Weekly Sports League and Franchise Report
by Dan Krieger
March 17, 2025 - Arena Football One (AF1)
BASEBALL
Arizona State League: The proposed new independent ASL, which was originally announced as the Arizona-Mexico League with plans to start playing in 2025, recently announced it will push back the start of the inaugural season until 2026. The league lists the Cananea Miners (Sonora, Mexico), Tucson (AZ) Cowboys, Tucson (AZ) Indios and Sierra (AZ) Vista Gray Hawks as potential teams.
Eastern League: The Binghamton (NY) Rumble Ponies of the Double-A Eastern League will play three games in the 2025 season (August 14-16) as the Southern Tier Spicy Meatballs to honor the region's Italian-American population.
International League: The St. Paul (MN) Saints of the Triple-A International League will be rebranded as the Crooks Haven Ghostly Gangsters for a game during the 2025 season. St. Paul was known a sanctuary for criminals in the 1920s and early 1930s and was referred to as "Crooks Haven."
Mid America League: The developmental MAL, which completed its inaugural 2024 season with six teams mostly comprised of collegiate players and some former professional players, announced it will add a seventh team in Fort Scott (KS) for the 2026 season. All six teams (four in Texas and one each in Arkansas and Missouri) from last season will return in 2025.
Texas League: The Little Rock-based Arkansas Travelers of the Double-A Texas League will become the Barkansas Dizzys for six games (June 10-15) during the 2025 season as a tribute to a stadium employee of over 50 years and his ballpark dog named Dizzy. The Travelers will also play three games during the 2025 season as the Little Rock Nine to honor the contribution of African Americans in baseball and the nine Black students who helped end the long-standing racial segregation at a local high school in 1957.
United States Baseball Congress: The new USBC was announced this week with plans to create eight affiliated regional semi-pro baseball leagues across the country. The proposed leagues will be called the American Plains Baseball League, Atlantic Coast League, Central States Baseball League, Eastern Colonial League, Great Lakes Baseball League, Pacific Western League and the Southern Gulf League.
BASKETBALL
Independent Professional Women's Basketball League: The IPWBL recently announced the cancellation of its 2025 season that was to take place this summer. The league played last season with a six-team Southern Region and a seven-team Midwest Region.
Southern Conference Basketball League: The semi-pro SCBL has posted the schedule for its third season that will start in May with ten teams aligned in five-team North and South divisions. The league finished last season with 11 teams and although it lost several teams since then, it has added new teams called the Carolina Ducks (Kingstree, SC), Edgewood 96ers (Ninety Six, SC), Tennessee Locked In (Nashville), Georgia Knights (Atlanta) and the SC Upstate Redhawks (Greenville, SC).
FOOTBALL
American Women's Football League: After playing an inaugural 2024 season with eight teams, the semi-pro AWFL has posted schedules for 18 teams that are supposed to participate in the 2025 season starting in early April. Teams will play six games through May.
Arena Football One: After losing 4 of the 12 teams expected to be part of its inaugural 2025 season, the new AF1 announced a revised schedule this week for the remaining 8 teams. Teams will now play 10-12 games through June 15, 2025. The original alignment was to feature the 12 teams in four-team divisions (East, Central and West). As of now, the AF1 has kept the divisional alignment for the eight teams with the Albany (NY) Firebirds and Nashville Kats in the East, the Corpus Christi Tritons, Salina (KS) Liberty and Southwest Kansas Storm (Dodge City) in the Central, and the Billings (MT) Outlaws, Oregon Lightning (Redmond/Bend) and Washington Wolfpack (Everett) in the West.
HOCKEY
Western Hockey League: The Kamloops (British Columbia) Blazers of the major-junior WHL were rebranded as the Thompson River Fighting Trout for a game this weekend as a tribute to the unique spirit of the region's rivers and for support of the Freshwater Fisheries Society of BC.
Maritime Hockey League: The Fredericton (New Brunswick) Red Wings of the Junior-A MHL, which is one of nine leagues in the Junior-A association known as the Canadian Junior Hockey League, are relocating to Bathurst (New Brunswick) where the team will become the Chaleur Lightning starting with the 2025-26 season. The city of Bathurst overlooks the Chaleur Bay and is considered part of the Chaleur Region. The Chaleur Lightning will replace the Acadie-Bathurst Titan team of the major-junior Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League as that team moves to St. John's (Newfoundland) for the 2025-26 season.
Western Professional Hockey League: The proposed return of the developmental professional WPHL has apparently come to a halt for now. The league announced a 14-game 2024-25 "Exhibition Season" with the California Grizzlies (Orange County) and Las Vegas Wranglers in the Pacific Division and the unnamed Arizona Pro Hockey and New Mexico Pro Hockey in the Desert Division. The California Grizzlies hosted the first two games against the Las Vegas Wranglers in Westminster (CA) in November but no other games scheduled through this month have been played and there have been no league updates.
SOCCER
National Women's Soccer League: The Division-I professional NWSL started its 2025 season this week with 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 through November 2, 2025, followed by playoffs. One off-season change was the Chicago Red Stars rebranding as the Chicago Stars Football Club, or Chicago Stars FC. The NWSL will take a break in late June and during the month of July to allow certain players to take part in international events and allow NWSL teams to play other professional non-league teams. The NWSL's 2026 Boston-based expansion team, which was originally announced as the BOS Nation FC in October, officially announced the team will be changing its name due to backlash over the name and an associated marketing campaign. The new team name will be announced in the next few weeks.
USL League One (United Soccer League): The Fort Lauderdale United FC, which currently fields a team in the women's Division-I professional USL Super League, announced plans to add a future men's professional team that is expected to be part of the Division-III USL League One. The club is adding pre-professional teams in the men's USL League Two and the women's USL W-League for the 2025 season. A team called the Fort Lauderdale CF played the 2021 season in the USL League One as the affiliate of Major League Soccer's Inter Miami CF before moving to the MLS Next Pro league in 2022 and being renamed the Inter Miami CF II.
USL W-League (United Soccer League): The pre-professional USL W-League has added a couple of last-minute teams for the upcoming 2025 season. The One Knoxville SC men's team in the Division-III professional USL League One is adding a women's team in the 2025 USL W-League, while the Norfolk-based Virginia Atlantic FC was announced this week as a new 2025 team.
WPSL Pro (Women's Premier Soccer League): The elite amateur-level Women's Premier Soccer League's proposed new women's Division-III professional league called the WPSL Pro has received a letter of intent from the Real Central New Jersey (Mercer County) to join the new league. The Real Central NJ has had an amateur women's team in the WPSL for the past four seasons (2021-24). The WPSL Pro currently lists 15 teams but it is uncertain which teams will be part of the first season and when that season will start.
OTHER
Athletes Unlimited Softball League: The women's Athletes Unlimited new professional AUSL announced the schedule and locations for its inaugural 2025 season that will feature four teams called the Bandits, Blaze, Talons and Volts. Each team will play 24 games from June 7 through July 23, 2025, and each team will travel to four to six markets during the season. The AUSL will be tour-based in 2025 and each team will be assigned to a specific city starting in 2026. Venues hosting the AUSL series in 2025 include Chicago (Rosemont, IL), Wichita, Omaha, Salt Lake City, Chattanooga, Sulphur (LA), Tuscaloosa (AL), and Round Rock (TX). After the AUSL Championship, 60 players will compete for an individual championship called the AUSL All-Star Cup, which will be a 24-game competition with games played in Chicago, Raleigh and Greenville (NC), and players ranked by points based on their performances.
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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