Weekly Sports League and Franchise Report
MLV Major League Volleyball

Weekly Sports League and Franchise Report

by Dan Krieger
Published on August 11, 2025 under Major League Volleyball (MLV)


BASEBALL

International League: The Syracuse Mets of the Triple-A International League announced plans to select a new team name for 2027 season through the "Re-Name the Team Community Challenge." The team will play as the Syracuse Mets in the 2026 season and continue to be an affiliate of the New York Mets through the 2030 season. Submissions for new names by fans will be accepted through this month and eventually narrowed down to five choices for fan voting from September 14 through September 30, 2025. The team's new name will be announced in the fall of 2026. The team was called the Syracuse Chiefs until the New York Mets purchased the affiliate prior to the 2019 season.

Major League Baseball Draft League: The Mahoning Valley Scrappers (Niles, OH) of the MLB Draft League were rebranded the Mahoning Valley Peppers in Oil for a game this week as part of a tasting contest for an iconic appetizer popular in the area. The team was rebranded the Mahoning Valley Brier Hill Pizza for a game this week as part of a tasting promotion for a popular pizza brand in the area.

Minor League Baseball: Of the 120 affiliated teams in Minor League Baseball, 92 teams are participating in the eighth annual Copa de la Diversión (Fun Cup) program in which teams assume alternate identities to celebrate their region's Latino and Hispanic fan base. Two teams joined for the first time in 2025 and six teams changed their Copa identities. A panel of industry experts and civic leaders judge the ballpark experiences for the teams' Copa games throughout the season and select an annual champion. The Copa de la Diversión started in the 2017 season with only four participating teams.

BASKETBALL

The Basketball League: The minor professional TBL has a few new teams announced for its 2026 season. The Columbus (OH) Wizards, who played the past two seasons (2023-25) in the semi-pro American Basketball Association, recently confirmed the team will be a member of the TBL for 2026. A previously announced TBL expansion team to be based in Longview (WA) announced it will be called the Cowlitz County Sasquatch when it starts playing in 2026. A previously announced TBL expansion team called the Fayetteville (NC) Liberty is holding tryouts for its start in the 2026 season.

Women's National Basketball Association: After announcing a potential sale of the WNBA's Connecticut Sun (Uncasville) and relocation about 100 miles north to Boston, another potential buyer has stepped forward and wants to move the team about 50 miles northeast to Hartford (CT). The league still needs to approve any sale and relocation and the Connecticut Sun stated the team will be part of the WNBA in the 2026 season. As part of a recent expansion process, the WNBA awarded teams to three new future markets and is reported to have applications from nine other markets that are under active consideration for future expansion. Boston and Hartford were not part of this expansion application process.

FOOTBALL

National Gridiron League: The proposed professional NGL, which has been trying to get off the ground since March 2024 and plans to play eight-man outdoor football on a 60-yard field, reported that six of its eight teams held training camps in June and all eight first-season teams will participate in exhibition games from October 4 through October 18, 2025. The league will hold tryouts again in November and mini-camps in December and January as it prepares for its first full season next year. The NGL has initiated Team Legacy Clubs for each of its eight teams to allow fans to make monetary contributions to their team.

National Arena League: The NAL's Idaho Horsemen announced the Ford Idaho Center in Nampa will not continue to be the team's home for the 2026 season. The ownership stated that continuing in the Idaho market may no longer be sustainable and a fresh start in a new location is needed to keep the team alive. The Idaho Horsemen joined the NAL for the 2024 season from the former indoor American West Football Conference. The Beaumont (TX) Renegades, a 2025 NAL expansion team and the 2025 NAL champion, will announce next week which league will be the team's new home starting with the 2026 season.

Entertainment Football Association: The new 7-on-7 indoor ENTFLA has apparently cancelled this month's proposed three-week round-robin tournament that was to serve as the league's inaugural season. Initially, the 2025 regular season was to run from June 14 through August 2, 2025, with teams called the New York Dragons (Long Island), Danbury (CT) Diesel, New Jersey Cipher (Morristown) and the Garden State Heroes (Middletown, NJ) each playing eight games. Just before the first scheduled games, the 2025 regular season was postponed and a shorter round-robin tournament format was to be used. The future of the ENTFLA is uncertain.

HOCKEY

Da Beauty Hockey League: The 4-on-4 summertime ice hockey DBL is currently holding its 2025 regular season that started on July 9 and runs through August 25. The DBL has the same four sponsor-named men's teams called the Element, Walser Automotive, TRIA and Anderson Group, and the same two sponsor-named women's teams called the Tradition Capital Bank (White) and Tradition Mortgage (Maroon). Teams include players from the National Hockey League, minor hockey leagues, the Professional Women's Hockey League, and college and pro players that are from Minnesota or spend their summers in Minnesota. All games are played on Wednesday evenings at Braemar Arena in Edina (MN).

