Major professional sports leagues of the United States and Canada
Encyclopedia
The major professional sports leagues, or simply major leagues, in the United States
and Canada
are the highest professional competitions in team sport
s. Although individual sports such as golf
, tennis
, and auto racing
are also very popular, the term is usually limited to team sports.
The term "major league" was first used in 1921 in reference to Major League Baseball
(MLB), the top level of professional American baseball
. Today, the major Northern American professional team sports leagues are the MLB, the National Basketball Association
(NBA), the National Football League
(NFL), the National Hockey League
(NHL), and Major League Soccer
(MLS).
The first four leagues are also commonly referred to as the Big Four. Each of these is the richest professional club competition in its sport worldwide. The best players can become cultural icon
s in both countries and elsewhere in the world, because the leagues enjoy a significant place in popular culture
in the U.S.
and Canada
. All four of these leagues are more than sixty years old; the youngest, the NBA, was founded in 1946. The NFL has 32 teams, and the others have 30 each. The vast majority of major league teams are concentrated in the most populous metropolitan areas of the United States and Canada.
MLS is the youngest of the major leagues, founded in 1993 and began play in 1996 as a result of America's hosting of the 1994 FIFA World Cup
. As the youngest league it does not yet have the cultural footprint of the other four leagues, but it has a very strong following amongst American youth as well as Hispanic immigrants and in 2011 surpassed the NBA and NHL in average attendance. With only 19 teams to play in the 2012 season, it is the smallest of the five leagues as well.
Every major league averages 15,000 fans in attendance per game
or higher as of 2011.
is the highest level of play of baseball
in North America. It consists of the National League
(founded in 1876) and the American League
(founded in 1901). Cooperation between the two leagues began in 1903, and the two are effectively merged on an organizational level; they have shared a single Commissioner since 1920. There are currently 30 member teams, with 29 located in the U.S. and 1 in Canada.
Traditionally called the "National Pastime", baseball was the first professional sport in the U.S.
is the premier basketball
league. It was founded as the Basketball Association of America in 1946, and adopted its current name in 1949, when the BAA partially absorbed the rival National Basketball League
. Four teams from the rival American Basketball Association
joined the NBA with the ABA–NBA merger in 1976. It currently has 30 teams, 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada.
Considered the premier basketball league in the world, the NBA is watched by audiences both domestically and internationally. It has become known in recent decades for promoting a series of individual superstar
players such as Julius Erving
, Larry Bird
, Magic Johnson
, Michael Jordan
, Shaquille O'Neal
, Kobe Bryant
, Dwyane Wade
, and LeBron James
who have become international marketing icons.
was founded in 1920 as a combination of various teams from regional leagues such as the Ohio League
, the New York Pro Football League
and the Chicago circuit. The NFL partially absorbed the All-America Football Conference
in 1949 and merged
with the American Football League
in 1970. It has 32 teams, all located in the United States.
NFL games are the most attended of domestic professional leagues in the world, in terms of per-game attendance (although the maximum number of games played at any given NFL stadium per season is only 11) and the most popular in the U.S. in terms of television ratings and merchandising. Its championship game, the Super Bowl
, is the most watched annual event on U.S. television, with Super Bowl XLV
being the single most-watched program in U.S. television history.
The NFL is the only one of the major leagues to not include any teams from Canada. Canada does have its own professional league, the Canadian Football League
, which plays by somewhat different rules from the NFL. American football
is the only major team sport where there is no professional international competition (although there are a few professional players from outside the United States).
was founded in 1917 as a breakaway league from the Canadian National Hockey Association
(founded 1909), taking all but one of the NHA's teams. The NHL partially absorbed the rival World Hockey Association
in 1979. There are 30 teams, with 23 in the U.S. and 7 in Canada.
The most popular sports league in Canada, and widely followed across the northern U.S., the NHL has expanded southward in recent years to attempt to gain a more national following in the United States, in cities such as Dallas
, Miami
, Nashville
, Phoenix
, Raleigh
, and Tampa
, with varying success.
(MLS) is the top-level men's professional soccer league in the United States and Canada. MLS has 18 teams in the 2011 season
, with 16 across the United States and 2 in Canada. The league began play in 1996, its creation having been a requirement for hosting the 1994 World Cup
in the United States. MLS will expand to 19 clubs in 2012 when the Montreal Impact replace the current second division team
of the same name. MLS hopes to add a 20th team by 2012 or shortly thereafter.
Unlike many previous professional soccer leagues in the United States (such as the North American Soccer League
), MLS was originally designed to maintain parity between clubs and rely on mostly American talent. Many notable international players have played with MLS teams, including: Hugo Sánchez
, Jorge Campos, Carlos Valderrama, Lothar Matthäus
, Hristo Stoichkov
, Cuauhtémoc Blanco
, Carl Robinson
, David Beckham
, Freddie Ljungberg
, Thierry Henry
, Rafael Marquez
, and most recently, Robbie Keane
.
In 2011, MLS reported an average attendance of 17,872 per game, becoming the third most-highly attended professional sports league in America. This was a substantial increase from the previous season. Statistical analysis of the 2010 US Census, based largely on demographic trends among Hispanic
populations, in addition to a new multimillion dollar television deal with major American sports broadcaster NBC Sports
has led to Major League Soccer being considered a major league.
is the highest level of play in the indoor/arena
styles of gridiron football
. As the name implies the sport is played in an indoor arena
on a much smaller field than American football. The league was founded in 1987 and operated continuously until 2009, with an ongoing revival starting in 2010, overcoming the perception that it was merely a fad
. From 2000 to 2009, the AFL had a developmental league, af2
.
