Weekly Sports League and Franchise Report
by Dan Krieger
November 11, 2024 - Canadian Premier League (CPL)
BASEBALL
Pecos League: The independent Pecos League announced its 2025 season schedule will again feature 16 teams aligned in a six-team California-based Pacific Division and a ten-team Mountain Division. There was one off-season change in the Mountain Division with the loss of the Austin Weirdos and the addition of the new Kansas City (MO) Hormigas. The Pacific Division starts on May 22, 2025, and the Mountain Division starts on May 28, 2025. Each team will play 54 games through July 29, 2025.
Southern League: The Tennessee Smokies of the Double-A Southern League officially announced the team will change its name to the Knoxville Smokies when it moves to a new 7,000-seat ballpark in downtown Knoxville starting with the 2025 season. Knoxville returned to the Southern League in 1972 and the team was known as the Knoxville Smokies from 1993 to 1999 until moving about 20 miles east to the Kodak/Sevierville area as the Tennessee Smokies for the 2000 season.
Major League Baseball: Major League Baseball's Oakland Athletics officially announced the team will simply be known as the Athletics with no city designation while playing the next three seasons at the home of the Triple-A Pacific Coast League's Sacramento River Cats in West Sacramento. The Athletics are expected to move into a proposed new stadium in Las Vegas starting with the 2028 season.
BASKETBALL
East Coast Basketball League: The Charlotte Devils team from the semi-pro ECBL has changed its name to the Queen City Vipers. The team operated as the Bishopville (SC) Devils in the ECBL for the 2022 and 2023 seasons, sat out the 2024 season, and rejoined the league with a move to Charlotte in August 2024.
National Basketball Association G-League: The NBA G-League started its 2024-25 season that features 31 teams aligned in a 16-team Eastern Conference and a 15-team Western Conference. After the 2023-24 season, the league shut down the developmental G-League Ignite team, which was comprised of paid NBA pre-draft college prospects, but added the new Tempe-based Valley Suns as the new G-League affiliate of the NBA's Phoenix Suns. With the addition of the Valley Suns, each of the 30 NBA teams now has an owned or operated G-League affiliate for the first time. The league's Mexico City Capitanes is the only unaffiliated G-League team. One other change included the NBA's Los Angeles Clippers relocating their Ontario (CA) Clippers G-League team to a new arena in Oceanside, about 30 miles north of San Diego, where the team is now called the San Diego Clippers. The 2024-25 season is starting with a 16-game Tip-Off Tournament in November and December followed by a 34-game regular season through March 2025. The Long Island Nets, the G-League affiliate of the NBA's Brooklyn Nets, will play six of its regular-season home games in Laval (Quebec) where the team will be known as "Les Nets."
Women's National Basketball Association: Current National Basketball Association player Grant Williams of the Charlotte Hornets is involved in trying to obtain a WNBA expansion team for Charlotte.
FOOTBALL
American Indoor Football: The owner of the Cedar Rapids (IA) River Kings and a proposed new team called the Coralville (IA) Chaos is trying to restart the AIF for the 2025 season. The River Kings played in the AIF's 2024 season and Coralville was listed as an AIF expansion team, but the River Kings were removed from the league near the end of the season. The AIF disbanded after the season with the remaining active teams moving to the National Arena League.
Winter Indoor Football: The new fall-season professional developmental WIF recently started its inaugural 2024 with teams called the Ohio Blitz (Rossford), Pittsburgh Outlaws, New York Nightmare (Syracuse) and two travel-only teams listed as the UP 1 Athletics and the Eastern Shore Rage (Fruitland, MD). The WIF season runs through December 7, 2024, followed by playoffs with teams playing three to six games.
American Arena League 2: The professional developmental AAL2 announced teams called the New Jersey Roughnecks (Camden), Michigan Avengerz (Novi/Detroit area) and Ohio Elite (Columbus) have been added for the 2025 season. The Avengerz and Elite are currently part of the fall-season United Indoor Football Association. The Avengerz were part of the spring-season Great Lakes Arena Football in 2024.
