Weekly Sports League and Franchise Report
by Dan Krieger
Published on November 17, 2025 under Arena Football One (AF1)
BASEBALL
Appalachian League: The summer-collegiate Appy League, which operates under the Major League Baseball and USA Baseball Prospect Development Pipeline, announced its 2026 season will feature eight teams aligned in four-team East and West divisions with each team playing a 48-game schedule from June 4 through July 30, 2025. The league had ten teams last season but the Tri-State Coal Cats (Huntington, WV) will not be returning while the Bristol (VA) State Liners hope to return in 2027 after a proposed new ballpark is completed. The State Liners have not had their own home field for the past two seasons as they attempted to build a new ballpark.
Pioneer League: The independent Pioneer League's expansion team based in Modesto (CA) will be called the Modesto Glow Riders when the team starts playing in the 2026 season. The name pays tribute to the lowrider car culture and the history of cruising in the city. Other Modesto nickname finalists included the 99ers, Bombers, Graffiti, Harvesters and Trucks.
Eastern League: Minor League Baseball has posted the 2026 Double-A Eastern League schedule that will feature the same 12 teams and affiliations as last season and teams are again aligned in six-team Northeast and Southwest divisions. Each team will play 138 games from April 3 through September 13, 2026.
Southern League: Minor League Baseball has posted the 2026 Double-A Southern League schedule that will feature the same eight teams and affiliations as last season and teams are again aligned in four-team North and South divisions. Each team will play 138 games from April 3 through September 13, 2026. The league's Pensacola Blue Wahoos announced the team will play select home games during the 2026 season as the Pensacola Sky Jockeys to honor the community's strong ties to military aviation.
Texas League: Minor League Baseball has posted the 2026 Double-A Texas League schedule that will feature the same ten teams and affiliations as last season and teams again aligned in five-team North and South divisions. Each team will play 138 games from April 3 through September 13, 2026.
BASKETBALL
Project B League: The proposed new global professional basketball league currently referred to as ¬ÅProject B ¬Â is planning to launch in November 2026 with six men's and women's basketball teams playing five-on-five basketball through April 2027. The teams will play a tour-based schedule with tournaments held in Asia, Europe and Latin America. Since the ¬ÅProject B ¬Â season will not conflict with the Women's National Basketball Association's season, the new league has started signing WNBA players to play in what would be an off-season league.
The Basketball League: Although the minor professional TBL lost some teams to the 2026 restart of the United States Basketball League, the league announced the addition of several teams and markets over the past few months for its 2026 season. Some of these additions include the 4 Bears Roar (New Town, ND), ADS Sentinels (San Antonio), Antigonish (Nova Scotia), Clark County (WA) Trash Pandas, Columbus (OH) Wizards, Cowlitz County (WA) Sasquatch, Crawfordsville (IN) Commanders, DC Heat (Washington, DC), Desert Aire (WA), Fayetteville (NC) Liberty, Grove City (OH) Whitetails, Kissimmee (FL) Lambs, Las Vegas Fortune, Lehigh Valley (PA) Flight, Los Angeles Ignite, Mesa (AZ) Monsoons, Scranton (PA) Dream Mountain Wolves, Sherman (TX) Stampede, South Florida (Miami) and Yakima (WA) SunKings.
WABA West (Women's American Basketball Association): The WABA's proposed new WABA West league recently announced teams called the Colorado Phoenix (Colorado Springs) and the Arizona Ice (Phoenix) have been added for the league's inaugural season that will start in April 2026.
FOOTBALL
Arena Football One: The AF1 has confirmed the addition of a new team called the Oceanside (CA) Bombers for the 2026 season. The league's Billings (MT) Outlaws announced the team will sit out the 2026 season as it plans to leave Billings and search for a new home market.
Championship Football Association: The proposed new indoor CFA announced the Austin Falcons will be part of the Big South Conference in the league's inaugural 2026 season. The Falcons are the former Dallas Falcons who announced a move to Austin this past August. The CFA announced the Andrews County Expo Arena (Andrews, TX) will serve as the hub for West Texas and New Mexico teams in the league's Big South Conference West Division.
Continental Football League: The proposed new minor professional CoFL announced the Cincinnati Dukes will be the second team in the North Division for the league's inaugural season starting in May 2026. The team was part of the semi-pro Blue Collar Football League in 2025 and played one game this summer as a non-league ¬Åshowcase ¬Â team against the Ohio Valley Ironmen (Wheeling, WV) when that team was part of the professional International Football Alliance (IFA). Ohio Valley has since left the IFA and is the CoFL's other North Division team.
Indoor Football League: The IFL has posted the 2026 season schedule that again features 14 teams aligned in seven-team Eastern and Western conferences with teams playing 15 to 16 games from March 14 through July 25, 2025. The Western Conference lost the Bay Area Panthers (San Jose) team that is sitting out the 2026 season but added the Albuquerque-based New Mexico Chupacabras team, which is the city's former Duke City Gladiators team that came under new ownership after sitting out last season. The only change in the Eastern Conference will be the relocation of the Massachusetts Pirates (Lowell) who are expected to announce a move to Florida next week.
HOCKEY
Federal Prospects Hockey League: The minor professional FPHL officially announced an expansion team based in Thief Rivers Falls (MN) will be added for the 2026-27 season. The city most recently had a Junior-A team called the Thief River Norskies that play four seasons (2015-20) in the Superior International Junior Hockey League.