The AFL indefinitely suspended operations in 2009. The af2 conducted its full 2009 season, but came to an end when none of its franchise committed to playing the next year. Afterward some teams from both the AFL and af2 came together to organize a new league for the 2010 season, initially known as Arena Football 1. The AF1 purchased both predecessor leagues' assets in December 2009 and it adopted the Arena Football League name. Since resuming play in 2010 the Arena Football League had an average attendance of 8,154 per game and a total attendance of 970,369.
is the highest level of play in Canadian football
. Although some teams trace their existence to the 1860s, the modern league organization was not solidified into its present configuration until 1958 and now consists of eight teams, all based in Canada, with a ninth team set to be added in 2014. The Grey Cup
is awarded annually to the champion every November and is the best attended sporting event in the nation. The oldest extant teams, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats
and the Toronto Argonauts
, trace their origins to the late 1860s and early 1870s, which ranks them amongst the oldest professional sports teams of any kind still in existence on the continent. The CFL attempted an expansion into the United States
between 1993 and 1995, though the expansion teams all either folded or relocated to Canadian cities.
The CFL is the second most popular league in Canada, after the NHL. It has the third highest average attendance of the North American leagues, behind the NFL and Major League Baseball; in 2010 the average attendance was 26,781, with a total attendance of 1,928,225.
(NLL) and Major League Lacrosse
(MLL) represent the top level of professional lacrosse
in North America. The NLL plays box lacrosse
(indoors), while MLL plays field lacrosse
(outdoors). The NLL was founded in 1986, while MLL was founded in 1999; the leagues had their inaugural seasons in 1987 and 2001, respectively. In 2010 the NLL had an average attendance of 9,559 per game, with a total attendance of 841,208. MLL had an average attendance of 5,278 per game, with a total attendance of 190,033.
(WNBA) is the top competition in women's basketball
and one of only two fully professional women's sports leagues in North America. Founded in 1996 and beginning play in the 1997 season
, it is the longest-running American professional women's sport league in history.
The league's attendance has fluctuated over the last several seasons. It had an average per-game attendance of 8,039 in 2009 and 7,834 in 2010. Total attendance was 1,598,160 in 2010. In 2007, the league signed a television deal with ESPN
that would run from 2009-2016. This deal is the first to ever pay rights fees to women's teams. In 2009 it had a total television viewership of 413,000 in combined cable and broadcast television.
soccer
being in third or fourth place (depending on exchange rates, as well as what is counted as league revenue - calculating finances in European soccer is somewhat more complicated compared to US/Canada). The NHL is ranked in fifth place.
is generally uncommon compared to past leagues and minor leagues. All four of the top major leagues have had frequent franchise collapses and relocations in their early histories, but this has been much less common in the past several decades.
Unlike some other leagues in other countries which use a system of promotion and relegation
, franchises in these leagues are stable, and do not change annually. Instead, teams with worse records may receive better draft picks
for the following year's season, as to ensure a level of parity.
With the folding of franchises now a rare occurrence, the numbers of teams in these leagues only change through expansion
. The most recent expansion occurred in 2004, when the NBA added the Charlotte Bobcats
. The most recent expansion in the NFL was 2002; in the NHL, 2000, and in MLB, 1998. Recent expansion franchises have commanded huge entry fees, which are generally held to represent the price the new team must pay to gain its share of the existing teams' often guaranteed revenue streams. The Houston Texans paid an unprecedented $
700 million to join the NFL. By comparison, the Charlotte Bobcats paid $300 million to join the NBA. The Diamondbacks and Devil Rays paid $130 million each to join MLB while the Blue Jackets and Wild paid $80 million each to join the NHL.
The CFL and MLS also have a relatively high degree of stability, although not as much as the other four leagues. MLS has only once folded a franchise, when it contracted the Miami Fusion
and Tampa Bay Mutiny
concurrently in 2001. MLS has had one franchise suspend operations, the San Jose Earthquakes
, when the Houston Dynamo
joined the league in 2005; the Earthquakes returned in 2008. The CFL has never relocated any of its core Canadian teams, and apart from a largely failed expansion into the United States
, two teams in the CFL's history have folded: the original Montreal Alouettes
in 1987 (said team was replaced by the Montreal Concordes franchise until the Alouettes were revived in 1996 when an American team
that had originally played in Baltimore moved to Montreal), and the Ottawa Rough Riders
in 1996. An attempted revival of an Ottawa franchise, the Ottawa Renegades
, suspended operations in 2005 and is set to return to play in 2013.
) of this size or larger have at least one team. This typically means at least one franchise (and often two) per league in each of the New York City
, Chicago
, and Los Angeles
areas. There are two major exceptions: The NFL has not had a franchise in L.A. since 1995, and the Green Bay
Packers
survive in major league sports' smallest metropolitan area (less than 300,000) thanks to a unique community ownership, and their proximity to the larger Milwaukee area, not to mention the loyalty of their fanbase
. The Packers are the last remaining link to the NFL's small-town Midwest roots. Many such teams existed in the NFL before 1934 in places like Decatur, Illinois
; Dayton, Ohio
; and Muncie, Indiana
.
Professional sports leagues as known today evolved during the decades between the Civil War
and World War II
, when the railroad was the main means of intercity transportation. As a result, virtually all major league teams were concentrated in the northeastern quarter of the United States
, within roughly the radius of a day-long train ride. No MLB teams existed south or west of St. Louis
, the NFL was confined to the Great Lakes
and the Northeast, and the NBA's 1946 launch spanned only from the Iowa-Illinois Quad Cities
to Boston. The NHL remained confined to six cities in the Northeast, Great Lakes and eastern Canada
until 1967
, though in the 1910s and 1920s, teams from its predecessor league had contested the Stanley Cup
at season's end with teams from western Canada and the Pacific Northwest
. College, minor league
and amateur
teams existed from coast to coast in all four sports, but rarely played outside of their home region for regular season games. Early professional soccer activity was concentrated almost entirely on an East Coast corridor from Baltimore to Boston, though a series of leagues located solely within the St. Louis metropolitan area also served as de facto major leagues for periods.
