Dan Krieger
August 19, 2024 – USL Super League (USLSL)
baseball
Frontier League: The Gateway Grizzlies of the independent Frontier League, located across the Mississippi River from St. Louis in Sauget, IL, played a neutral-site home game this week in Springfield, IL. The last professional baseball team in Springfield was the Springfield Capitals of the Frontier League (1996-2001), who moved to Rockford, IL in 2002 as the RiverHawks. The city currently has a baseball team in the summer college Prospect League called the Springfield Lucky Horseshoes.
MIDWEST LEAGUE: The Peoria Chiefs of the High-A Midwest League hosted Distillers Weekend & Beerfest last weekend, playing three games under the name Peoria Distillers to honor the area’s whiskey-making history and the city’s former minor league baseball team. The league’s Beloit Snappers played games under the name Fairbanks Fairey this weekend to honor the city’s former semipro baseball team.
Pacific Coast League: Interleague play between the 10-team Triple-A PCL and the 20-team Triple-A International League of Minor League Baseball is included for the first time on the 2025 schedule.
basketball
Basketball Super League: The professional BSL, which will play its first 2023-24 season with six teams in Canada, announced that the Affiliate Basketball League (TBL) has added the Pontiac (MI) Pharaohs as its first U.S. team for the 2024-25 season. Last season, BSL teams played additional home games against several TBL teams, one of which was the Pontiac Pharaohs, who played four games against BSL teams.
Women’s Basketball Association of America: The semi-professional WABA began its 2024 season early last month with 16 teams in the three-team North Upper, five-team North Lower, three-team Midwest and five-team South. The league lost 18 teams last season, but has added seven more teams and five new teams: the Kalamazoo Blaze, Raleigh Aces, OnPoint Swish (Inez, Ky.), Philadelphia Fury and Rochester (N.Y.) Royal Ballers. Originally announced as the Rochester Queenz, the WABA season runs through this month and the playoffs follow.
soccer
Canadian Football League: The CFL has introduced a new owner for the Edmonton Elks, and there is talk of possibly changing the team’s name back to the Edmonton Eskimos or something else. The new owner has not said anything about an immediate name change, but has promised to keep the team’s “Double E” logo in future branding. The team played under the name Edmonton Eskimos from 1949 to 2020, but was pressured to change the name due to the offensive nature of the term used to describe Canada’s northern Inuit population. The Edmonton team has gone 13-46 since changing its name to the Eskimos.
National Arena League: The NAL officially announced that the Shreveport Rouxgaroux has been added as the league’s 10th team for the 2025 season. The Rouxgarou, or rougarou, is a Louisiana werewolf-type creature from Cajun folklore. The NAL’s five active teams will return at the end of the 2024 season, and the league has also added the Wheeling (WV) Miners of the American Arena League 2 and the Columbus (GA) Lions, Corpus Christi (TX) Tritons, and Harrisburg (PA) Stampede of the American Indoor Football League for the 2025 season. Shreveport’s last professional indoor team was the Bossier City-Shreveport Battle Wings, who played only the 2010 season in the Arena Football League’s first revival.
Indoor Football League: The IFL held its championship game this weekend, ending the 2024 season with 16 teams in the Eastern and Western conferences, each of which has eight teams. The IFL had 14 teams last season, but added the Jacksonville Sharks in the Eastern Conference and the San Antonio Gunslingers in the Western Conference. The league’s Massachusetts Pirates moved their home stadium from Worcester to Lowell for the 2024 season. The IFL has now listed Indianapolis-area Fishers (IN) Freight as an expansion team for 2025.
hockey
The American Premier Hockey League: Senior-A semi-pro APHL announced that Iron City Forge (Pittsburgh) has been added to the Eastern Division for the 2024-25 season. The APHL also posted the 2024-25 season schedule, which will feature nine teams from Oct. 24, 2024, through March 23, 2025.
Great Lakes Hockey League: The 18-and-over semi-pro GLHL, which features teams in Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, announced the return of all eight teams for the 2024-25 season. The GLHL also announced it will expand to 11 teams for the 2025-26 season by adding the M&M Shamrocks (Marinette, Wis.), Dane County Dairy Kings (Verona, Wis.) and the Sun Prairie (WI) Killer Bees, who played in the American Premier Hockey League in the 2023-24 season.
soccer
Major League Indoor Soccer: The professional MLIS announced the addition of the Amarillo Bombers to the Major Arena Soccer League 2 (MASL2) men’s division for the 2024-25 season. The Bombers have been in MASL2 since the 2019-20 season, when several teams from the Texas-based US Arena Professional League merged into MASL2.
USL League 1 (United Soccer League): After third-tier USL League 1 team Lexington SC (Kentucky) moves into a new 7,500-seat soccer-specific stadium later this season, the team will be promoted to the second-tier USL Championship League starting in 2025. Lexington SC joined USL League 1 in 2023 and has been playing at the 5,000-seat stadium operated by Georgetown College.
USL Super League (United Soccer League): The new women’s first-tier professional USL Super League has begun its inaugural 2024-25 fall schedule, with eight teams lined up in a single-table format. The teams are Brooklyn FC (Brooklyn, New York), Carolina Ascent FC (Charlotte), Dallas Trinity FC, DC Power FC (Washington, D.C.), Fort Lauderdale United FC, Lexington SC (Lexington, Kentucky), Spokane Zephyr FC and Tampa Bay Sun FC. Each team will play a 14-game schedule through Dec. 14, 2024, followed by a winter break, and a 14-game spring schedule beginning in February 2025. The USL Super League is expected to grow to 20 teams by 2026.
National Women’s Soccer League: Minnesota Aurora FC (Minneapolis/St. Paul), which has been in the women’s pre-professional USL W-League (United Soccer League) since the 2022 season, announced that it has dropped out of the expansion process as the 16th team in the Division I professional NWSL. The NWSL previously announced that Boston would host a 15th team starting in 2026, and the league had planned to announce a 16th team by the end of the year. Minneapolis/St. Paul, Cincinnati and Cleveland were considered as the leading candidates for the next NWSL expansion team.
National Super League: Canada’s new women’s professional league, the NSL, has announced that its Ottawa, Ontario-based team will be called Ottawa Rapids FC when it begins its six-team run in 2025. The NSL, which evolved from the “Project 8” organization, also has other teams called Halifax Tides FC, AFC Toronto, Calgary Wild FC, and yet-to-be-named teams in Vancouver and Montreal. The Ottawa-based independent baseball team in the defunct Can-Am League was originally called the Ottawa Rapids, changing its name to Ottawa Rapids for its only season in 2008.
different
Women’s Elite Rugby: The proposed new WER, which plans to become the first professional women’s rugby league in the United States by 2025 and play under 15-a-side rugby union rules, has announced that the first three markets for teams will be Boston, Chicago and Denver. WER will start with six to eight teams, with full team names and locations to be announced in the near future.
Dan Krieger is the creator of the weekly Sports League & Franchise Report, which has been tracking the evolution of leagues, teams, and nicknames in sports since April 2007.
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