With the NFL Draft beginning Thursday, ending the lack of true action from professional sports, here’s a few more items going on with a local hook …
There is still no information on when Orlando City B, the minor-league affiliate of Orlando City Soccer, now calling Osceola Heritage Park home for its training center, will begin its USL League One season. Its home opener was scheduled for April 11 at Osceola County Stadium. Various league teams have said they wouldn’t play any earlier than May 23. No word yet from Orlando City …
This weekend would have been marked Game 1 of the Orlando Magic’s opening playoff series, either against Toronto (ugh) or Milwaukee (the 53-12 Bucks, double ugh) …
The PGA Tour, which last played on March 8 at Bay Hill in Orlando, has announced that its pros will return to play at the Charles Schwab Invitational in Fort Worth, Texas. The first four tournaments of the startup in Fort Worth, Hilton Head, S.C., Cromwell, Connecticut and Detroit will play, if the go-ahead is given from local health officials, without galleries in attendance.
Ad the XFL, which postponed its football season midway through the schedule on March 12, then canceled it last week without talk of returning in 2021, was considering moving the Tampa Bay Vipers team to Orlando in 2021.
According to XFL News Hub, before the league canceled its season on April 10, Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack met with owner Vince McMahon, and “league offices had reason to believe it was about 2021 planning. Pollack was briefed on venue agreements, and the possibility of relocating the Tampa Bay Vipers to Orlando.”
Last year, the Orlando Apollos were far and away the best team in the Alliance of American Football when the AAF folded nine weeks into a 12-week season due to financial issues. XFL Commissioner Oliver Luck had previously stated the XFL stayed away from AAF markets because, at the time, their league was still playing. Since the AAF was no longer competition, those markets were up for grabs.
So when it comes to professional football, Central Florida remains hexed …