Professional Women's Hockey League: As the PWHL enters its third season and grows to eight teams, the league announced it will play 16 regular-season games in 11 different neutral sites as part of its second ¬ÅTakeover Tour ¬Â. The PWHL will return to Denver (two games), Detroit (two games), Edmonton (two games) and Québec City and visit seven new cities including Calgary, Chicago (two games), Dallas, Halifax (Nova Scotia; two games), Hamilton (Ontario) and Washington (DC). All eight teams will participate in at least three ¬ÅTakeover Tour ¬Â games.
American Hockey League: The AHL's Iowa Wild (Des Moines) played a game this weekend as the Iowa Aeros to honor the heritage of the team that was known as the Houston Aeros before relocating and becoming the Iowa Wild for the 2013-14 season.
SOCCER
Major Arena Soccer League 3: The men's amateur-level MASL3 started its 2025-26 season this weekend with 22 teams aligned in a four-team East Division, a four-team Great Lakes North Division, a six-team Atlantic Division and an eight-team South Division. Each team will play ten games through March 22, 2026. The league had 27 teams last season but lost 11 teams and added 6 other teams. The 11 non-returning teams included the Philadelphia Spartans (Mt. Laurel, NJ), Fox United (Ligonier, IN), Brew City United (Milwaukee), Elizabethtown (KY) Ignite FC, FC Indiana Lions (Lafayette), Valhalla FC (PA), Central Texas Coyotes (Temple), Kalamazoo United, West Michigan Wrath, San Antonio Eagles, and Austin Emerald FC. The six additions included the Cincinnati Swerve, Deportivo Shaolin (Kansas City), The Bold Dream FC ( Austin), Cumberland Valley SC (Hagerstown, MD), Delaware City FC (Wilmington), and the Muskegon Risers from the MASL2. The league's DMV Gunners were sold in the off-season but remained in Westminster (MD) as the renamed Maryland Storm for the 2025-26 season.
Major League Indoor Soccer: The men's MLIS started its 2025-26 season this weekend with 13 teams aligned in a seven-team North Conference and a six-team South Conference. Each team will play a 12-game schedule through March 15, 2026. Last season, the MLIS had nine teams aligned in a single-table format but it lost three teams and added seven new teams for 2025-26. The Chicago Panathinaikos (Chicago PAO) and Colorado Bucks (Denver) did not return and the Omaha Kings moved to the Major Arena Soccer League 2 (MASL2). The MLIS added the Atletico Orlando from the 2024-25 MASL2, along with new teams called the Boulder United FC Halo (Denver), Dallas CD La Cuadra, Las Vegas Turf Monsters, Utah Uprising (Salt Lake City), Bridge City FC (Pittsburgh) and Rockford (IL) Thunder.
Major League Soccer: MLS announced it will move its regular season from a February-to-November schedule to a summer-to-spring schedule starting in July 2027 to match the schedules of the top international leagues. The 2027-28 season will start in July 2027 and end in late May 2028 with a winter break from mid-December 2027 to early February 2028. After the 2026 season, the MLS will play a short 14-game transition season from February to May 2027. The league's affiliated Division-III MLS NEXT Pro league has yet to decide on a schedule change.
National Women's Soccer League: The Division-I professional NWSL announced an expansion team based in Atlanta will join as the league's 17th team for the 2028 season. The league is growing from 14 to 16 teams in 2026 with the addition of expansion teams called the Boston Legacy FC and the Denver Summit FC. The NWSL will also begin the process of considering markets for an 18th team to start in the 2028 season. Atlanta had previous women's professional teams called the Atlanta Beat that played three seasons (2001-03) in the former Women's Professional Soccer and two seasons (2010-11) in the former Women's United Soccer Association. In early 2015, a group of investors attempted to establish an NWSL team to be called the Atlanta Vibe, which was later referred to as the Atlanta FC, with the hope of starting in the 2016 season but this effort never developed. In 2017, an Atlanta group called First Team SC failed in an attempt to build a new stadium in Dekalb County (GA) for an NWSL team.
USL Championship (United Soccer League): The USL and the city of Green Bay (WI) have entered into a two-year agreement to try to build a soccer stadium with a minimum 5,000-seat capacity for future men's and women's professional soccer teams. No specific USL league was mentioned, but a group in Milwaukee, about 100 miles south, has been trying to build a new 8,000-seat stadium for a team in the men's USL Championship over the past few years, and a current team plays in Madison (WI), about 80 miles west of Milwaukee, as part of the men's USL League One.
OTHER
League One Volleyball: The women's LOVB (pronounced LOVE) professional indoor volleyball league announced a LOVB Minnesota team will be added as the eighth team for the league's third season in 2027. No specific home city was announced for the new team. A LOVB Los Angeles team was recently announced as a seventh team that will also start in 2027. The league completed its inaugural 2025 season with six league-owned teams in Atlanta, Austin, Houston, Madison, Omaha and Salt Lake City and those teams will return for the league's second season in 2026.
Northwoods Women's Softball: The women's NWLS summer-collegiate softball league announced the Grand Forks (ND) expansion team will be called the Grand Forks Spitfires when it starts playing as the league's sixth team in 2026. The Flying Aces, Spudniks, Sweet Beets, Voodoo and Wingnuts were also names under consideration.
Ultimate Frisbee Association: The men's professional UFA announced the Detroit Mechanix and the Los Angeles Aviators failed to meet the November 1 deadline for payment of fees for the 2026 season, so these teams will suspend operations and will not play in 2026. All of the other 22 UFA teams are expected to return in 2026. For the 2025 season, Detroit was in the six-team Central Division and Los Angeles was in the six-team South Division.
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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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.