As travel and settlement patterns changed, so did the geography of professional sports. With the arguable exception of the western hockey teams which competed for the Stanley Cup in the early 20th century and the independent Los Angeles Bulldogs
football team of the 1930s and 1940s, there were no major league teams in the far west until after World War II. The first west coast
major-league franchise was the NFL's Los Angeles Rams
, who moved from Cleveland
in 1946. The same year, the All-America Football Conference
began play, with teams in Los Angeles
and San Francisco
(not to mention the Miami Seahawks
, who became the only southern-based major league franchise, although Louisville, Kentucky
had previously had short-lived baseball and football
teams). The San Francisco franchise would be one of three AAFC teams admitted to the NFL after the AAFC's demise in 1949. Baseball would not extend west until 1958 in the controversial move of both New York-based National League franchises, the Brooklyn Dodgers
and New York Giants
. The NBA would follow in 1960 with the move of the Minneapolis Lakers
to Los Angeles, while the NHL would not have a west coast presence until it doubled in size
in 1967. With the exception of the Los Angeles Kings
, the NHL's initial franchises in the Southern and Western United States were ultimately unsuccessful — teams in Oakland, Atlanta, Kansas City and Denver all relocated. From 1982 until 1991, the Kings were the only U.S.-based NHL franchise south of St. Louis and/or west of the Twin Cities.
Since then, as newer, fast-growing Sunbelt areas such as Phoenix
, Tampa
, and Dallas became prominent, the major sports leagues expanded or franchises relocated (usually quite controversially) to service these communities. Most major areas are well-represented, with all but seven continental U.S. metropolitan agglomerations over one million people hosting at least one major sports franchise. As of 2006, the largest metropolitan area without a major professional sports franchise is California
's Inland Empire
, which is located immediately due east of Los Angeles
and constitutes part of the Los Angeles television market. The highest ranking teams in the area are the Ontario Reign
, an ECHL
team, and several baseball teams in the single-A California League
.
Los Angeles, the second largest city in the United States and Canada, is the largest city which does not have a complete set of the "big four" major-league sports: it has lacked a football team since 1995. (The L.A. region has two teams each, however, in baseball, basketball and ice hockey. It is also the only city with two Major League Soccer
clubs and the largest city with one or more Division I FBS college football teams.) The smallest market with a complete set of "big four" sports is Denver, which ranks #18 amongst US and Canadian cities.
The most populous independent metropolitan area outside of a major franchise's local market is Las Vegas
. Despite the area's explosive growth before the economic crisis, all four leagues are wary of placing a team there due to the city's legal gambling industry, which includes sports betting
. In the U.S., for a professional sports organization to have any association, real or perceived, with gambling interests has been taboo
ever since the 1919
Black Sox Scandal
; this taboo was recently reinforced by the Tim Donaghy
scandal. All four leagues forbid their teams or personnel to have any type of contact or association with gambling interests and any connection between professional sports and gambling, no matter how benign, quickly gains the attention of law enforcement. Additionally, the city's abundance of entertainment options might make it difficult for a Las Vegas-based team to attract a large and stable fan base. The highest ranking teams in Las Vegas are the UFL's Las Vegas Locomotives
, the ECHL
's Las Vegas Wranglers
, and the Las Vegas 51s
, a AAA baseball team. Both the Arena Football League and Canadian Football League have placed franchises in the area that have failed, twice in the former league's case, while the Locomotives are on the verge of being relocated to Salt Lake City. The NBA hosted its 2007 All-Star Weekend
in Las Vegas, at which point both the league and the city expressed interest in locating a team there. However, NBA Commissioner David Stern
says the city will need a new arena larger and more modern than the Thomas & Mack Center
before it will even host another All-Star Weekend. While the event was initially regarded as successful and incident-free, media reports of criminal incidents (including two shootings related to the event, one of them involving NFL
player Adam Jones
) that began to surface after the conclusion of the weekend may hurt the city's chances of gaining an NBA or any major league team. Las Vegas also hosts the NHL's annual Frozen Fury
preseason game between the Los Angeles Kings
and the Colorado Avalanche
.
The most populous individual city without a major professional sports franchise is Austin, Texas
, which sits in the middle of a conglomeration of teams in other Texas cities such as Houston, San Antonio, and the Dallas–Fort Worth Metroplex
. Austin's television market is currently the 51st largest in the United States, smaller than all major league cities except for Green Bay and smaller than the market for many cities with no major league team.
Other major metro areas without a major professional franchise are Norfolk, Virginia
(the "Hampton Roads
" metro area) and Louisville, Kentucky
. Both boast television markets larger than those for Jacksonville, Buffalo, New Orleans and Green Bay, each of which has at least one major professional franchise.
Hampton Roads is nearly 200 miles (321.9 km) from the nearest major sports teams in Washington, D.C.
and Raleigh, North Carolina
. Hampton Roads previously hosted a successful franchise
in the American Basketball Association
. Its highest ranking teams as of 2011 are the Virginia Destroyers of the UFL, the Norfolk Admirals
of the AHL
, and the Norfolk Tides
of the IL
. Virginia is also the most populous state without a major team playing within its borders, though its northern reaches are served by the Washington clubs—two of which, the NHL's Capitals
and NFL's Redskins
, have their operational headquarters and practice facilities in Virginia; the Redskins also own two radio stations—WXTG
and WXTG-FM
—in the Norfolk market. The Hampton Roads television market is ranked 42nd in the U.S.
Louisville hosted major league baseball and NFL teams long ago, and was home to the successful Kentucky Colonels
of the ABA, a team kept out of the 1976 merger of that league with the NBA. Louisville's television market is the 48th largest in the United States. Louisville is also considerably closer to larger markets than Hampton Roads is—Louisville is about 120 miles (193.1 km) from Indianapolis
(#28) and 90 miles (144.8 km) from Cincinnati (#25), and Nashville
(#36) is also within 200 miles. Compared to Las Vegas and Norfolk, Louisville has much less representation in minor professional sport; only the AAA Louisville Bats
and some marginally professional low-level teams reside in Louisville. While Louisville itself has economics roughly typical for moderately large U.S. metropolitan areas, and a substantial corporate sector, the same cannot be said for large portions of its state of Kentucky. More than 50 of the state's 120 counties lie within the U.S. federal
definition of historically impoverished Appalachia
. This makes revenue generation more difficult than in more wealthy regions of the country.
Another interesting case is El Paso–Juárez
. With its metro area population of well over two million, it is easily larger than several major league markets. However, over half its inhabitants live on the Mexican
side of the historically contentious international border that splits it. This is not necessarily an issue on the Canadian border, as Detroit-Windsor and the Buffalo Niagara Region
megalopoli have a more symbiotic cross-border relationship. This is part of the reason Buffalo, one of the smallest major league markets in the United States, still is able to support two major league teams.
