Weekly Sports League and Franchise Report

Sports stats



 National Women's Soccer League

Weekly Sports League and Franchise Report

by Dan Krieger
January 27, 2025 - National Women's Soccer League (NWSL)


BASEBALL

Eastern League: The Akron (OH) RubberDucks of the Double-A Eastern League announced that the team will play two games in the 2025 season as the Akron Galley Boys. This is a tribute to the cooks known as galley boys who worked in galley-style kitchens in the area's drive-in restaurants over the years.

California Winter League: The developmental showcase CWL, which is the official winter league of the independent Frontier League and is also scouted by other independent summer leagues, started its 2025 season this week with seven teams called the Alberta Grizzly, British Columbia Bombers, Canada A's , Team China, Palm Springs Chill, Palm Springs Power, and Washington Blue Sox. Teams will play from 17 to 22 games through February 12, 2025, and all games will be played at Palm Springs Stadium.

Midwest League: The High-A Midwest League's 2025 season will feature the same 12 teams and affiliations as last season with teams again aligned in six-team East and West divisions. Each team will play 132 games from April 4 through September 7, 2025.

Northwest League: The High-A Northwest League's 2025 season will feature the same six teams and affiliations as last season with teams again aligned in a single-table format. Each team will play 132 games from April 4 through September 7, 2025.

South Atlantic League: The High-A SAL's 2025 season will again feature 12 teams with each team playing 132 games from April 4 through September 7, 2025. In the off-season, Major League Baseball's Texas Rangers moved its High-A Hickory (NC) Crawdads affiliate from the SAL to the Class-A Carolina League and moved its Carolina League affiliate called the Down East Wood Ducks (Kinston, NC) to Spartanburg (SC) and to the SAL where the team will play as the Hub City Spartanburgers starting in the 2025 season. The SAL made a change to last season's six-team North and South divisions. Spartanburg has taken Hickory's spot in the South Division and the Greensboro (NC) Grasshoppers were moved from the North to the South to create a seven-team South Division and a five-team North Division for 2025.

BASKETBALL

Liga Mexicana de Baloncesto Profesional Femenil: Mexico's LMBPF, or Mexican Women's Professional Basketball League, started its 2025 season this weekend with nine teams aligned in a single-table format. Last season, the league had ten teams aligned in five-team divisions. Teams called the Quetzales Sajoma (Mexico City), Blueskas Basketball (Mexico City), CB Cinnamon (Mexico City) and the U-18 National Team did not return, but the league added new teams called the City Penguins (Mexico City), Dragonas (Mexico City) and the Universidad Modelo (Merida, Yucatan). Each team will play a 16-game regular-season schedule through March 2025.

Maritime Women's Basketball Association: The amateur-level MWBA recently announced its fourth season will start on the first weekend of May 2025. Last season, the league had seven teams, three based in Nova Scotia and four based in New Brunswick.

FOOTBALL

United Indoor Football Association: A team called the St. Paul (MN) Bears recently announced plans to join the developmental fall-season UIFA for the 2025 season. The team previously announced it would be part of the new Minnesota Indoor Football League that was looking to start in June 2025.

Gridiron Indoor Football League: The developmental indoor league known as the GIFL, which evolved from last year's Georgia Indoor Football League, has started its inaugural 2025 season with teams called the Georgia Indians, State Side Silverbacks, Main Street 29ers and Alabama Empire. Teams will play four to five league games through February 8, 2025, at the SilverBacks Indoor facility in Suwanee (GA).

Liga de Fútbol Americano Profesional: Mexico's top professional American-style outdoor football league known as the LFA (American Football League) announced a new team called the Arcángeles de Puebla (Angelopolis) has been added for the upcoming 2025 season. The league had a previous Puebla-based team called the Artilleros de Puebla for two seasons (2019 and 2020). The LFA had nine teams last season and will announce the teams and details for the 2025 season and player draft next month.

