Soccer League): The USL has entered into a partnership with a group called Boise Pro Soccer that plans to build a new soccer stadium in Boise (ID) for a men's team in the Division-III professional USL League One and a women's team in the Division-I professional USL Super League. The group recently acquired a 27-acre site for the proposed multi-use stadium.
OTHER
Pro Volleyball Federation: The women's indoor professional PVF announced the league's second season schedule will feature eight teams each playing 28 matches from January 9 through May 4, 2025. All seven teams from the inaugural 2024 season will return along with an expansion team called the Indy Ignite, based in the Indianapolis suburb of Fishers.
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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Frontier League Stories from November 4, 2024
- 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.
