Weekly Sports League and Franchise Report
by Dan Krieger
March 10, 2025 - California League (CalL)
BASEBALL
California League: The Fresno Grizzlies of the Class-A California League will hold its tenth annual Fresno Tacos Night on May 30, 2025, with the team rebranding as the Fresno Tacos for the game. As part of the Copa de la Diversión program in which affiliated teams honor their Hispanic or Latino communities, the league's Stockton Ports have designated every 2025 Sunday home game as Copa Sundays and will play as the Stockton Cheladas, which comes from a flavorful Mexican beverage called the michelada. The team previously used the Caballos de Stockton as its Copa de la Diversión nickname.
Major League Baseball Draft League: The State College (PA) Spikes of the developmental MLB Draft League will play a game on August 23, 2025, as the State College ELGSES. The name pokes fun at this misspelling of ¬ÅEagles ¬Â by the Philadelphia mayor during a cheer after the Eagles' Super Bowl victory.
Northwoods League: In a tribute to the potato farming industry in central Wisconsin, the Wisconsin Rapids Rafters will play a game on August 1, 2025, as the Central Wisconsin Mashers.
Pacific Empire League: The summer-collegiate PEL recently announced its 2025 schedule that will feature the same six teams from the inaugural 2024 season. Teams will play 24-27 league games and additional non-league games from May 24 through August 3, 2025. The PEL has five teams in northern California and one team in southern Oregon.
Western Canadian Baseball League: As the Edmonton Prospects of the ten-team summer-collegiate WCBL move into a new ballpark in suburban Spruce Grove (Alberta) for the 2025 season, the team has been renamed the Electric City Cactus Rats. The name is a tribute to the city's roots in the energy sector and the attributes of the porcupine, also known as cactus rats. Other nicknames up for fan voting were the Burrow Bandits, Cobra Chickens, Jacked Rabbits and Prairie Pirates. All of the other nine WCBL teams will return with the same five-team divisions (East and West) in 2025. Each team will play a 56-game schedule from May 28 through August 4, 2025.
BASKETBALL
American Basketball Association: The men's semi-pro ABA announced a team called the Winston-Salem (NC) Cardinals has been added for the 2025-26 season.
Circuito de Baloncesto de la Costa del Pacifico (CIBACOPA): Mexico's springtime professional CIBACOPA, or Pacific Coast Basketball League, started its 2025 season this week with the same ten teams as last season and again aligned in a single-table format. Each team will play 36 games through May 18, 2025.
Women's American Basketball Association: The semi-pro WABA announced the Louisiana Spice (Lafayette) has joined the league as a 2025 expansion team.
FOOTBALL
International Football Alliance: The Dallas Pioneros of the proposed new outdoor professional IFA moved their home to Georgetown (TX), just north of Austin, and the team is now called the Texas Pioneros. The IFA will start in May with six teams and will be holding a player draft later this month.
Arena Football One: The new AF1, which was originally announced as a 12-team league formed by eight teams from the 2024 Arena Football League (AFL) along with four other teams, started its inaugural 2025 season this weekend with only eight teams. Since the AF1 announced its 2025 schedule for 12 teams back in November, the league has lost 4 teams. In December, a former AFL team called the Wichita Regulators dropped out for the 2025 season. In mid-February, the expansion Wilkes-Barre/Scranton (PA) Mavericks team announced it would not be able to participate in 2025 and was terminated by the league. This week, a 2024 AFL team called the Orlando Predators announced it would not be competing this season due to an impending sale of the team and the AF1 terminated the Predators' membership. The Predators plan to transition to new ownership and return to indoor football in 2026. An announced 2025 AF1 team called the Arizona Bandits (Tempe), which failed in an attempt to start last season as part of the AFL, notified the league this weekend that the team would not be able to participate in the 2025 season. The AF1 is in the process of modifying the remaining 2025 schedule for its eight teams that include six former AFL teams called the Albany (NY) Firebirds, Nashville Kats, Salina (KS) Liberty, Southwest Kansas Storm (Dodge City), Billings (MT) Outlaws and Washington Wolfpack (Everett), along with the Corpus Christi Tritons from the 2024 American Indoor Football and the Oregon Lightning (Redmond/Bend), which last played as the Oregon High Desert Storm in the 2023 season of the American West Football Conference. Prior to the November schedule release, two other announced new 2025 AF1 teams called the Stockton (CA) Crusaders and the Monterrey Kings (Nuevo Leon, Mexico) had decided to wait until the 2026 season to start playing.
