Lights Out New England is Now Lights Out Boston AC

More changes are afoot in New England regarding SFC Angling Clubs. Less than a month ago, the league announced the formation of the Rhode Island Breakers at the Newport International Boat Show. The new club, headed by owner Paul Squarcia of One Charles Private Wealth Services, and the fishing team on his boat “El Bendido, a custom 66’ Blackwell are on the scene and treating the off-season seriously after being laid up for an 18-month refit. 

As part of that news, a current angling club that will be competing in the Zane Grey Championship Playoffs in less than a month from now is making a slight name change. Fans may have noticed the difference already on their social channels, but Lights Out New England is now Lights Out Boston Angling Club. 

“Going back to Boston made sense to subdivide New England,” said Lights Out Boston operator and angler Rob Carmichael. “We already have the best made in Rhode Island on the boat in Kyle Paparelli, so as long as we can keep him on our deck, we’re happy.”

Kyle Paparelli being one of the two additions to Lights Out’s roster in 2025, the other being Captain Tyler Dufresne. Both Dufresne and Paparelli were together on a separate boat, and now have won the release division of the Oak Bluffs Bluewater Classic for three years in a row. 

The region has certainly gotten more crowded with the addition of the Rhode Island Breakers, with Newport only 60 miles away from Carmichael’s home in Pocasset, Massachusetts. The cross-town rivalry adds another foe for the Atlantic Division Champions, who have developed a friendly, yet competitive rivalry with the division runner-up New Jersey Sea Birds.

The rivalry between the two clubs from the 2025 season continues in Cabo San Lucas, which marks the official debut for the new Lights Out Boston look. Debuting a new brand and look in the postseason is something almost unprecedented in modern professional sports. Knowing the only other team to do so is a great trivia answer. 

Before revealing the answer, here are some of the more notable name changes in other sports leagues for comparison.

League One Volleyball (LOVB)
2025: The new professional indoor volleyball league which also aired this past season on ESPN  recently had one of its clubs rebranded from LOVB (pronounced “Love”) Omaha, to LOVB Nebraska. The rebrand was spearheaded by the club’s new ownership group, which includes Nebraska volleyball icon and 4x Olympic Medalist Jordan Larson. Nebraska is a hotbed for women’s volleyball through its grass-roots club programs and its five-time NCAA national champion University of Nebraska Cornhuskers. It was the Huskers that sold out their football stadium for a match in 2023, drawing 92,003 fans and setting a new world record for the highest-attended women’s sports event in history. 

NFL
1996: Art Modell moved the Cleveland Browns to Baltimore, where the professional football team was renamed the Baltimore Ravens. Modell agreed to leave the Browns’ name, colors and history for a future team to use. The Ravens name came from a fan vote in partnership with The Baltimore Sun. The name honors writer Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), a famous Baltimore resident and his famous poem “The Raven.” Fortunately for Cleveland, the Browns avoided being quoted by the raven as “nevermore,” and were awarded a new expansion team in 1999. 

1999: Along with the expansion Browns came another name, with the Tennessee Oilers being renamed as the Tennessee Titans. The Oilers were based in Houston from 1960-1996 before moving to Nashville, which is known more for country music (and now bachelorette parties and hot chicken) than for oil. The Titans reached the Super Bowl in their first season under the new name, falling to the “Greatest Show on Turf” St. Louis Rams. That playoff run also produced “The Music City Miracle” when the Titans defeated the Buffalo Bills in the AFC Wild Card round. 

The Rams by the way moved back to Los Angeles in 2016. They played in St. Louis for 21 seasons from 1995-2015. 

2020: The Washington Redskins announced that they would drop the Redskins’ name and logo only a few months prior to the start of the pandemic-affected season. The organization competed as The Washington Football Team for two seasons, until rebranding to The Washington Commanders in 2022. 

NHL
2024: Similarly to the Ravens and Browns from 1996, the Arizona (formerly Phoenix) Coyotes moved to Utah as a new expansion team, with the Coyotes name and branding declared inactive by the NHL. The Utah Mammoth will make their debut for the 2025-2026 season after competing last season as Utah Hockey Club. 

MLB
2021: The Cleveland Indians name was retired and replaced with the Cleveland Guardians. The baseball club’s history goes all the way back to the late 1800s, first as the Columbus Buckeyes and the Columbus Senators (1896-1899) and then moving to Michigan as The Grand Rapids Prodigals (1899). 

They moved to Cleveland in 1900 and had several names in 15 years, including The Lakeshores, Bluebirds, Broncos, Naps and then the Indians from 1915-2021. As the late Bob Uecker called them in the “Major League” movies, “The Fighting Braves of the Cuyahoga,” rebranded as the Cleveland Guardians beginning in the 2022 season. 

Now for the trivia answer: The only professional sports team to rebrand mid-season comes from…

NBA
2005: The New Orleans Hornets, which moved from Charlotte a few years earlier, was forced to relocate after Hurricane Katrina devastated The Crescent City. For the rest of the 2005 season, and the next season after that, the team played in Oklahoma City, being renamed the New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets for that period. 

The Hornets moved back to New Orleans beginning with the 2007-2008 season, and eventually rebranded as the New Orleans Pelicans in 2013. It took a natural disaster for a team to rebrand mid-season. 

2008: For the two seasons that Oklahoma City played refuge to the Hornets, the city fell in love with having a professional basketball team. In 2008, The Seattle SuperSonics moved to OKC and rebranded as the Oklahoma City Thunder. The SuperSonics remain a dormant team, with the Thunder set to release all ownership of the brand back to Seattle whenever an expansion team is awarded to their old home city. In the meantime, the Thunder recently won its first NBA championship since the rebrand. The ‘Sonics won one NBA title back in 1979. 

2014: Speaking of the Hornets, a new NBA team took their place in Charlotte in 2004, first competing as the Charlotte Bobcats. When the Hornets in New Orleans rebranded to the Pelicans in 2013, the Bobcats applied to revive the Charlotte Hornets name the very next season. 

Confused? It’s fine, that was the last one. We’re back to talking about fishing again.

Will Lights Out Boston become the first professional sports team to win a championship after rebranding mid-season?

We shall find out soon enough.