, and was first established in Canada
in 1917. Some US-based leagues, like MLB and the NBA, have awarded franchises to Canada, though outside of franchises in Toronto
(a media market comparable in size to the ten largest in the US), most have been unsuccessful.
The National Hockey League
was established in 1917 in Canada
with four hockey clubs in three Canadian cities (Toronto
, Montreal
and Ottawa
). The first American club, based in Boston
, joined the league in 1924, but American hockey clubs had existed before the NHL expanded into the United States
. The first US-based club to compete for the Stanley Cup was the Portland Rosebuds
of the Pacific Coast Hockey League
, who lost the 1916 series to the Montreal Canadiens
(then of the National Hockey Association
). The next year, the PCHA's Seattle Metropolitans
took the Cup away from the Canadiens. The Boston Bruins
are the oldest US-based franchise in the NHL, having played in the league since 1924.
When the WHA and NHL merged, the NHL inherited teams in three Canadian metro areas that were under one million in population at the time, Edmonton
, Winnipeg
and Quebec City
. The NHL later added teams in Calgary
(via relocation from Atlanta) and Ottawa
(via expansion), to go with pre-existing teams in Toronto
, Montreal
and Vancouver
. The distinctive place hockey
holds in Canadian culture allowed these franchises to compete with teams in larger cities for some time. However, the teams in Winnipeg and Quebec City
were eventually moved to much larger media markets in the U.S., respectively Phoenix
and Denver
. The three remaining small-market Canadian teams (Calgary, Edmonton, and Ottawa) have survived largely because their markets are growing rapidly; all three metro areas in question are now over one million in population and are thus comparable in size to some of the smaller American metro areas with teams in other leagues such as Salt Lake City, Jacksonville
, and Memphis
. Calgary and Edmonton's positions were also greatly aided by the growth of the oil economy in Alberta in the mid-2000s. Still more recently, the NHL's Canadian teams have benefited greatly from the rise of the Canadian dollar
to parity with its U.S. counterpart
. As a result, the NHL returned to Winnipeg for the 2011–12 season, with the Atlanta Thrashers
relocating to become the newest version of the Winnipeg Jets
.
The first Major League Baseball team in Canada was the Montreal Expos
who began play in 1969. In 2005, they moved to Washington D.C. and became the Washington Nationals
. The Toronto Blue Jays
, who began play in 1977, became the first team outside the United States to win the World Series in 1992 and 1993.
The Toronto Huskies
were a charter member of what is now known as the NBA, but they only lasted from 1946 to 1947. The NBA returned to Toronto in 1995 when the Raptors
joined the league. That same year, the Vancouver Grizzlies
began play, but moved to Memphis
in 2001.
The NFL has a working agreement with the Canadian Football League
(CFL) which is second in popularity only to the NHL in that country. In the 1950s and 1960s, selected NFL teams would travel north to Canada to play a CFL team in pre-season "American Bowl" games. In 2008 the Buffalo Bills
began playing one regular-season game each year
in Toronto. Toronto is about 90 miles (145 km) from Buffalo
and is considered by both the Bills and the NFL as a part of the team's market. The Bills currently draw about 15,000 Canadian fans per game, and the Bills' ownership sees Toronto's corporate market as key to securing the franchise's future, as the Bills have effectively maxed out their revenue potential in the economically struggling Buffalo area
. In order to minimize any perceived conflict with the CFL, the first two regular-season games under the contract were played after that league's season-ending Grey Cup
, and the 2011 game was scheduled both on a day that neither CFL team in Southern Ontario was playing and a weekend in which both teams played away games. The 2010 game was played on the last day of the CFL regular season, with the Bills playing in Toronto at 1:00 pm local time
and the CFL Toronto Argonauts
playing in Montreal
at 4:00 pm, while the Hamilton Tiger-Cats
had played their scheduled home game the previous day.
, the major leagues generally do not allow anyone to own a stake in more than one franchise, a rule adopted after several high-profile controversies involving ownership of multiple baseball teams
in the 1890s. Notably, Major League Soccer
has been unable to adopt this sort of league structure — it operates as a single entity league and for the sake of stability has been forced to allow soccer enthusiasts such as the late Lamar Hunt
to own multiple teams at least for now (see below). However, there have been four recent exceptions to this rule in the major leagues:
Many major professional sports leagues generally forbid religious groups
, government
s (usually they are some cases where government entities can own a team, usually county level), and non-profit organizations owning a team.
All of the top four major leagues grant some sort of territorial exclusivity to their owners, precluding the addition of another team in the same area unless the current team's owners consent, which is generally obtained in exchange for compensation and/or residual rights regarding the new franchise. For example, to obtain the consent of Baltimore Orioles
owner Peter Angelos
to place an MLB team in Washington (which is about 35 miles (56.3 km) from Oriole Park at Camden Yards
), a deal was struck under the terms of which television and radio broadcast rights to Nationals games are handled by the Orioles franchise, who formed a new network (the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network
) to produce and distribute the games for both franchises on local affiliates and cable/satellite systems. Similarly, the primary reason that the NHL will not expand into Hamilton is because the city's arena, Copps Coliseum
, is within 50 miles of First Niagara Center, the home arena and headquarters of the Buffalo Sabres
and is closer still to Air Canada Centre
, where the Toronto Maple Leafs
play.
Some major leagues, such as the NFL, have even stronger ownership restrictions. The NFL currently forbids large ownership groups or publicly-traded corporations from purchasing NFL teams. This policy allows the league office to deal with individual owners instead of boards of directors
, although the Packers' ownership group was grandfathered
into the current policy. The NFL also forbids its majority owners from owning any sports teams (except for soccer teams and Arena Football League
teams) in other NFL cities, and prohibits owners from investing in casino
s or being otherwise involved in gambling
operations. (NFL owners may freely own soccer teams without league restrictions because Lamar Hunt won a court challenge stemming from his investment in the old North American Soccer League
. When he died in December 2006, he owned 2 teams in Major League Soccer
, FC Dallas
and the Columbus Crew
, and he had only sold a third team, the Kansas City Wizards (now Sporting Kansas City), less than four months before.)
