Weekly Sports League and Franchise Report

by Dan Krieger
September 9, 2013 - Professional Indoor Football League (PIFL)

BASEBALL

Pecos Spring League: The independent Pecos League plans to operate its third year of the Pecos Spring League in March 2014. The spring developmental league will again feature four teams each playing about 10 to 12 games at two locations in south Houston.

New York-Penn League: The owner of the Hagerstown (MD) Suns in the low Class-A South Atlantic League (SALLY) plans to move the team to a new stadium in Fredericksburg (VA) by the 2015 season, but is also proposing a short-season Class-A NYPL team for Hagerstown once a new stadium is built there. The new SALLY team in Fredericksburg will not use the Suns nickname, so it could stay with Hagerstown.

Major League Baseball: As part of its stadium lease negotiations with the city of Anaheim, the American League's Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim might be allowed to drop the "of Anaheim" from its name in the future. The Angels have mentioned a possible move to another part of the Los Angeles area, but could stay in Anaheim if it obtains development rights to property around its current stadium.

BASKETBALL

National Basketball League of Canada: The NBL-Canada announced it will begin accepting expansion applications for the 2014-15 season and is looking for applications from interested groups in the provinces of Western Canada. The league has visited several potential expansion cities in Western Canada, but it is also interested in additional Ontario markets like Hamilton, Kingston and Kitchener. A proposed new league called the Canadian Basketball League was announced in June 2013 and it plans to target Western Canada for initial team locations.

National Basketball Association Development League (D-League): The NBA's D-League announced its 2013-14 season schedule that will feature 17 teams each playing a 50-game schedule. All 16 teams returned from last season, plus the league added the new Delaware 87ers team to the Eastern Division. Fourteen of the D-League teams have some sort of single-affiliation relationship with an NBA team.

American Basketball Association: The ABA announced a new team called the Milwaukee Rimrattlers will be part of the league starting in 2014. The league had a team called the Milwaukee Blast that played a couple of games in the 2011-12 season before dropping out.

FOOTBALL

Arena Football League: The Orlando Predators defaulted on its arena lease at the Amway Center because the AFL team's average per-game attendance was just below the required 6,000 for the 2013 season. The Predators have disputed the attendance figures and stated the team is committed to the AFL for 2014. If the team cannot play at its current arena, it will find another location in the Orlando area. The AFL's Utah Blaze and Chicago Rush have not fulfilled a requirement to commit to the league for the 2014 and 2015 seasons. The Utah Blaze had financial and arena lease issues during the 2013 season and the Chicago Rush had ownership issues that forced the team to play some home games in Rockford.

Indoor Football League: The IFL's new Northern Minnesota team for the 2014 season announced it will be called the Bemidji Axemen. It looks as though the Green Bay Blizzard team has some new investors and is expected to return for the 2014 season. After the 2013 season, the Blizzard ownership stated the team would fold if new investors were not found. The IFL holds its owners' meeting next week.

American Indoor Football: The AIF announced a team called the Atlanta Sharks and a yet-to-be-named team in Baltimore will be added for the 2014 season. Atlanta would be the league's southernmost city, but possible expansion is being discussed with a group in North Carolina and two different groups in South Carolina. An indoor team called the Baltimore Mariners played three seasons (2008-10) in the American Indoor Football Association, which was a predecessor to the current AIF. The Baltimore Mariners took over for the Baltimore Blackbirds team from the 2007 AIFA after that team was kicked out of the league.

Professional Indoor Football League: The PIFL is negotiating with two different ownership groups about placing a franchise in Nashville for the 2014 season. The league had been trying to get a group from Baltimore to join for 2014. The PIFL had seven teams in its 2013 season.

X-League Indoor Football: It looks as though the proposed new Xtreme Indoor Football League (XIFL) has been reorganized as the X-League that will start play in March 2014. The three teams previously affiliated with the XIFL are now listed as X-League members. These include the Georgia Rampage (Dalton), St. Louis Attack and Florida Marine Raiders (Lakeland). A fourth team based in Pennsylvania was also mentioned as an X-League member. The X-League developed some different rules for scoring and other aspects of the game. The league has also established an international partnership with a Brazilian league that will be called the X-League Indoor Football Brazil.

HOCKEY

North American 3 Hockey League: The new Topeka-based team in the Tier-III junior-level NA3HL will be called the Topeka Capitals when it starts play in the new four-team South Division for the 2013-14 season. The team is owned by the Topeka RoadRunners of the Tier-II junior-level North American Hockey League, which controls the NA3HL. When the South Division teams were first announced, the NA3HL Topeka team was also called the Topeka RoadRunners.

Major League Roller Hockey: The MLRH is starting to hold tryouts for some of the new teams that will be part of the 2013-14 season. Some of these teams include the Empire State Beavers, New York Wolves, Long Island Rockers, Texas Roadkill (Arlington) and DC FiliBusters (Washington, DC).

SOCCER

Professional Arena Soccer League: The PASL (PASL-Pro) announced the Saltillo Rancho Seco team, which has played the past three seasons in Mexico's indoor soccer league called the Liga Mexicana de Futbol Rapido (LMFR), will be part of the PASL-Pro season in 2013-14. With the Monterrey Flash and Toros Mexico (Tijuana), the league now has three Mexican teams. Last week, the league announced the addition of the Monterrey Flash, which also has been part of the LMFR for the past three seasons. The Toros Mexico team has been part of the PASL-Pro for the past three seasons and was called the Revolucion Tijuana for its first two seasons. Saltillo is about 55 miles southwest of Monterrey in the state of Coahuila.

Major League Soccer: The mayor of San Antonio announced the city will support the San Antonio Scorpions team, which started play as a member of the Division II North American Soccer League in 2012, in its pursuit of membership in the MLS. The Scorpions' new 8,000-seat stadium could be expanded to seat 18,000 for an MLS team.

Evergreen Premier League: The proposed new EPL, which is an elite-level adult men's soccer league with teams based in the state of Washington, has announced its eighth team will be the Vancouver Venom FC. The league has decided to start with eight teams for the inaugural 2014 season. Since the EPL will rely on college players, teams will play a 14-game schedule running from May to July. There has been some discussion about possibly developing an EPL second division in the future.

National Premier Soccer League: In addition to the recent announcement that the Cincinnati Saints will have an outdoor team in the 2014 NPSL along with an indoor team in the 2013-14 Professional Arena Soccer League, the NPSL announced the Williamsburg-based Virginia Legacy and the Flower Mound FC from the Dallas-Fort Worth area will be part of the 2014 season.

OTHER

National Lacrosse League: The nine-team NLL announced its 2014 schedule that will run from December 28, 2013 to April 26, 2014. The league underwent two changes after the 2013 season. The Everett-based Washington Stealth franchise moved to Langley (British Columbia) as the Vancouver Stealth and the Minnesota Swarm was switched from the Western Division to the Eastern Division. The five-team Eastern Division will have the Buffalo Bandits, Minnesota Swarm, Philadelphia Wings, Rochester Knighthawks and Toronto Rock. The four-team Western Division will include the Calgary Roughnecks, Colorado Mammoth (Denver), Edmonton Rush and Vancouver Stealth.

Dan Krieger is the creator of the "The Leagueology Almanac 2012-13", which tracks the changes in league alignments, franchise movements and team nicknames in today's sports world. The publication is currently available at www.amazon.com.

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