HOCKEY

Federal Prospects Hockey League: The sale of the FPHL's Motor City Rockers (Fraser, MI) to a group called Bearcat Hockey has apparently fallen through and the league announced another new owner has taken over the Rockers and there will be no changes to the team's branding, logo or colors. As part of a "Rebrand Night" promotion, the league's Biloxi-based Mississippi Sea Wolves played a game this weekend as the Mississippi Mullet with a logo based on a mullet fish with a mullet haircut.

Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League: The major-junior QMJHL's team that will be based in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador starting with the 2025-26 season will be called the Newfoundland Regiment. The Newfoundland team is a relocation of the league's Acadie-Bathurst Titan (New Brunswick) that was part of the league since the 1998-99 season. The QMJHL had a previous St. John's team called the St. John's Fog Devils that played three seasons (2005-08) in the league before moving to Montreal. St. John's has been home to past teams in the American Hockey League and most recently in the ECHL with the Newfoundland Growlers team that folded near the end of the 2023-24 season.

SOCCER

National Women's Soccer League: The Division-I professional NWSL officially announced its 2025 season schedule this week and it will feature the same 14 teams as last season and again aligned in a single-table format. Each team will play a 26-game regular season schedule from March 14 through November 2, 2025, followed by playoffs. The NWSL will take a break in late June and during the month of July for certain players to take part in various international events and allow NWSL teams to play other professional non-league teams. Schedules for those games will be released by each team. The NWSL's in-season "NWSL x Liga MX Femenil Summer Cup" tournament with teams from Mexico's Liga MX Femenil women's professional league will not return in 2025 after its debut in 2024.

USL League Two (United Soccer League): The men's pre-professional USL League Two recently announced teams called the Denton (TX) Diablos, Apotheos FC (Atlanta), and a yet-to-be-named Portland (OR) team to be operated by the Portland Pickles of the summer-collegiate West Coast League will be added for the 2025 season.

National Futsal Premier League: The amateur-level NFPL started its 2024-25 season last month with seven men's teams aligned in a four-team Southwest Division and a three-team Midwest Division. Of the eight teams from last season, only the Grand Rapids Ole did not return to the Midwest Division. Each team is scheduled to play five to seven games through April 5, 2025.

National Independent Soccer Association: The men's NISA, which was reported to have lost its sanctioning as a professional Division-III league from the U.S. Soccer Federation, stated it is targeting April 2025 for a return. An announcement on the schedule and participating teams will be made at a later date. The NISA has been operating under provisional Division-III status since it started in 2019.

OTHER

United Frisbee Association: The men's professional UFA will undergo some realignment of the 24 teams that will participate in the 2025 season. The league had 24 teams last season but the South Division's Dallas Legion suspended operations after the 2024 season and the new Vegas Bighorns (Las Vegas) were added for 2025. Each of the league's four divisions (East, South, Central and West) will have six teams. The Los Angeles Aviators and San Diego Growlers will move from the West, which had seven teams last season, to the South, which had five teams before losing Dallas. The new Vegas Bighorns will be added as a sixth team to the West. One other change is the rebranding of the Portland (OR) Nitro to the Oregon Steel that came under new ownership.

Major League Table Tennis: The professional team-based and mixed-gender MLTT is currently playing its second season with the same eight teams as last season. The East Division includes the Carolina Gold Rush, Princeton (NJ) Revolution, Florida Crocs and Chicago Wind, while the West Division has the Bay Area Blasters, Portland (OR) Paddlers, Texas Smash and Seattle Spinners. The 2024-25 regular season features 12 weekend events from September 13, 2024, through March 23, 2025, followed by an MLTT Championship Weekend (April 12-13) in Philadelphia.

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.


• Discuss this story on the National Women's Soccer League message board...

National Women's Soccer League Stories from January 27, 2025


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.


Sports Statistics from the Stats Crew
OurSports Central