Regarding territorial rights, the main concern for many team owners has become television revenue although the possibility of reduced ticket sales remains a concern for some teams. Because the National Football League
shares all of its television revenue equally, and most of its teams sell out their stadiums with little difficulty, some NFL owners are seen as being less reluctant to share their territories. For example, the return of the NFL to Baltimore
in 1996 attracted no serious opposition from the Washington Redskins
organization.
in team sports, the top league in a sport generally commands the loyalties of that sport's followers. Even if a city is home to a minor league team, a sport's fan in that city will typically call a major league team their "favorite team" and follow it more closely. This contrasts with European soccer, for example, where clubs in lower-level leagues have passionate supporters that root for the club to be promoted to higher levels of competition.
Such loyalty has been noticed primarily within the NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL. Contrastingly, it has been noticed that there are numerous passionate supporters rooting for not only MLS sides, but local NASL and USL teams as well.
, NBC
, and ABC
) since those networks' early years, indicative of the sports' widespread appeal since their inception, continuing today additionally with FOX
. Regular season games, as well as important contests such as championship and all-star game
s are often televised in prime time
. In the last generation, fast-growing cable and satellite networks have taken a larger chunk of the major sports' pie. All four major sports have a network of their own. NBA TV
launched in 1999, followed by NFL Network
in 2003 and NHL Network in 2007. Major League Baseball introduced MLB Network
in 2009, and though it was the last to launch, it launched in more television households than the other networks presently have due to partnerships with cable and satellite operators.
Comparing the sizes of annual television contracts, the NFL is by far the largest, at over $3.8 billion, with the NBA and MLB both in distant second and third ($500 million and $479 million respectively). The NHL is in fourth place, at $200 million in the latest U.S. contract, not counting the Canadian share. Of the four, the NFL is most dependent on television revenues, drawing over 40% of its revenue from television contracts; this is mostly due to the much shorter seasons and reduced ticket sales opportunities compared to other professional leagues.
The NHL began airing games on NBC starting in January 2006 and the NHL Network, launched in Canada in 2001, has been available to U.S. cable and satellite subscribers since 2007. In addition, the NHL broadcasts games nationally in the U.S. on Versus
, generally on Monday and Tuesday nights. Since 1952 the NHL has been broadcast on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
's Hockey Night in Canada
. The 2006 Stanley Cup Finals
attracted 2.63 million viewers on the CBC
.
Although the NFL's revenues from contracts benefiting and shared equally amongst all teams in the league is several times greater than any of the other three major leagues, teams in the other leagues (MLB, NBA, NHL) negotiate contracts with local broadcasters to air most of their games (because of the much larger supply of regular-season games in the other leagues as opposed to the NFL, major U.S. networks have no interest in showing those sports every day, except during postseason play); some teams (such as the New York Yankees
) may even partially or fully own the cable network upon which their games are broadcast, and often receive more revenue from local broadcasts than any other source.
All four leagues are universally considered to be the top league in their respective sports, not only in revenue, but also in quality of talent, player salaries, and worldwide interest. However, of the four major leagues, the NFL has the least presence outside both countries; it is mainly an American and Canadian interest. Basketball is a strong spectator and participation sport all over the world, and the NBA is unquestionably its top league. Hockey (Europe) and baseball (East Asia, Latin America) have loyal followings in some of the world's other regions as well. Selling league broadcasting rights to foreign markets is another way for the leagues to generate revenue, and all the leagues have tried to exploit revenue streams outside of their home market.
for players in the four major leagues is about $
2.9 million in 2008, although player salaries can range from $300,000 for backup players to $20 million for superstars.
from the Japanese leagues, the European hockey leagues have become a major source of star talent for National Hockey League clubs, and the National Basketball Association frequently recruits talent from professional leagues in Europe
, Latin America
and China
.
. The early Stanley Cup
champions from both the NHL and the early leagues the NHL eventually displaced were also called world champions in the early decades of professional hockey by Americans and Canadians alike - in fact the phrase can be found on past engravings on the Cup
. However, that term fell out of favor in the latter half of the 20th century. The International Ice Hockey Federation
has proposed a world championship playoff between the Stanley Cup winners and the champions of the European Hockey League (see below).
If the popularity of baseball and basketball keeps growing in various countries outside of the United States
and Canada
, some think that the NBA and MLB may begin to place franchises in foreign markets. The popularity of baseball in Southeast Asia, Mexico
and Central America
is growing, along with the talent of prospective players from the regions. Meanwhile, the popularity of basketball has grown to be the second highest in the world in terms of national associations. (after soccer) though it also trails cricket (which is popular in many countries with large populations e.g. India) in terms of total fans.
However, one major detractor against foreign expansion by MLB or the NBA is that the sports in question enjoy much of their popularity in relatively poor countries that would probably be unable to financially support a sports franchise using the American model. The only clear exception to this would be the popularity of baseball in Japan
, where well-established baseball leagues already exist.
Due to the popularity of hockey in some of the most prosperous parts of Europe, many believe that the major league with the best chance of success outside North America would be the NHL. This has led to the possibility of European NHL franchises being discussed in the past, although NHL officials have repeatedly said they have no current plans to create a European division. The most that has come out of this has been the "Super Series
" tour in the 1970s and 80s where the Soviet club teams played NHL teams in exhibition games. During the first and most famous of these tours Red Army Moscow
played the Montreal Canadiens
in what the media called an unofficial world championship. However, this was during the height of the Cold War
when the Soviet League had comparable talent to the NHL - since the decline of Communism
in Eastern Europe
in the late 1980s
, better financed NHL teams have enticed away most the elite players from the former Soviet Union
and Czechoslovakia
. Professional leagues in Sweden, Finland and Switzerland also have a high level of talent, but the higher salaries and elite level of play offered in the NHL has also lured away many of their best players. Significantly, ice hockey is either popular in countries with a relatively low average income (e.g. Russia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Belarus, Kazakhstan), a very small population (e.g. Sweden, Switzerland, Finland), or both (e.g. Latvia). In the largest and most populous nations of Europe, such as France, Italy and the UK, hockey is not a major sport. Germany is a partial exception, although hockey is clearly not the most popular sport in that country.
