Long Beach, part of an expanded Oakland Ballers ownership team now called Innovation Baseball Partners, is running a name-the-team contest and outlets in southern California have reported news about the team’s growing ownership group.

The league has not announced anything regarding the addition of Long Beach.

An email sent Thursday to the Standard-Examiner from EKA, a public relations firm, on behalf of the Long Beach Baseball Club operation touted that nearly 1,000 submissions had been sent for the naming contest and that the deadline for submissions is being extended to Sept. 26.

But later in the email, EKA noted that LBBC’s efforts to bring a team to southern California and revamp Blair Field at Long Beach State University into a professional ballpark “coincides with another major milestone in California.”

That milestone, it says, is that the Modesto City Council has “approved a deal to bring a Pioneer League affiliate team to John Thurman Field.” Thurman Field is the 1955-built former home of the Modesto Nuts, a single-A minor league franchise that is moving to San Bernardino for the 2026 season.

The Pioneer League has also not announced anything regarding a team in Modesto.

“With franchises now in Oakland, Yuba-Sutter, Long Beach, and Modesto, the Pioneer Baseball League is rapidly building a strong California presence, creating a hub that connects communities, expands opportunities for players, and deepens the league’s reach across the West Coast,” the email from EKA reads.

It continues a series of changes the 86-year-old league has undergone since being forced into independence in 2021. The league accepted the Boise Hawks, outcasts from the Northwest League, in 2021 and an expansion club in Kalispell, Montana (the Glacier Range Riders), joined the league in 2022.

The Oakland Ballers and the Yolo High Wheelers (in Davis, since moved to Marysville as Yuba-Sutter) joined the league in 2024, giving the PBL a historic high of 12 teams.

The former Orem Owlz, who once attempted a move to Pueblo, Colorado, rejoined the action in 2022 in Greeley, Colorado, as the Northern Colorado Owlz. But a beleaguered ownership group beset with lawsuits and a largely unbuilt stadium and sports complex in Windsor, Colorado, led the club to withdraw from the league one month into the 2025 season. In order to complete the competitive schedule for the season, the league took control of the team and played out the 2025 Owlz schedule as the Sky Sox in Colorado Springs.

It’s currently unclear if or when the Owlz/Sky Sox will continue operations under new ownership or in a new city.

Ogden Raptors team president Dave Baggott told the Standard-Examiner the Owlz situation was indicative of construction struggles and not a measure of the league’s health, saying the PBL’s openness to expand to broader horizons continues.

In 2022, Baggott announced he and the Raptors’ ownership group were advancing plans to add a Pioneer League team in Providence, Utah. A letter of intent included a plan for a $10-12 million stadium in the Cache County locale.

Friday, Baggott said he and his group are still interested in Cache County, or anywhere close in Utah, that could add strength to the Pioneer League’s operations.

“We still have interest in Cache County. It’s ripe for this, the growth there is great,” Baggott said. “But we haven’t had any updates from those contacts in Providence about moving forward in the immediate future.”