Weekly Sports League and Franchise Report
by Dan Krieger
June 16, 2025 - Carolina League (CarL)
BASEBALL
Liga Mexicana del Pacifico: Mexico's professional fall-winter season LMP, or Mexican Pacific League, has posted the schedule for the 2025-26 season that will again feature ten teams aligned in a single-table format. There were two changes since last season. The Sultanes de Monterrey were sold and relocated to become the Tepic-based Jaguares de Nayarit. The Mayos de Navajoa relocated to the Kino Sports Complex in Tucson (AZ) to become the league's first non-Mexican team that is currently listed as the Tucson Baseball Team. Each team will play a two-part schedule from October 14 through December 30, 2025, followed by playoffs.
Carolina League: The city of Myrtle Beach (NC) voted to continue their baseball lease with the Myrtle Beach Pelicans of the Single-A Carolina League and keep the team in the city for the foreseeable future.
Intercounty Baseball League: Canada's Southern Ontario-based IBL recently started its 2025 season with nine teams aligned in a single-table format. The IBL is looking to add a tenth team for the 2026 season and split the teams into two divisions. The league has received inquiries from several Ontario markets (Windsor, Ajax, Oshawa, and the Greater Toronto Area) and even Montreal (Quebec).
Northern League: The unaffiliated pre-professional Northern League recently started its 2025 season with four northern Indiana teams called the Elkhart County Miracle, Griffith Generals, Hammond Vikings and Northwest Indiana Oilmen (Whiting). The league had five teams last season but the Indiana Panthers (Highland) did not return. Each team will play 40 games through August 3, 2025.
Northwoods League: The Minot (ND) Hot Tots of the summer-collegiate Northwoods League played a game last month as the Lakeside Lip Rippers to honor North Dakota's fishing culture. Last week, the league's Waterloo (IA) Bucks became the Iowa Sweet Corn in the first of four Friday home games as a tribute to the summertime sweet corn grown in the Midwest.
Pioneer League: The Boise (ID) Hawks of the independent Pioneer League played a game this weekend as the Boise Battle Beavers to honor a former process used by the Idaho Department of Fish and Game to relocate beavers by parachuting them in boxes to a new location.
West Coast League: The Edmonton Riverhawks of the summer-collegiate WCL were rebranded as the Edmonton Green Onion Cakes as a tribute to one of the city's iconic foods. The WCL recently started its 2025 season with 17 teams aligned in an eight-team North and a nine-team South. A new team called the Marion Berries, based in the Salem (OR) area, was added to the South for the 2025 season.
BASKETBALL
BIG3 League: The professional 3-on-3 BIG3 basketball league started its 2025 season this week with eight city-based teams called the Boston Ball Hogs, Chicago Triplets, Dallas Power, Detroit Amplifiers, DMV Trilogy (Baltimore), Houston Rig Hands, Los Angeles Riot and the Miami 305. The regular season will feature eight one-day events (Saturday or Sunday) from June 14 through August 9, 2025. Each event will include four games with each team playing one game. Each team, except Dallas, will host a regular season event and one neutral-site event will be held in Cincinnati. Dallas will host the two rounds of playoffs and a celebrity match on August 17, while Orlando will host the All-Star Game and the championship game on August 24.
FOOTBALL
Entertainment Football Association: The new 7-on-7 indoor ENTFLA, which was supposed to start its inaugural 2025 season this weekend with four teams called the New York Dragons (Long Island), Danbury (CT) Diesel, New Jersey Cipher (Morristown) and the Garden State Heroes (Middletown, NJ), has apparently postponed its start until next month. Instead of a full eight-game schedule, teams are expected to participate in a round-robin tournament starting on July 26 with two rounds followed by semi-finals and a championship. The New York Dragons' front office staff recently resigned due to dissatisfaction with the direction of the new league.
International Football Alliance: The Tampa Tornadoes of the new summer professional IFA announced the team is no longer associated with the league and it will start an independent schedule on June 22, 2025. The IFA has suspended play of its only Mexican team called the Rebelion Tarahumara (Chihuahua) until July 5 as the league tries to get the team's internal operations in order.