The IIHF has proposed that instead of a direct NHL presence in Europe a world championship playoff between the Stanley Cup winners and the champions of the European Hockey League should be held each year. The NHL's position on this proposal is not entirely clear, but many believe that the players union
would be unlikely to support it. Beginning in the 2007–08 NHL season, the NHL began playing exhibition game
s against European teams in the "NHL Premiere" series, the NHL Challenge
, and the Victoria Cup. Since the debut of the series, NHL teams have won 24 games to the European teams' four.
Recently talks about NBA franchises being located in Europe have intensified. For logistical reasons it would be necessary to have a minimum of two and probably four or more teams in Europe, so that visiting Canadian/American teams could play multiple opponents during a single trip. Possible cities for such expansion include London
, Paris
, Barcelona
, Madrid
, Cologne
, Berlin
, Rome
, and Moscow
. Although current NBA commissioner David Stern
and former NBA star Michael Jordan
are among those who have endorsed the concept of NBA teams in Europe, increasing cooperation between the NBA and ULEB
, the body that organizes the Euroleague, may make a permanent NBA presence in Europe less likely, at least for the foreseeable future. In 2005, the two bodies agreed to organize a summer competition known as the NBA Europe Live Tour
featuring four NBA teams and four Euroleague clubs, with the first competition taking place in 2006.
A major obstacle for anyone trying to establish either an NBA or NHL presence in Europe is that with soccer being in the dominant position that it enjoys on that continent, building state of the art
indoor arenas suitable for ice hockey and/or basketball has not become a priority in European cities until very recently. No arena likely to meet the standards of either league existed anywhere in Europe until the Manchester Evening News Arena
opened in 1995, followed by Cologne's Kölnarena and Lisbon's Atlantic Pavilion
in 1998. The next NBA/NHL-caliber arena in Europe opened in 2003, when Sinan Erdem Dome opened in Istanbul
. The following year saw two more such arenas open—the Olympic Indoor Hall
in Athens and Sazka Arena, now O2 Arena, in Prague. Belgrade Arena
and the Madrid Sports Palace
followed in 2005, although the capacity of the latter is marginal by today's NBA standards. The O2
opened in London in 2007, O2 World
in Berlin (another arena of NBA/NHL standards but marginal capacity) followed in 2008, and plans are in the works for an NBA/NHL-caliber venue in Moscow.
since 1976 in Mexico, Europe, Australia, and Japan and through NFL Europe
(which, although it began with teams throughout Western Europe
, had relocated several teams to the point where almost all of its teams were in Germany by the time of the league's demise); the latter venture was never profitable and ultimately ceased operations in 2007. Starting in 2005, the NFL has begun holding one regular season game outside the United States. The 2005 matchup
in Mexico City
between the San Francisco 49ers and Arizona Cardinals drew a crowd of over 103,000 to Azteca Stadium
(a 1994 crowd of over 112,000 at Azteca Stadium is the largest to attend a pre-season game). This was followed by a regular-season game at the New Wembley Stadium
in London
in 2007
, becoming the NFL's first venture in the UK since the collapse of two NFL Europe teams based there; the league has played an annual game in Wembley each year since. Preliminary talks had been ongoing to expand the NFL season to 18 regular season games, with each team playing one game overseas, although such talk has been curtailed because the expansion was not approved in labor negotiations. There has been talk of expanding the International Series to Ireland
.
The Canadian Football League’s annual Grey Cup championship game has a worldwide audience reaching over 100 million television viewers across the U.S., Mexico, Europe, the Middle East and many other countries. In the United States, the 2008 Grey Cup was available to 62 million homes in standard definition television and to DISH Network’s 12 million customers in High Definition on VOOM HD Networks’ World Sport HD channel (available in the New York City metropolitan area on Cablevision). CFL and Grey Cup coverage in Mexico is provided by TVC Deportes, the cable sports channels owned and operated by cable television groups across the country. Regular-season games on TVC Deportes has delivered the league a growing fan base in the important Mexican market. Also, the Grey Cup is also available to nearly 8 million subscribers on Sirius XM satellite radio.
, the winners of which compete in the annual FIFA Club World Cup
each December.
since it's inception in 1920. The NBA has always played on Christmas Day since 1947. And since 2008, the NHL has had the Winter Classic
on New Year's Day
.
decision in 2010 in American Needle, Inc. v. National Football League, in which the NFL (which ultimately lost the case) received amicus curiae
briefs from the NBA, NHL, and MLS. The leagues' commissioners occasionally meet in person, most recently in 2009.
In the early years of the NFL and to a lesser extent the NHL, it was not uncommon for teams to share nicknames with their MLB counterparts. For example, until 1957
New York City played host to baseball
and football
Giants. MLB's Pittsburgh Pirates
shared its nickname with an NFL team (which ultimately became the Pittsburgh Steelers
) as well as a now-defunct early NHL team
. Furthermore, the Steelers, Pirates, and Penguins
all utilize similar team colors. The most recent example of two major teams sharing a franchise name was between 1960 and 1987; when the NFL's Chicago Cardinals
relocated to Saint Louis, Missouri, it was allowed to keep the Cardinals name despite the established existence of a baseball team of the same name
.
The leagues also cooperate in the construction and use of facilities. Many NBA and NHL teams share arenas, and, in years past such sharing was very common for MLB and NFL teams, though only one such situation currently exists. (Another such situation ended when the Florida Marlins completed their 2011 season
. The team, which previously shared Sun Life Stadium with the Miami Dolphins
, will become the Miami Marlins and move into a new, baseball-only stadium for the 2012 season
.) More recently, MLS teams have used NFL stadiums as either full time home fields or for special event games. Also notable in recent years has been the NHL's Winter Classic
and Heritage Classic
which have been held in NFL, CFL and MLB stadiums.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
are the highest professional competitions in team sport
Team sport
A team sport includes any sport which involves players working together towards a shared objective. A team sport is an activity in which a group of individuals, on the same team, work together to accomplish an ultimate goal which is usually to win. This can be done in a number of ways such as...
s. Although individual sports such as golf
Golf
Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....