Ligue Nord-Americaine de Hockey: The Quebec-based minor professional LNAH, or North American Hockey League, recently announced its 2025-26 season schedule will feature the same eight teams as last season and aligned in a single-table format. Each team will play a 36-game schedule from October 2, 2025, through March 8, 2026.

National Collegiate Development Conference: The Newington-based Connecticut Chiefs organization, which last had a junior-level team in the 2023-24 season of the Tier-III Eastern Hockey League - Premier, has purchased the Eastern Charlotte Kingfishers (New Brunswick) team in the United States Premier Hockey League's Tier-II NCDC. The Eastern Charlotte team was added as a 2025-26 expansion team to the New England Conference North Division but the owner was unable to continue operations. The team will be renamed the Connecticut Chiefs North and based in Biddeford (ME). The team will remain in the New England Conference North Division.

United States Premier Hockey League: After announcing last week the addition of a new five-team Alberta Division to its 2025-26 alignment, the junior-level USPHL's Tier-III Premier Conference announced a sixth team called the Calgary Bandits has been added to the new Canadian division.

SOCCER

Major Arena Soccer League: A new men's professional indoor soccer team called the Phoenix Sol SC reports it is in talks with the MASL to join one of the MASL's leagues in 2026.

USL League Championship (United Soccer League): Construction has yet to begin as planned this summer on a proposed new 8,000-seat soccer stadium in Milwaukee for a Division-II USL Championship expansion team and the team's start in 2026 looks doubtful. The USL granted an expansion team to the group called Milwaukee Pro Soccer in October 2022 with original plans to have a stadium ready for the 2025 season. In 2023, the group stated stadium construction would start in the spring of 2024 and pushed back the team's start until 2026. At that time, the group also announced ten potential team nicknames for fan voting. These included the Milwaukee Tall Boys, Milwaukee Barons, Goodland, Milwaukee Brigade, Lake Effect, Fresh Coast, Milwaukee Iron, Cream City, 1846 Milwaukee, and Milwaukee Industrial. In February 2025, the group stated stadium construction would begin this summer.

National Women's Soccer League: The NWSL's Kansas City Current announced the addition of a second-level team called the Kansas City Current II. The Kansas City Current is the first NWSL team to add a second team that is expected to be part of a proposed new NWSL Division-II pro league to start in 2026. Eventually, all NWSL teams are expected to have Division-II teams but only eight teams, one of which is Kansas City, are supposed to start in 2026.

OTHER

League One Volleyball (LOVB): The women's professional indoor volleyball league known as LOVB introduced the new outside ownership of its LOVB Omaha team, which will be rebranded as the LOVB Nebraska for the league's second season in 2026. For its inaugural 2025 season, the six-team LOVB competed in the same months as the second season of the eight-team Pro Volleyball Federation (PVF). Both LOVB and the PVF had overlapping teams in the Omaha and Atlanta markets.

Major League Rugby: After playing only the 2024 and 2025 seasons, the Miami Sharks club in the men's professional rugby union (15-player) announced it has shut down operations and will not participate in the 2026 season. The Sharks will need to reapply to the league if they want to return in 2027. The MLR has lost 3 clubs since completing its 2025 season with 11 teams. Los Angeles and San Diego merged to form one club and New Orleans and Miami dropped out.

Major League Volleyball: The women's professional indoor volleyball league known as the Pro Volleyball Federation (PVF) has merged with the upstart Major League Volleyball (MVP) and will play its third season in 2026 with eight teams under the MVP name. Prior to the merger announcement, the owners of the PVF's Omaha Supernovas announced plans in January to break away from the PVF in 2026 and start the new MVP with up to ten teams. The PVF operated with eight teams in 2025 but the Vegas Thrill (Las Vegas) will be replaced by a Dallas expansion team in the 2026 MVP. The MVP plans to add two expansion teams in Washington (DC) and Northern California (most likely Sacramento) in 2027.

National Lacrosse League: The Seneca Nation, a sovereign Native Nation and largest of the Iroquois Confederacy, has purchased the indoor NLL's Rochester Knighthawks franchise and will keep the team in Rochester (NY). The Knighthawks' previous ownership, which will continue to own and operate the league's Buffalo Bandits, decided to step away from operating the Knighthawks in June. This version of the Rochester Knighthawks has been part of the NLL since the 2019-20 season.

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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Major League Volleyball Stories from August 11, 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.


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