Weekly Sports League and Franchise Report
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Weekly Sports League and Franchise Report

by Dan Krieger
Published on December 29, 2025 under NBA G League (G League)


BASEBALL

Blue Ridge League: The new summer-collegiate Blue Ridge League is organizing for a start in 2026 with six teams called the Carolina Disco Turkeys (Winston-Salem, NC), the new Davie Crocketts (Mocksville, Davie County, NC), Marion (VA) Hungry Mothers, Queen City Corndogs (Charlotte), Uwharrie Wampus Cats (Albemarle, NC) and the new West Virginia Miners. Carolina, Marion and Uwharrie played independent schedules in 2025, while Queen City was part of the Southern Collegiate Baseball League. The 2026 season runs from Memorial Day through July.

Legacy League: The proposed summer developmental Legacy League has been trying to get off the ground since 2024 and is now planning a start in 2026 with six teams representing various communities in the Jackson (MS) area and playing all games at the Smith-Wills Stadium in Jackson.

Western Association of Professional Baseball Clubs: There have been no updates since July 2025 from the proposed independent Western Association, which has been trying to get off the ground since 2019, and its website (westernprobaseball.com) is no longer available. The July update stated the league would start in June 2026 with a minimum of eight teams based in Arizona, California, Nevada, Texas and Utah and each team playing a 78-game schedule. The league listed the Henderson (NV) Hoo as its first and only team.

BASKETBALL

American Basketball Association: The men's semi-pro ABA announced expansion teams called the Hawthorne (FL) Hurricane and the Petersburg (VA) Live Wires will be added for the 2026-27 season.

National Basketball Association: The NBA and the global governing body for basketball known as FIBA (Federation Internationale de Basketball) announced a joint effort to create a new men's European professional basketball league that could start in October 2027. Discussions with prospective teams and interested ownership groups will start next month and additional updates will be provided over the next few months. The NBA commissioner recently announced the league will decide in 2026 whether to expand from 30 to 32 teams. If expansion moves forward, Las Vegas and Seattle have been considered as the top candidates.

National Basketball Association Gatorade League (G-League): After recently completing the first portion of the 2025-26 season with a Tip-Off Tournament, which featured teams aligned in four regional pods and each team playing 14 games in November and December, the 31-team NBA G-League has started the regular-season portion of the season with teams aligned in a 16-team Eastern Conference and a 15-team Western Conference. Each team will play 36 games through March 28, 2026. The league's Cleveland Charge played a game this weekend as the Cleveland Melonheads in a promotion with Backyard Sports, which operates a popular sports video game franchise that has a team called the Melonheads as one of the Backyard Basketball identities.

FOOTBALL

Indoor Football League: The IFL's Green Bay Blizzard will play a 2026 regular-season home game at the Resch Center on April 18, 2026, as the "Frozen Phoenix" in a promotion with the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay (UWGB) Phoenix athletics. Since the UWGB Phoenix does not have a football program, the IFL game will be billed as the university's first football game.

Women's Football Alliance: The full-tackle outdoor WFA has posted the 2026 schedules for 41 teams that will each play 6 games from April 25 through June 13, 2026. The WFA currently lists teams in 3 divisions: an 11-team Pro Division, a 28-team Division 2 and a 2-team Division 3.

HOCKEY

ECHL: The 30-team AA-level ECHL postponed all games this weekend after players went on strike. The ECHL and the Professional Hockey Players' Association (PHPA), the union representing the players, had been engaged in collective bargaining but were unable to come to an agreement. On December 27, the ECHL and the PHPA announced a tentative deal was reached on a new Collective Bargaining Agreement but it still needed to be approved by both parties. Players were to report to their teams and begin preparing for a return to play.

National Hockey League: A Phoenix-based group has named an advisory panel that will try to bring the NHL back to Arizona by finding an ownership group and potential land where a new arena could be built for the team. The NHL's Arizona Coyotes franchise was deactivated after the 2023-24 season with the assets transferred to the owner of the NHL's Salt Lake City team now called the Utah Mammoth. Although the NHL has not established a formal process for future expansion, the minimum price for an expansion team is reported to be $2 billion with Atlanta and Houston considered as frontrunners. The Atlanta market has two competing groups trying to build a new NHL-style arena. The city of Alpharetta (Fulton County) recently agreed to form a tax district to fund redevelopment of a former mall for an NHL arena, while a development in nearby Forsyth County is planning to include an NHL arena.

