Weekly Sports League and Franchise Report
NWSL National Women's Soccer League

Weekly Sports League and Franchise Report

by Dan Krieger
Published on March 16, 2026 under National Women's Soccer League (NWSL)


BASEBALL

Cosmic Baseball: The tour-based Cosmic Baseball will start its 2026 "Cosmic Takeover Tour" next week with weekend events scheduled across the country through October 17, 2026. Cosmic Baseball is a timed entertainment event similar to that of the Savannah Bananas but teams play the first half of modified baseball in daylight and then switch to playing a glow-in-the-dark version of baseball under black lights with teams wearing neon uniforms and special glowing baseballs, bats and bases. Cosmic Baseball features two teams called the Chili Peppers and Glow Mojis. The Cosmic Baseball concept was first tried by the Tri-City Chili Peppers (Colonial Heights, VA) in the 2024 season of the summer-collegiate Coastal Plain League and evolved into a sold-out tour that started in 2025.

Midwest League: The West Michigan Whitecaps (Grand Rapids) of the High-A Midwest League will play a game as the Michigan Snowbirds during the 2026 season in a tribute to the Michigan residents who leave the state for the winter and return when the weather improves.

Texas League: The Tulsa Drillers of the Double-A Eastern League will play four home games during the 2026 season as the Tulsa Ranch Dippers to celebrate dipping foods into ranch dressing, which is considered the state of Oklahoma's most popular condiment.

BASKETBALL

American Basketball Association: The men's semi-pro ABA announced teams called the Naptown Pirates (Indianapolis), Rochester (NY) Reapers and the Frisco (TX) Blaze have been added as expansion teams for the 2026-27 season.

National Basketball League - United States: The men's semi-pro NBL-US recently started its 2026 season with five Texas-based teams called the Montgomery County Dragons, East Houston United, Cypress Venom, Lake Houston Flight and the HBCU Movement.

Women's National Basketball Association: The WNBA and the WNBA Players' Association continued to negotiate terms on a new collective bargaining agreement this week. The WNBA commissioner stated a deal needed to be reached by May 16 to avoid delaying the start of the 2026 season. The league still needs to hold the two-team expansion draft for the Toronto Tempo and Portland Fire with opening day scheduled for May 8.

FOOTBALL

Continental Football League: The new eight-team minor professional CoFL, which plans to start playing in May 2026 with four-team Southern and Northern divisions, announced the Fort Worth Braves as the last of its eight teams and the fourth team in the Southern Division along with three other Texas-based teams called the Tall City Black Gold (Midland), San Antonio Toros and the Texas Syndicate (Austin). A former team called the Fort Worth Braves played in the final 1969 season of the original CoFL after it absorbed the Texas Football League. The CoFL's Northern Division will include the Cincinnati Dukes, Indianapolis Capitols, Michigan Arrows (Detroit) and Ohio Ironmen (Wheeling, WV). Teams are expected to play one non-league game and six regular-season games in 2026.

Indoor Football League: The IFL started its 2026 season this weekend and again features 14 teams aligned in seven-team Eastern and Western conferences with teams playing 15 to 16 games through July 25, 2026. 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 that came under new ownership after sitting out last season. The only change in the Eastern Conference was the relocation of the Massachusetts Pirates (Lowell) to Florida as the Orlando Pirates for the 2026 season.

American Arena League: The owner of the AAL's Wheeling (WV) Miners is now the co-owner of the semi-pro Pittsburgh Outlaws from the AAL2 and the Outlaws will serve as an affiliated developmental team for the Miners.

European Football Alliance: The new EFA American-style football league, which was created with teams that broke away from the established European League of Football (ELF) after the 2025 season, announced it will play its inaugural 2026 season with six teams each playing a ten-game schedule from May 15 through August 9, 2026. The EFA includes six former ELF teams called the Munich Ravens, Frankfurt Galaxy, Paris Musketeers, Prague Lions (Czech Republic), Nordic Storm (Copenhagen) and Raiders Tirol (Austria). Another former ELF team called the Madrid Bravos was supposed to be the EFA's seventh team in 2026 but the owner decided to withdraw from sports team ownership and folded the team. Although the ELF has lost teams to both the EFA and the new American Football League Europe (AFLE), which recently announced its inaugural 2026 schedule, the head of the ELF stated that it is still working to play a 2026 season and that many of teams that left the ELF for the EFA and AFLE still have contracts with the ELF.

HOCKEY

ECHL: The ECHL has approved the voluntary suspension of the Iowa Heartlanders (Coralville) for the 2026-27 season. The team will work toward stabilizing the franchise through potential new investment or ownership partnerships. The league's Maine Mariners (Portland) played a game this week (March 14) as the Maine Blueberries to celebrate Maine as the top producer of the country's blueberries. Last weekend, the ECHL's Allen Americans played as the Hamilton Mustangs, while the ECHL's Tulsa Oilers played as the Thunder Bay Bombers in a promotion for a current remake of the classic 1980s hockey movie "Youngbloods" that features teams by those names and tells the story of the trials and tribulations of a junior hockey player.

Professional Women's Hockey League: The PWHL's Ottawa Charge is working with the National Hockey League's Ottawa Senators to play at the Senators' home arena in the future to avoid losing the franchise to possible relocation. The PWHL team has been playing its first three seasons at the older 8,500-seat TD Place, which is scheduled to be replaced by a smaller, 5,700-seat arena. The team is averaging over 7,000 fans per game and the reduced seating capacity would make it financially unfeasible for the team to stay at the new arena.

SOCCER

MLS Next Pro (Major League Soccer): The new Cleveland expansion team in the Division-III MLS Next Pro will be called the Forest City Cleveland when it starts playing in the league's 2027 season. One of Cleveland's nicknames is the "Forest City", which was also the name of the city's first professional baseball team in the early 1870s. The Cleveland Soccer Group, which will own and operate the new team, is also organizing a professional women's team in the proposed new Division-II WPSL Pro (Women's Premier Soccer League) that will start in 2027 and that team's name will be announced in May 2026.

National Women's Soccer League: The Division-I professional NWSL started its 2026 season this week with 16 teams aligned in a single-table format and each team playing a 30-game schedule through November 1, 2026. The league will not play during the month of June due to games of the Men's FIFA World Cup being held in several NWSL markets. The NWSL had 14 teams last season but added expansion teams called the Boston Legacy FC, originally announced as the BOS Nation FC, and the Denver Summit FC. An Atlanta expansion team will start playing in 2028 as the league's 17th team and the NWSL commissioner stated this week that a "dozen or so" possible ownership groups are interested in the 18th franchise. The latest expansion team is to be awarded this year and is expected to also start playing in 2028.

USL League One (United Soccer League): The United Soccer League and the city of Modesto have extended their exclusive negotiation period until June 10, 2026, so the city can finalize plans to build a proposed 5,000-seat soccer stadium for a USL team, most likely to start in the professional Division-III USL League One.

OTHER

Western Ultimate League: The women's professional WUL started its 2026 season this weekend with eight teams in four-team North and South conferences and each team playing eight games through May 31, 2026. The league had seven teams in a single-table format last season, but the Los Angeles Astra returned after playing the 2025 season in the Premier Ultimate League. The Astra is part of the South Conference with the returning Arizona Sidewinders, Bay Area Falcons and San Diego Super Bloom. The North Conference includes the returning Colorado Alpenglow, Oregon Soar, Seattle Tempest and Utah Wild.

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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National Women's Soccer League Stories from March 16, 2026


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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