, tennis
Tennis
Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...
, and auto racing
Auto racing
Auto racing is a motorsport involving the racing of cars for competition. It is one of the world's most watched televised sports.-The beginning of racing:...
are also very popular, the term is usually limited to team sports.
The term "major league" was first used in 1921 in reference to Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...
(MLB), the top level of professional American baseball
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
. Today, the major Northern American professional team sports leagues are the MLB, the National Basketball Association
National Basketball Association
The National Basketball Association is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in North America. It consists of thirty franchised member clubs, of which twenty-nine are located in the United States and one in Canada...
(NBA), the National Football League
National Football League
The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...
(NFL), the National Hockey League
National Hockey League
The National Hockey League is an unincorporated not-for-profit association which operates a major professional ice hockey league of 30 franchised member clubs, of which 7 are currently located in Canada and 23 in the United States...
(NHL), and Major League Soccer
Major League Soccer
Major League Soccer is a professional soccer league based in the United States and sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation . The league is composed of 19 teams — 16 in the U.S. and 3 in Canada...
(MLS).
The first four leagues are also commonly referred to as the Big Four. Each of these is the richest professional club competition in its sport worldwide. The best players can become cultural icon
Cultural icon
A cultural icon can be a symbol, logo, picture, name, face, person, building or other image that is readily recognized and generally represents an object or concept with great cultural significance to a wide cultural group...
s in both countries and elsewhere in the world, because the leagues enjoy a significant place in popular culture
Popular culture
Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...
in the U.S.
Culture of the United States
The Culture of the United States is a Western culture originally influenced by European cultures. It has been developing since long before the United States became a country with its own unique social and cultural characteristics such as dialect, music, arts, social habits, cuisine, and folklore...
and Canada
Canadian popular culture
Canadian popular culture is the vernacular culture that prevails in Canadian society. Canadian popular culture is influenced by Canada's British and French ancestry. Canadian pop culture is also influenced by the United States, which borders Canada to the south; US films, television shows and...
. All four of these leagues are more than sixty years old; the youngest, the NBA, was founded in 1946. The NFL has 32 teams, and the others have 30 each. The vast majority of major league teams are concentrated in the most populous metropolitan areas of the United States and Canada.
MLS is the youngest of the major leagues, founded in 1993 and began play in 1996 as a result of America's hosting of the 1994 FIFA World Cup
1994 FIFA World Cup
The 1994 FIFA World Cup, the 15th staging of the FIFA World Cup, was held in nine cities across the United States from June 17 to July 17, 1994. The United States was chosen as the host by FIFA on July 4, 1988...
. As the youngest league it does not yet have the cultural footprint of the other four leagues, but it has a very strong following amongst American youth as well as Hispanic immigrants and in 2011 surpassed the NBA and NHL in average attendance. With only 19 teams to play in the 2012 season, it is the smallest of the five leagues as well.
Every major league averages 15,000 fans in attendance per game
Average attendances of professional sports teams in the United States and Canada
Thirteen professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada average over three-thousand fans in attendance per game, including the Arena Football League, Canadian Football League, Major Indoor Soccer League, Major League Baseball, Major League Lacrosse, Major League Soccer, National...
or higher as of 2011.
Major League Baseball
Major League BaseballMajor League Baseball
Major League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...
is the highest level of play of baseball
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
in North America. It consists of the National League
National League
The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League , is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball, and the world's oldest extant professional team sports league. Founded on February 2, 1876, to replace the National Association of Professional...
(founded in 1876) and the American League
American League
The American League of Professional Baseball Clubs, or simply the American League , is one of two leagues that make up Major League Baseball in the United States and Canada. It developed from the Western League, a minor league based in the Great Lakes states, which eventually aspired to major...
(founded in 1901). Cooperation between the two leagues began in 1903, and the two are effectively merged on an organizational level; they have shared a single Commissioner since 1920. There are currently 30 member teams, with 29 located in the U.S. and 1 in Canada.
Traditionally called the "National Pastime", baseball was the first professional sport in the U.S.
National Basketball Association
The National Basketball AssociationNational Basketball Association
The National Basketball Association is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in North America. It consists of thirty franchised member clubs, of which twenty-nine are located in the United States and one in Canada...
is the premier basketball
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...
league. It was founded as the Basketball Association of America in 1946, and adopted its current name in 1949, when the BAA partially absorbed the rival National Basketball League
National Basketball League (United States)
Founded in 1937, the National Basketball League, often abbreviated to NBL, was a professional men's basketball league in the United States. The league would later merge with the Basketball Association of America to form the National Basketball Association in 1949.- League history :The...
. Four teams from the rival American Basketball Association
American Basketball Association
The American Basketball Association was a professional basketball league founded in 1967. The ABA ceased to exist with the ABA–NBA merger in 1976.-League history:...
joined the NBA with the ABA–NBA merger in 1976. It currently has 30 teams, 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada.
Considered the premier basketball league in the world, the NBA is watched by audiences both domestically and internationally. It has become known in recent decades for promoting a series of individual superstar
Superstar
A superstar is a widely acclaimed celebrity.Superstar or superstars may also refer to:-People:* Warhol Superstar, associates of Andy Warhol* WWE Superstar, the term used to refer to entertainers from the WWE...
players such as Julius Erving
Julius Erving
Julius Winfield Erving II , commonly known by the nickname Dr. J, is a retired American basketball player who helped launch a modern style of play that emphasizes leaping and play above the rim....
, Larry Bird
Larry Bird
Larry Joe Bird is a former American NBA basketball player and coach. Drafted into the NBA sixth overall by the Boston Celtics in 1978, Bird started at small forward and power forward for thirteen seasons, spearheading one of the NBA's most formidable frontcourts that included center Robert Parish...
, Magic Johnson
Magic Johnson
Earvin "Magic" Johnson Jr. is a retired American professional basketball player who played point guard for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association . After winning championships in high school and college, Johnson was selected first overall in the 1979 NBA Draft by the Lakers...
, Michael Jordan
Michael Jordan
Michael Jeffrey Jordan is a former American professional basketball player, active entrepreneur, and majority owner of the Charlotte Bobcats...
