By TERRY LYONS, Editor of Digital Sports Desk
NEW YORK – The naysayers are awaiting their failures. But, WWYI comes – not as a naysayer – but a realist … a teller of truths.
Entrepreneurial spirit, private equity, an abundance of time slots for programming on a growing number of global sports channels, and an endless amount of time and space for sports on digital-only, online sports sites, complete with your favorite mobile apps has created a monster for sports fans.
That monster is too many pro sports leagues.
How many is too many? Let us count the way.
But, first let’s pay a little tribute to a few upstart leagues that paved the vacant roads long ago. They come in all shapes and sizes for both men and women. Here are a few that deserve ultimate high fives:
- Women’s Tennis – the WTA
- Men’s Tennis Tour – the ATP
- Women’s Golf – the LPGA
- Minor League and affiliated baseball leagues (Cape Baseball)
- The WNBA
- The Premier Lacrosse League – Men’s lacrosse, aka the PLL
- The NBA Summer League
- Of course, the PGA Tour, NASCAR and F-1 are rock solid pro circuits
- National Women’s Soccer League – the NWSL
- Professional Women’s Hockey League – the PWHL
- Pro Bull Riders – PBR (solid since ‘92 founding on The Nashville Network, Outdoor Sports Net = Versus but challenges ahead)
Spring (American-style) Football is in a category of its own. The UFL – with big time backers – seems to be finding a place on the sports landscape, after a few more failed attempts came up dry. The CFL (Canadian Football League) was founded in 1958 (66 years ago) and has stood the test of time. Former basketball execs turned CFL Commissioners Mark Cohon (2007-2014) and Jeffrey Orridge (2015-2017) each lent a hand in trying to build on the foundation but to no great lengths of change. The most recent Commissioner, Randy Ambrosie, announced his resignation on October 26, 2024, and it took effect following Toronto’s 41-24 victory over Lose-a-peg in the 111th Grey Cup. Ambrosie reportedly lost a vote of confidence among the league’s owners. They are currently seeking a new league commish to guide the grey lady.
Now we get into the nitty gritty and to prove open-mindedness, the top of this list will include a few fledgling professional sports leagues that have a chance – or at least have a chance in the mind of WWYI.
- Women’s Flag Football (NFL backed)
- Pro Volleyball – (Real volleyball, not the Beach version but four women’s leagues will need to be condensed to one and the under-leveraged men’s circuit has value
- The Snow League – (WWYI is not making it up) – see: SNOW
- Pro Fight League – (the UFC owns the space, but there’s room here for growth)
- Pro Women’s Lacrosse – (PLL Backed)
- Canada’s Summer Pro Basketball League
- Major League Rugby
- Major League Cricket
- Athletes Unlimited (Offerings in Volleyball, Lacrosse and Softball)
- American Cornhole League (niche city but success on the rise)
- The Pro eSports Leagues (i.e. The NBA 2K League) – Can they make it?
Now, from the sublime to the sometimes ridiculous, and new leagues that have little chance of surviving for the long haul.
- Pro Dodge Ball
- Pro Kickball
- Pro Pop-a-Shot
- Pro Table Tennis
- Pro Pickleball (a great grassroots play, but not sure it can be a media property)
- USL – W League (while men’s version is doing well, is there room for more women’s pro soccer teams and a league in USA?)
- Roller Derby – (sorry to you Bay Area Bombers fans)
- Pro Ultimate Frisbee (fun, but a hobby – not a pro sport)
- Pro Ax Throwing
- World Chase Tag – (Pro “Tag, You’re It” – Who knew?)
Let’s not forget Arena Football. The sport had its heyday, but is now being repackaged and re-launched. Currently, the headline on the homepage for Arena Football states, “2025 Season Announcements Coming Soon,” and there’s only 32 days until 2025. There’s a caution flag on the field for Indoor American Football.
And, how about men’s professional golf? LIV Golf had a rough start, has been relegrated to off hours on the CW Network but recent sports biz rumors have former NBA, former 76ers/NJ Devils/Prudential Center, former Merlin Entertainment CEO Scott O’Neill being named as LIV golf’s new CEO (The Athletic, Sports Business Journal and New York Times have all reported it as a done deal).
LIV Golf has a very non-North American friendly schedule for 2025, and its end game of a possible merge with the PGA Tour remains elusive, but good things might be ahead for a complement to the PGA Tour and DP World Tour. The LIV and DP world Tour are very likely to merge by 2026. Other changes can be expected with O’Neill at the helm.
Starting January 7, we’ll have TGL Golf. Six TGL teams representing six different cities will go head-to-head in a season-long competition at SoFi Center, a first-of-its-kind venue built specifically for TGL on the campus of Palm Beach State College. Matches will air on ESPN and ESPN+ in the United States. The concept calls for a hybrid of simulated golf which switches to live play around the holes. TGL has solid backing and great time slots on ESPN/ESPN2.
The overall future of indoor, simulated golf is good (think batting ranges, or the experience of bowling with buddies). Former NBC Sports PR colleague Mike McCarley is in charge of the TGL brand, via the TMRW investment vehicle set forth by Tiger Woods, and Rory McIlroy in partnership with the PGA Tour.
BACK TO BASKETBALL: There are a few others Pro ventures to be listed, but for the sake of brevity, let’s draw the line and delve deeper into women’s pro basketball, especially “Unrivaled,” the new women’s 3×3 league.