National Arena League: The NAL started its 2025 season this weekend with nine teams that are supposed to be aligned in a five-team American Division and a four-team National Division with each team playing ten games through May. The NAL started last season with six teams but the Oklahoma Flying Aces (Enid) dropped out midway through the season and did not return, while the other five teams called the Carolina Cobras (Greensboro, NC), Colorado Spartans (moving from Loveland to Denver), Omaha Beef, Sioux City (IA) Bandits and Idaho Horsemen (Nampa) returned. The NAL added four teams: the new Shreveport Rouxgaroux, the Wheeling (WV) Miners from the 2024 American Arena League 2, the Columbus (GA) Lions from the 2024 American Indoor Football (AIF), and the new Beaumont (TX) Renegades team that was listed last season as a 2025 AIF expansion team. Three other 2024 AIF teams were announced as joining the NAL for the 2025 season but have since disappeared from the league. The Corpus Christi Tritons were dropped by the NAL in October 2024 for not meeting league requirements; the Harrisburg Stampede ceased operations in December 2024; and the Amarillo Dusters, which played as the Amarillo Venom in the AIF's 2024 season, were dropped by the NAL in early February 2025.
HOCKEY
American Hockey League: The AHL's Des Moines-based Iowa Wild will rebrand as the Iowa Wookiees for a game next month as part of a Star Wars Night promotion.
National Ringette League: The Canadian women's NRL is in the final month of its 2024-25 season that features the same 13 teams (6 in western Canada and 7 in eastern Canada) as last season and aligned in a single-table format. Eastern teams will play 24 games and western teams will play 20 games through March 23, 2025. The game of ringette is of Canadian origin and is a team sport similar to ice hockey in equipment and playing surface. Players use straight sticks to control and pass a rubber ring instead of a puck. The game is centered more around skating and passing rather than puck handling and involves catching or ¬Åstabbing ¬Â the ring. The NRL started in 2004 and is the showcase league for ringette in Canada and part of the Ringette Canada organization.
SOCCER
Major League Soccer: The MLS commissioner recently met with the Indiana state governor and local officials in Indianapolis, which is trying to build a new soccer stadium for an MLS expansion team or a possible relocated MLS team.
MLS Next Pro: Major League Soccer's Division-III professional reserve league known as the MLS Next Pro started its 2025 season this weekend with the same 29 teams and divisional alignment as last season. Each team will play 28 games through October 5, 2025. All 27 MLS-affiliated teams have returned from last season along with the same 2 independent non-affiliated teams from last season. The 2025 alignment features a 15-team Eastern Conference with a seven-team Southeast Division and an eight-team Northeast Division, and a 14-team Western Conference with a seven-team Frontier Division and a seven-team Pacific Division.
USL Championship (United Soccer League): The Division-II professional USL Championship league started its 2025 season this weekend and again features 24 teams aligned in 12-team Eastern and Western conferences. There was only one off-season change as the Lexington (KY) Sporting Club, which played the past two seasons in the Division-III professional USL League One, moved up a level and replaced the departed Memphis FC 901 in the Western Conference. The Memphis franchise rights were transferred to a new owner who will operate a future USL Championship team called the Santa Barbara Sky FC starting in 2026. Each team will play a 30-game regular-season through October 25, 2025, and play at least 4 games as part of an in-season USL Jägermeister Cup tournament with the 14 teams from the USL League One.
USL League One (United Soccer League): The Division-III professional USL League One started its 2025 season this weekend with 14 teams aligned in a single-table format. The league lost 3 of its 12 teams from last season and added 5 new teams. The Northern Colorado Hailstorm (Windsor) was dropped by the league; the Central Valley Fuego FC (Fresno) decided to leave the league; and the Lexington Sporting Club moved up to the Division-II USL Championship. New teams called the FC Naples (FL), Antelope Valley Alta FC (Lancaster, CA), Portland (ME) Hearts of Pine, Texoma FC (Sherman, TX) and Westchester FC (Mount Vernon, NY) all joined for the 2025 season. Each USL League One team will play a 30-game regular season schedule through October 25, 2025, and play an additional 4 games as part of an in-season USL Jägermeister Cup tournament with the 24 teams from the USL Championship league.
OTHER
Athletes Unlimited Pro Lacrosse: The women's Athletes Unlimited recently announced it will indefinitely suspend its four-team professional field lacrosse league due to the international competition schedule and the lack of availability for the sport's top players during the summer months. The AU Pro Lacrosse started in 2021 with four teams playing a five-week summer season at the Maryland SoccerPlex in Germantown (MD). The 2022, 2023 and 2024 seasons featured four teams playing a four-week season in July and August with all games played at the USA Lacrosse Headquarters in Sparks Glencoe (MD), just north of Baltimore.
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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California League Stories from March 10, 2025
- 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.
