Heading East: Realignment puts Wild Things in Atlantic Conference
The 2027 season will bring plenty of newness for the Washington Wild Things.
Not only is the league the Wild Things play in changing names, but the club is switching conferences too.
On the same day that the rebrand to the National Association of Professional Baseball from the Frontier League officially launched, the league released its 2027 schedule and the Washington Wild Things will be going east a lot more next season.
That’s because the Wild Things are now in the Atlantic Conference as part of a realignment of the league.
With two new teams -the Kane County Cougars and the Cleburne Railroaders – joining the league next season and being placed in the Midwest Conference, one team had to switch conferences to balance the two out and it was the Wild Things.
Washington will begin its 25th season as a franchise in North Carolina with a three-game series at Down East, with Opening Day on Friday May 7. The home opener for Washington is the following Friday, May 14, against the New York Boulders.
The Wild Things are in the Atlantic Conference’s East Division with Down East, New Jersey, New York and Sussex County. The team closest to Washington, Lake Erie, is in the Midwest Conference, but the two teams will still play 12 times.
Other crossover games for Washington include, six against Florence, three at home against Kane County and three at Evansville.
The Wild Things will not make any trips to the Chicagoland Metro this season to play Schaumburg, Joliet or Windy City.
Washington has nine home games in May, including six in a row against Quebec on May 25-30.
The month with the most home games for the Wild Things is June. They’ll have 17 games at EQT Park, including a nine-game homestand from June 4-13 with three games against Lake Erie and six versus Trois-Rivieres.
There’s another nine-game homestand at the end of the month that bleeds into July featuring three games each against Tri-City, Down East and Lake Erie.
There’s only nine home games in July, but it is the month that features the All-Star break.
The Wild Things host 2026 league champion Ottawa August 6-8 as part of a 16-game home slate in the month. The final home series is against Kane County, August 27-29 before a six-game road trip at Trois-Rivieres and Sussex County to close the regular season.
Rebrand is official
It was announced in April of 2026 that the Frontier League would change its name to the National Association of Professional Baseball.
The name change became official Thursday with posts on social media sites.
The rebranding process began in the fall of 2024 when Frontier League’s Board of Directors formed a Strategic Planning Committee to evaluate their current position and future opportunities in the professional baseball structure.
“With the tremendous growth over the past five years, highlighted by our expansion into Canada along with the Northeast and Southeast in the United States, our Board felt that it was the appropriate time for a detailed study of both our current role and future opportunities,” league commissioner Steve Tahsler said. “Working with an outside facilitator, the Strategic Planning Committee determined that we had outgrown the Frontier League brand, and that the National Association of Professional Baseball better identified our current structure and future goals.”