First, please remember this commentary is coming from a Title IX era sportsman, who as a youngster, witnessed and supported the growth of women’s participation in sports at all levels. Aside from the traditional women’s sports, such as field hockey, softball, gymnastics, swimming, track and field, at Trinity, there were championship-level teams playing women’s basketball, lacrosse, tennis, soccer and golf.
But as the mid-1970s evolved to the mid-2020s, there’s certainly a glut of professional basketball leagues dotting the landscape – some competing against women’s college basketball.
As background, there are two women’s professional basketball ventures launching in 2025. Since 1997, when the WNBA established an everlasting women’s pro basketball league competing mostly in the summer months, there are two additional leagues – Athletes Unlimited (in traditional 5×5 style) and Unrivaled Basketball (3×3 competition).
There will be six teams of six players each in the 3×3 Unrivaled. The team names are the Laces Basketball Club, Lunar Owls Basketball Club, Mist Basketball Club, Phantom Basketball Club, Rose Basketball Club and Vinyl Basketball Club.
Unrivaled gives credit to co-founders Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier – both WNBA players – for the foundation of the league, along with Unrivaled president Alex Bazzell. They named former WTA tennis executive Micky Lawler as the league’s first commissioner.
Unrivaled was met with a blue chip list of investors including, former Warner Bros CEO Ann Sarnoff, and athletes like NBA All-Star Carmelo Anthony and Steve Nash who invested through the venture capital firm led by U.S women’s national soccer team captain Alex Morgan.
Unrivaled’s next step was luring former head of ESPN and DAZN John Skipper and former Turner Sports president David Levy. They joined forces with leadership and landed a TV deal with Levy’s former employer for games to be broadcast by TNT and Tru TV starting January 17, 2025.
Meanwhile, the established but still trying to establish an audience Athletes Unlimited Pro Basketball is utilizing traditional 5×5 rules but competing directly against the NBA, men’s and women’s college basketball. In its fifth season of Athletes Unlimited Pro Basketball, the entity is attempting to find its footing as a minor league offering in a crowded space. It will have a short run from February 5 to March 2, 2025, at the Nashville Municipal Auditorium.
There’s surely a chance the new basketball leagues will work out, but these leagues are splitting an audience with Women’s College Basketball which has made great strides in recent years, much to the credit of Caitlin Clark. But, please remember, there’s a long history of successful and entertaining women’s college basketball teams and players, dating back to clubs like the 1980 Old Dominion squad with Anne Donovan. Add: Great teams from Tennessee under the guidance of Pat Summitt, USC with Cheryl Miller, the 1974 Immaculata team with Maryanne Stanley, the great Carol Blazejowski and the Montclair State (NJ) team of the mid-1970s, a slew of great – let’s call them historic – teams from Delta State, Louisiana Tech, Notre Dame, Baylor, South Carolina, Stanford, Texas Tech, Rutgers, Maryland, Oregon, UCLA and Texas.
Now, toss in the decades of great (championship) teams from UConn – from Rebecca Lobo to Sue Bird to Diana Taurasi to Breanna Stewart and you’ve got Hall of Famer coach Geno Auriemma’s resume.
One of the WNBA’s tent pole establishing decisions was to go for the summer months rather than compete head-to-head with women’s college basketball.
So it’s a “Battle for Nielsen Ratings” – Pro Women’s 3×3 vs. College hoops?
All the leagues mentioned in all the sports claim “percent emergence.” They all promise they’re the “fastest growing sport,” a claim the sport of lacrosse has made since WWYI was While Yet to be Born Ideas.
At some point, it’s just too much. There’s a glut of emerging sports ventures and something has got to give. Overall, the make it or break it on sports franchises involves three simple factors. They are:
- Market
- Money
- Media
You can weigh all the factors, the sports and make up your own mind on the future of emerging pro sports leagues.
HERE NOW, THE NOTES: The Top 10 of the FIBA Men’s World Basketball Rankings remains unchanged from its summertime posting. USA Basketball solidified its No. 1 place with the Gold Medal at the Paris Olympics Games. As a reminder, here are the national teams in order of their rank, along with some formidable challengers:
- USA
- Serbia
- Germany
- France
- Canada
- Spain
- Australia
- Argentina
- Latvia
- Lithuania
Challengers include: Brazil, Slovenia, Greece, Italy and Puerto Rico
TIDBITS: BIG EAST teams were (55-20, .733) going into the weekend games. UConn was down as (4-3) with four wins coming at home but three losses coming from its trip to the Maui Classic. … Thursday marked the 14th straight NBA season without a game scheduled for Thanksgiving Day.
As the NFL bounds through it Thanksgiving Day weekend schedule which always marks the home stretch of the regular season, games are averaging a healthy 17.5m viewers per game, the largest average audience per game through 12 weeks since 2015. That does not compute NFL International Series Games and the use of the NFL RedZone channel by many as their go-to way to watch the Sunday games. … Forty-seven of the Top 50 TV shows since September are NFL broadcasts, according to NFL Media. If you look back to 2023, the NFL season and playoffs captured 93 of the Top 100 audiences of the year.
The others?
- College Football accounts for three
- State of the Union
- MACYs Thanksgiving Day Parade
- The Academy Awards
- The Super Bowl
In college football news reported by ESPN Saturday morning, former No. 1 overall NFL pick Andrew Luck is now following his dad (Oliver) into a new college sports management role. ESPN reported that the 35-year-old former Stanford Cardinal QB is returning to his alma mater to be the General Manager of the men’s football team, a role that will “place him in charge” of the entire program.