Weekly Sports League and Franchise Report
by Dan Krieger
January 2, 2023 – NBA G League (G League)
BASEBALL
Liga Mexicana de Beisbol: Mexico’s top-level LMB, or Mexican Baseball League, lately introduced its 2023 season schedule that may characteristic the identical 18 groups as final season and once more aligned in a nine-team Zona Sur (South Division) and a nine-team Zona Norte (North Division). The 2023 season will run from April 20 via August 6, 2023 with every workforce taking part in a 90-game schedule.
BASKETBALL
Nationwide Basketball Affiliation Gatorade League (G-League): The NBA G-League accomplished the Showcase Cup portion of the 2022-23 season final week with a single-elimination match in Las Vegas. The league’s 30 groups have been aligned eight-team East and Central teams and seven-team South and West teams with every workforce taking part in 16 video games from November 4 to December 17. The highest eight groups then moved on to the Showcase Cup match. The G-League then began the common portion of its 2022-23 season this week with 30 groups aligned in 15-team Jap and Western conferences and every workforce taking part in a 32-game schedule. The 30 groups embody the 28 groups working below particular person affiliations with 28 of the 30 NBA groups, plus the league’s developmental G-League Ignite workforce (primarily based within the Las Vegas space) and the unaffiliated Mexico Metropolis Capitanes workforce. Solely the NBA’s Portland Path Blazers and Phoenix Suns wouldn’t have affiliated groups within the G-League. There was one low season title change because the Aqua Caliente Clippers of Ontario (CA) have been renamed the Ontario Clippers for the 2022-23 season.
The Basketball League: The minor skilled TBL lately added a brand new workforce known as the West Virginia Grind (Charleston) to its Midwest Convention for the upcoming 2023 season.
FOOTBALL
Elite Indoor Soccer: The semi-pro EIF lately introduced a number of groups have been added for the 2023 season: the Knoxville (TN) Knightmare, Kentuckian Kurse (Louisville), South Florida Raptors (Broward County), House Coast Tarheels (Titusville, FL), Illinois Ragin Bulls (Chicago) and the Philadelphia Nighthawks workforce, which is to be a part of a proposed new Northeast Division.
Indoor Soccer League: A former IFL workforce known as the Cedar Rapids River Kings (Iowa) has come below new possession and plans to return in 2024, however there was no point out wherein league the workforce will play. The River Kings began within the IFL because the Cedar Rapids Titans for the 2012 season and altered to the River Kings for the 2019 season. The River Kings performed one of many league’s two video games within the 2020 season, which was shut down as a result of coronavirus (COVID-19). The workforce went dormant for the 2021 after which was now not listed as an IFL workforce.
HOCKEY
Junior Ladies’s Hockey League: The developmental JWHL’s high Beneath-19 Division is presently taking part in its 2022-23 season with seven groups, three of that are primarily based in the USA (New York, Massachusetts and Washington, DC) and 4 primarily based in Canada (British Columbia, Quebec, Manitoba and Prince Edward Island). The season consists of all groups taking part in 5 regional weekend occasions. 4 of the U-19 groups additionally function groups in an Beneath-16 Division for the 2022-23 season.
Saskatchewan Junior Ladies’s Hockey League: Hockey Saskatchewan introduced plans to begin a Saskatchewan-based girls’s Beneath-22 junior hockey league for the 2023-24 season.
SOCCER
Nationwide Impartial Soccer Affiliation – NISA Nation League: The NISA Nation, which is the novice league to the Division-III skilled NISA, introduced its Southwest Division may develop to 12 groups for the spring 2023 season. The Southwest Division completed the 2022 season with six groups and can add the AS Los Angeles, Olympiacos CA (Huntington Seashore, CA) and SC Union Maricopa (Gilbert, AZ) with extra groups nonetheless to be introduced. Along with a six-team Southwest Division, the 2022 NISA Nation league featured a seven-team West Division, an eight-team East Division and an eight-team Central Division.
USL W-League (United Soccer League): The ladies’s pre-professional USL W-League introduced the Palm Metropolis (FL) Americanas will probably be added as a 2023 enlargement workforce.
OTHER
American Rugby Premiership: The Houston SaberCats, NOLA Gold (New Orleans) and Rugy ATL of the skilled Main League Rugby (MLR) added developmental academy groups to the ARP, which grew to eight groups for the 2022 season performed in September and October. The returning Mystic River Rugby (Malden, MA), New York Athletic Membership (Pelham), Outdated Blue of New York and White Plains (NY) RC Wombats have been positioned in a brand new four-team ARP North, whereas the returning Life College Operating Eagles (Marietta, GA) have been moved to a brand new ARP South with the MLR-affiliated Rugby HTX, NOLA Gold Academy and Rugby ATL Academy groups.
Premier Rugby Sevens: North America’s high tier males’s and girls’s rugby sevens competitors often known as the PR7s will broaden from 4 to eight groups aligned in Western and Jap conferences for 2023 with groups now representing a particular area or metropolis. The 2022 season featured 4 rugby golf equipment (Loonies, Headliners, Loggerheads and Specialists) every with a seven-player males’s workforce and a seven-player girls’s workforce taking part in a schedule of tournament-style occasions. The renamed Northern Loonies, Southern Headliners, SoCal Loggerheads and Rocky Mountain Specialists will be part of new groups known as the New York Locals, Texas Workforce and yet-to-be named Northern California and Western Pennsylvania groups.
Skilled Field Lacrosse Affiliation: The brand new minor skilled indoor PBLA began its inaugural 2022-23 season this week with 9 new groups known as the Binghamton (NY) Bombers, Charlotte Bootleggers, Elmira (NY) Renegades, Hampton (VA) Hammerheads, New England Chowderheads (Portland, ME & Lowell, MA), Salem (VA) Mayhem, Syracuse Spark, Trenton Terror and the Jim Thorpe (PA) All-People travel-only workforce. Every workforce will play a 14-game schedule via April 15, 2023. The PBLA commissioner said six cities are occupied with becoming a member of and the league plans so as to add at the least two new groups for subsequent season.
Ladies’s Professional Fastpitch: The WPF lately introduced the addition of a yet-to-be-named fourth workforce to be primarily based in Dallas for the 2023 season. The WPF accomplished its inaugural exhibition season with two groups known as the USSSA (United States Specialty Sports activities Affiliation) Satisfaction (Viera, FL) and the SIS (Smash It Sports activities) Vipers (Rochester, NY). In July, the WPF additionally added the Oklahoma Metropolis Spark for the 2023 season. A workforce known as the Dallas Cost performed two seasons (2015-16) within the former Nationwide Professional Fastpitch (NPF). The USSSA Satisfaction was additionally a member of the NPF till that league folded in 2021.
Dan Krieger is the creator of the Weekly Sports activities League & Franchise Report, which has been monitoring modifications within the sports activities world’s leagues, groups and nicknames since April 2007.
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