Weekly Sports League and Franchise Report
by Dan Krieger
May 12, 2025 - Arena Football One (AF1)
BASEBALL
American Association: The independent American Association started its 2025 season this week with the same 12 teams as last season and again aligned in 6-team East and West divisions. Each team will play a 100-game schedule through September 1, 2025.
Frontier League: The independent Frontier League started its 2025 season this week with 18 teams each playing 96 games through August 31, 2025. All 16 teams that were aligned in eight-team East and West divisions last season have returned along with expansion teams called the Mississippi Mud Monsters (Pearl) and the Down East Bird Dawgs (Kinston, NC). The league was 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. The Mississippi Mud Monsters are replacing the Double-A Southern League's Mississippi Braves team that moved from Pearl to become the Columbus (GA) Clingstones for the 2025 season. The Down East Bird Dawgs are replacing the Single-A Carolina League's Down East Wood Ducks team that moved from Kinston to Spartanburg (SC) as the Hub City Spartanburgers in the High-A South Atlantic League for the 2025 season.
International League: The Lehigh Valley IronPigs (Allentown, PA) of the Triple-A International League played a game this weekend as the Lehigh Valley Steelworkers in a tribute to the workers in the area's steel industry. The team also announced it will become the Lehigh Valley Traffic for a game next month (June 14) as a tribute to the increase of traffic on the area's roadways and its role in everyday life.
Minor League Baseball: As part of a segment on some of Minor League Baseball's unusual team names and rebranding promotions, comic John Oliver, host of the HBO's show called "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver," has offered to use the show's resources to create a personal rebrand of a Minor League Baseball team along with a new mascot.
BASKETBALL
Canadian Elite Basketball League: The spring-summer minor professional CEBL started its 2025 season this weekend with the same ten teams as last season and again aligned in five-team Eastern and Western conferences. Each team will play a 24-game schedule through August 10, 2025. The CEBL was started in 2019 by co-founder Richard Petko, who brought his Niagara River Lions from the National Basketball League of Canada and owned all CEBL teams. Seven of the league's current teams called the Edmonton Stingers, Calgary Surge, Scarborough Shooting Stars, Vancouver Bandits, Winnipeg Sea Bears, Brampton Honey Badgers and Montreal Alliance have been sold to individual ownership groups over the past couple of years. The CEBL co-founder still operates the Niagara River Lions and controls the league's two other teams called the Ottawa BlackJacks and Saskatchewan Rattlers.
Women's American Basketball Association: The semi-pro WABA has listed 21 teams that will be participating in the upcoming 2025 season starting in July. The teams are listed in an eight-team North Conference, a three-team Midwest Conference and a ten-team South Conference. The league had 16 teams last season but lost five teams and added ten new teams for 2025.
FOOTBALL
Arena Football One: The owner of the AF1's Billings (MT) Outlaws stated the team is not receiving adequate support from the city and state and relocating the team is under consideration.
Entertainment Football Association: The proposed new four-team 7-on-7 ENTFLA indoor football league has relocated its Massachusetts Heroes team to Middletown (NJ) as the Garden State Heroes. The team was originally announced as the Fitchburg (MA) Heroes before changing its name to the Massachusetts Heroes.
International Football Alliance: The proposed new outdoor minor professional IFA, which plans to start its inaugural season at the end of this month, has added a new team called the Huntsville Astros for the 2025 season. The IFA removed a Huntsville-based team called the Alabama Beavers last month for violations of league standards. The league hoped to start with six teams but only three other teams have posted schedules that include some games against non-league semi-pro teams.
HOCKEY
ECHL: The minor professional ECHL's new 2025-26 expansion team called the Greensboro (NC) Gargoyles announced an affiliation with the National Hockey League's Carolina Hurricanes and the American Hockey League's Chicago Wolves for the 2025-26 season.
Federal Prospects Hockey League: The minor professional FPHL's expansion teams to be based in Topeka (KS) and Florence (SC) will be called the Topeka Scarecrows and Pee Dee Ice Cats, respectively, when they start play in the 2025-26 season. The FPHL also confirmed that the Indiana Sentinels (Columbus) will join the league as a 2025-26 expansion team but it must move to an arena with a larger seating capacity within three years. The ownership of the league's Motor City Rockers (Fraser, MI) was unable to negotiate a lease at its home arena so the team will go dormant for the 2025-26 season.
National Hockey League: After playing the 2024-25 season as the Utah Hockey Club, the NHL's Salt Lake City-based team announced the Utah Mammoth as its new permanent name. In January, the team announced the Utah Mammoth, Utah Wasatch and the Utah Hockey Club as choices but quickly replaced Wasatch with the Utah Outlaws. The fans' favorite name was the Utah Yeti but that was excluded due to trademark conflicts. The NHL commissioner spoke favorably this week about potential expansion to Atlanta where two groups are working on separate proposals for NHL-style arenas. Houston is still considered the frontrunner for an NHL expansion team. The league has not established a formal application process or timetable for expansion.
Western Hockey League: The major-junior WHL held an expansion draft this week to stock the league's 2025-26 expansion team called the Penticton Vees (British Columbia). The owner of the Penticton Vees from the 2024-25 independent Junior-A British Columbia Hockey League was awarded the WHL franchise so the team is retaining their name as it moves up a level to the WHL starting with the 2025-26 season.
SOCCER
National Independent Soccer Association: The men's NISA, which lost its Division-III professional status from the United States Soccer Federation (USSF) after the 2024 season, announced the DC Hyper (Washington, DC) has been confirmed as one of the participating teams for the proposed NISA Pro Cup Tournament to be held this fall. The NISA plans to use this tournament as part of its application to the USSF for reinstatement of the league's Division-III professional status for the 2026 season.
National Premier Soccer League: The men's Tier-1 national amateur NPSL has started its 2025 season with 76 teams aligned in 11 regional conferences (Central States, Golden Gate, Great Lakes, Gulf Coast Sunshine, Keystone East, Keystone West, Lone Star, Mid-Atlantic, North Atlantic, North and Southeast). Although the California-based Golden Gate Conference started playing in late March, all of the other conferences started playing this week or will start playing next week.
MLS Next Pro (Major League Soccer): A new San Francisco-based team called the Golden City FC announced plans to join Major League Soccer's developmental Division-III MLS Next Pro league as an independent team in either the 2026 or 2027 season. The team is planning renovations to the city's Kezar Stadium. The league's independent Chattanooga FC announced it will add a pre-professional team called the Chattanooga FC II to the United Premier Soccer League for the fall 2025 season.
USL Super League (United Soccer League): As the women's Division-I professional USL Super League winds down its inaugural 2024-25 season this month, the league announced its 2025-26 season will start on August 23, 2025. The league will be known as the Gainsbridge Super League and will grow from eight to nine teams with the addition of the Sporting Club Jacksonville, or Sporting Jax. The nine teams will be aligned in a single-table format and each team will play a 28-game schedule that is divided into a Fall and Spring schedule, separated by a midseason Winter Break.
OTHER
Team Combat League: The team-based professional boxing TCL started its third season last month with 12 teams called the Atlanta Attack, Boston Butchers, Dallas Enforcers, Houston Hitmen, LA Elite, Las Vegas Hustle, Miami Assassins, Nashville Smash, NYC Attitude, Philadelphia Smoke, Phoenix Fury and San Antonio Snipers. Each team plays eight matches with teams consisting of men and women boxers competing across various weight classes. The TCL season runs from April 4 through July 12, 2025, followed by playoffs.
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.
Arena Football One Stories from May 12, 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.