HOCKEY
American Hockey League: The owner of the AHL's Tucson Roadrunners is seeking public funds through tax-increment financing (TIF) to build a new 10,000-seat arena in Reno (NV) as home to the University of Nevada men's basketball team and a potential AHL team. The Roadrunners' owner recently sold the National Hockey League's Tempe-based Arizona Coyotes franchise (now the Utah Hockey Club) and opted out of plans to build a new arena in the Phoenix area for a possible new future NHL franchise. The owner talked about moving the Roadrunners, now the Utah Hockey Club's AHL affiliate, to Tempe but the team signed a lease agreement this summer to keep the team in Tucson through the 2026-27 season. The group heading the renovations of the FirstOntario Centre in Hamilton (Ontario) is in discussions with the league about an AHL team returning to Hamilton. The AHL's Hamilton Bulldogs left the city after the 2014-15 season and a relocated major-junior Ontario Hockey League (OHL) team, renamed the Hamilton Bulldogs, moved in. The OHL Bulldogs are currently based in Brantford (Ontario) during the Hamilton arena renovations that are expected to be completed by the fall of 2025.
Professional Inline Hockey Association: The PIHA is currently playing its 2024-25 season with 68 teams across three levels (Pro, Semi-Pro, and Minor) with each level aligned in regional divisions and teams playing 20 games through March 1, 2025. The Pro level has a six-team East and a seven-team West; the Semi-Pro has an five-team Metropolitan, four-team Atlantic, five-team Keystone, four-team Southeast, four-team Rocky Mountain North and a four-team Rocky Mountain South; and the Minor level has a five-team Metropolitan, five-team Atlantic, five-team Keystone, five-team Southeast, four-team Rocky Mountain East and a five-team Rocky Mountain West.
SOCCER
Major Arena Soccer League Women: The MASL's new MASLW women's league has added a few more teams and is up to 20 teams for its inaugural 2024-25 season that starts later this month. The previous Great Lakes Division was split into a four-team Great Lakes North and a five-team Great Lakes South with the addition of the Indiana United FC (Crown Point) and Susserfuss Ballverein (Kent, OH). The previous South Division was split into a six-team South and a five-team Heartland with the addition of the Tulsa FC, Austin 512 FC, Chihuahua Savage, Houston Indoor Soccer and RPFC (Dallas). The previously listed Minnesota TwinStars FC is now listed as inactive for the season along with the Arkansas Legacy. About half of the MASLW teams were part of the 2023-24 Women's Division of the Premier Arena Soccer League, which was recently merged into the MASL for the 2024-25 season.
MLS Next Pro (Major League Soccer): The Jacksonville Armada FC, which currently operates an Under-23 team in the amateur-level National Premier Soccer League, has filed construction permits for a new 2,500-seat stadium that will become home to a future team in the MLS Next Pro league. The new stadium is expected to be completed next year with the team starting in the 2026 season.
Canadian Premier League: The commissioner of Canada's eight-team Division-2 professional CPL stated the league wants to add two new teams for the 2026 season. Markets under consideration are Edmonton, Laval (Quebec), Kelowna (British Columbia), Kitchener-Waterloo (Ontario), Quebec City, Saskatoon (Saskatchewan), Windsor (Ontario) and several in the Greater Toronto Area. Edmonton was previously home to the league's FC Edmonton "Eddies" team for four years (2019-22), while Kelowna hosted a well-attended CPL regular-season game this season as part of the league's inaugural "CPL on Tour" initiative. The CPL held its championship game this weekend to end its sixth season of operation.
USL League Two (United Soccer League): The majority owner of the Fort Wayne FC from the pre-professional USL League Two plans to move the team up to the professional level and build a privately financed 9,280-seat soccer stadium that should be ready for the 2026 season. The team plans to make an announcement in the near future as to whether the professional team will be part of the Division-III USL League One or the Division-II USL Championship.
OTHER
Premier Ultimate League: The women's semi-pro PUL ultimate frisbee league, which played its 2024 season with 11 teams aligned in a five-team South Division and a six-team North Division, plans to add at least one expansion team for the 2025 season.
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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Canadian Premier League Stories from November 11, 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.