National Ringette League: The semi-pro Canadian women's NRL is about midway through its 2025-26 season that features 14 teams (7 in eastern Canada and 7 in western Canada) each playing 20-24 games from October 3, 2025, through March 15, 2026. The game of ringette is of Canadian origin and is a team sport similar to ice hockey in equipment and playing surface. Players use straight sticks to control and pass a rubber ring instead of a puck. The game is centered more around skating and passing rather than puck handling and involves catching or "stabbing" the ring. The NRL started in 2004 and is the showcase league for ringette in Canada and part of the Ringette Canada organization.

Professional Women's Hockey League: The PWHL's New York Sirens team, which is playing home games this season at the Prudential Center in Newark (NJ), is suffering from poor attendance in its third consecutive season and there is speculation the league might have to consider relocation. Although the league is committed to having a team in the New York area, the Sirens also had the lowest per-game attendance in the league's first two seasons (2024 and 2024-25) while playing home games in Bridgeport (CT) and Elmont (Long Island).

SOCCER

Major League Soccer: The Colorado Rapids soccer club, which has been part of MLS since the league's inaugural 1996 season, is reaching out to supporters for feedback on possible future changes to the team's name, crest and colors. The MLS commissioner recently stated the league has no immediate plans to introduce a system of promotion and relegation and will maintain its closed model. The city of Indianapolis is beginning pre-construction planning for a proposed MLS-style soccer stadium and has selected a construction manager. This is considered a very preliminary step in the city's attempt to build a stadium and obtain an MLS expansion team by 2028. The mayor has stated in the past that the city will not build a soccer-specific stadium until MLS approves a franchise for Indianapolis. Funding is still a concern for the stadium project. The city of Mesa (AZ) in the East Valley of the Phoenix metropolitan area has approved a special tax district for the site of a former mall that could be used to build a new soccer stadium for teams in the MLS and the National Women's Soccer League.

National Women's Soccer League: The start of the NWSL's proposed new Division-II reserve and developmental league has been pushed back from 2026 to 2027. Initial plans were for 8 of the NWSL's 16 current teams to field affiliated second division teams in the 2026 season.

USL League Two (United Soccer League): The Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC, which won the 2025 title in the Division-II professional USL Championship, will add a pre-professional USL League Two team called the Pittsburgh Riverhounds 2 for the 2026 season.

USL W-League (United Soccer League): The women's pre-professional USL W-League recently announced five new teams that will join for the 2026 season. The Chicago-based Edgewater Castle FC, Real Colorado (Centennial) and Rockford Raptors FC (Illinois) will add both W-League teams and men's teams in the pre-professional USL League Two. The Snohomish United (Washington), which added a men's USL League Two team in 2025, will add a USL W-League team, and an existing club called the Virginia Development Academy (Woodbridge) will add a USL W-League team in 2026.

Women's Major League Indoor Soccer: The WMLIS, which is affiliated with the men's MLIS, announced its second season will have eight teams aligned in four-team Eastern and Western conferences with each team playing a ten-game schedule from January 17 through March 15, 2026. Of the four teams from last season, the Chicago Mustangs, Summit City United (Fort Wayne) and Zoo City FC (Kalamazoo) will return as part of the Eastern Conference but the Panathinaikos Chicago (PAO Chicago) will not return. The WMLIS has added the expansion New Jersey Angles to the new Eastern Conference and four other new teams called the Las Vegas Turf Monsters, New Mexico Lightning (Albuquerque), Phoenix Pulse and Utah Uprising (Salt Lake City) will comprise the new Western Conference.

OTHER

Major League Pickleball: The professional team-based mixed-gender MLP announced its 2026 season schedule will feature nine events held in MLP cities from May 22 through August 2, 2026, followed by playoffs. All 22 teams, which will again be aligned in a Premier Level and a Challenger Level, will participate in 5 events for a total of 25 matches played during the season.

Rock League: A new mixed-gender professional curling league called the Rock League will start in 2026 with a condensed seven-day (April 6-12) preview season played at a facility in Toronto and featuring six teams called the Alpine Curling Club (Europe), Frontier Curling Club (United States), Maple United (Canada), Northern United (Europe), Shield Curling Club (Canada) and the Typhoon Curling Club (Asia-Pacific). Each franchise will have five men and five women curlers competing in four-player team matches (men's, women's and mixed). The league also announced its five-week 2027 season will feature four four-day events from January 7 through February 7, 2027, followed by a playoff event. The four 2027 events will be held in Moose Jaw (Saskatchewan), Halifax (Nova Scotia), Utica (NY) and Ottawa (Ontario).

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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NBA G League Stories from December 29, 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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