National Arena League: After the NAL lost out on the Amarillo market with the departure of the Amarillo Dusters ahead of the 2025 season, a new Amarillo-based team called the West Texas Warbirds is being organized for the 2026 indoor football season. The NAL had an Odessa-based team called the West Texas Warbirds for the 2023 season. It is uncertain in which league the revived Warbirds will play. Although the Carolina Cobras (Greensboro, NC) dropped out of the NAL during the 2025 season, the team has come under new control with plans to return in 2026 along with an expanded marketing plan to include the North Carolina cities of Raleigh, Charlotte and Fayetteville and some South Carolina cities. The team has also extended its developmental partnership with the Carolina Predators (Wake Forest, NC) of the American Arena League 2 to again serve as the Cobras' farm team.
Professional Independent Football League: The proposed new Florida-based PIFL has announced the addition of several markets ahead of its start in 2026 to include Miami, Orlando, San Antonio and Detroit (Michigan Eagles). The Huntsville-based Alabama Beavers previously announced the team had joined the PIFL. The PIFL announced the inaugural season will run from May 26 through July 11, 2026.
HOCKEY
American Hockey League: The owner of the AHL's Tucson Roadrunners received some good news last month on a proposed new 10,000-seat arena in Reno that could become the future home of the AHL team. The Reno Redevelopment Agency approved a tax-increment financing proposal that should now move the project toward groundbreaking and possible completion by the fall of 2027.
Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League: The major-junior QMJHL announced its 2025-26 season schedule that will again feature 18 teams with each team playing 64 games from September 18, 2025, through March 21, 2026. The only off-season change was the relocation of the Acadie-Bathurst Titan (New Brunswick) to St. John's as the renamed Newfoundland Regiment.
United States Hockey League: The 16-team Tier-I junior-level USHL wants to expand in the near future and is considering a team for a proposed 3,500-seat arena that would be part of a larger development in Middletown (OH), which is about midway between Cincinnati and Dayton. The league has not stated how many teams will be added but it has several markets under consideration for expansion.
United States Premier Hockey League: The Decatur (IL) Blaze of the Tier-III junior-level USPHL is now the Chicago T-Rex after a recent sale and relocation of the team. The new ownership will operate teams in both the Tier-III USPHL Premier Conference and the USPHL Elite Conference in 2025-26.
SOCCER
Major Arena Soccer League 2: The MASL2 announced a Mexico City-based team called the Deportivo Asunción de la Ciudad de México has been added as a 2025-26 expansion team.
Liga MX: The top Mexican men's pro soccer league known as Liga MX announced the opening phase (Apertura) of the two-part 2025-26 Apertura/Clausura season will feature the same 18 teams as last season. The teams will again be aligned in a single-table format and will each play 17 games from July 11 through November 9, 2025. The second phase (Clausura) starts in January.
National Independent Soccer Association: The men's NISA, which lost its Division-III professional status and is not playing a 2025 regular season, announced two California-based teams called Temecula FC and Capo FC (San Juan Capistrano) have agreed to participate in the league's 2025 NISA Pro Cup tournament to be held this fall.
OTHER
Professional Bowlers Association Elite League: The PBA reorganized its men's team-based PBA Elite League for the 2025 season that ran from January through April. The league switched from city-based teams called the Las Vegas High Rollers, Portland (ME) Lumberjacks, New Jersey KingPins, Akron Atom Splitters, Motown Muscle, Lucky Strike L.A.X., GoBowling Dallas Strikers and Waco Wonders to a ¬ÅBattle of the Brands ¬Â with sponsor-named teams called Storm, Motiv, Brunswick, 900 Global, Roto Grip, Ebonite, DV8 and Hammer.
Northwoods League Softball: The women's NWLS summer-collegiate softball league, which had four teams operated by affiliated men's baseball teams in the summer-collegiate Northwoods League during its inaugural 2024 season, started its 2025 season with five teams after the addition of an expansion team called the Wausau (WI) Ignite. Each of the 5 teams will plan a 42-game schedule through August 2, 2025.
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.
Carolina League Stories from June 16, 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.