, Shaquille O'Neal
Shaquille O'Neal
Shaquille Rashaun O'Neal , nicknamed "Shaq" , is a former American professional basketball player. Standing tall and weighing , he was one of the heaviest players ever to play in the NBA...
, Kobe Bryant
Kobe Bryant
Kobe Bean Bryant is an American professional basketball player who plays shooting guard for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association . Bryant enjoyed a successful high school basketball career at Lower Merion High School, where he was recognized as the top high school...
, Dwyane Wade
Dwyane Wade
Dwyane Tyrone Wade, Jr. nicknamed Flash or D-Wade, is an American professional basketball player for the Miami Heat. Awarded 2006 Sportsman of the Year by Sports Illustrated, Wade has established himself as one of the most well-known and popular players in the league...
, and LeBron James
LeBron James
LeBron Raymone James is an American professional basketball player for the Miami Heat of the National Basketball Association . Nicknamed "King James", he was a three-time "Mr. Basketball" of Ohio in high school, and was highly promoted in the national media as a future NBA superstar while a...
who have become international marketing icons.
National Football League
The National Football LeagueNational Football League
The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...
was founded in 1920 as a combination of various teams from regional leagues such as the Ohio League
Ohio League
The Ohio League was an informal and loose association of American football clubs active between 1903 and 1919 that competed for the Ohio Independent Championship . As the name implied, its teams were based in Ohio...
, the New York Pro Football League
New York Pro Football League
The New York Pro Football League was a professional American football league active in the 1910s and based in upstate New York, primarily Western New York. Between 1920 and 1921, the league's best teams were absorbed into the National Football League, though none survive in that league today...
and the Chicago circuit. The NFL partially absorbed the All-America Football Conference
All-America Football Conference
The All-America Football Conference was a professional American football league that challenged the established National Football League from 1946 to 1949. One of the NFL's most formidable challengers, the AAFC attracted many of the nation's best players, and introduced many lasting innovations...
in 1949 and merged
AFL-NFL Merger
The AFL–NFL merger of 1970 was the merger of the two major professional American football leagues in the United States at the time: the National Football League and the American Football League...
with the American Football League
American Football League
The American Football League was a major American Professional Football league that operated from 1960 until 1969, when the established National Football League merged with it. The upstart AFL operated in direct competition with the more established NFL throughout its existence...
in 1970. It has 32 teams, all located in the United States.
NFL games are the most attended of domestic professional leagues in the world, in terms of per-game attendance (although the maximum number of games played at any given NFL stadium per season is only 11) and the most popular in the U.S. in terms of television ratings and merchandising. Its championship game, the Super Bowl
Super Bowl
The Super Bowl is the championship game of the National Football League , the highest level of professional American football in the United States, culminating a season that begins in the late summer of the previous calendar year. The Super Bowl uses Roman numerals to identify each game, rather...
, is the most watched annual event on U.S. television, with Super Bowl XLV
Super Bowl XLV
Super Bowl XLV was an American football game between the American Football Conference champion Pittsburgh Steelers and the National Football Conference champion Green Bay Packers to decide the National Football League champion for the 2010 season. The game was held at Cowboys Stadium in...
being the single most-watched program in U.S. television history.
The NFL is the only one of the major leagues to not include any teams from Canada. Canada does have its own professional league, the Canadian Football League
Canadian Football League
The Canadian Football League or CFL is a professional sports league located in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football, a form of gridiron football closely related to American football....
, which plays by somewhat different rules from the NFL. American football
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
is the only major team sport where there is no professional international competition (although there are a few professional players from outside the United States).
National Hockey League
The National Hockey LeagueNational Hockey League
The National Hockey League is an unincorporated not-for-profit association which operates a major professional ice hockey league of 30 franchised member clubs, of which 7 are currently located in Canada and 23 in the United States...
was founded in 1917 as a breakaway league from the Canadian National Hockey Association
National Hockey Association
The National Hockey Association was a professional ice hockey organization with teams in Ontario and Quebec, Canada. It is the direct predecessor organization to today's National Hockey League...
(founded 1909), taking all but one of the NHA's teams. The NHL partially absorbed the rival World Hockey Association
World Hockey Association
The World Hockey Association was a professional ice hockey league that operated in North America from 1972 to 1979. It was the first major competition for the National Hockey League since the collapse of the Western Hockey League in 1926...
in 1979. There are 30 teams, with 23 in the U.S. and 7 in Canada.
The most popular sports league in Canada, and widely followed across the northern U.S., the NHL has expanded southward in recent years to attempt to gain a more national following in the United States, in cities such as Dallas
Dallas Stars
The Dallas Stars are a professional ice hockey team based in Dallas, Texas. They are members of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference of the National Hockey League . The team was founded during the 1967 NHL expansion as the Minnesota North Stars, based in Bloomington, Minnesota. The...
, Miami
Florida Panthers
The Florida Panthers are a professional ice hockey team based in Sunrise, Florida, in the Miami metropolitan area. They are members of the Southeast Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League . They play their games at the BankAtlantic Center in Sunrise and are the...
, Nashville
Nashville Predators
The Nashville Predators are a professional ice hockey team based in Nashville, Tennessee. They are members of the Central Division of the Western Conference of the National Hockey League...
, Phoenix
Phoenix Coyotes
The Phoenix Coyotes are a professional ice hockey team based in Glendale, Arizona. They are members of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference of the National Hockey League . They play their home games at Jobing.com Arena....
, Raleigh
Carolina Hurricanes
The Carolina Hurricanes are a professional ice hockey team based in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA. They are members of the Southeast Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League , and play their home games at the 18,680-seat RBC Center...
, and Tampa
Tampa Bay Lightning
The Tampa Bay Lightning are a professional ice hockey team based in Tampa, Florida. They are members of the Southeast Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League . They have one Stanley Cup championship in their history, in 2003–04. They are often referred to as the...
, with varying success.
Major League Soccer
Major League SoccerMajor League Soccer
Major League Soccer is a professional soccer league based in the United States and sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation . The league is composed of 19 teams — 16 in the U.S. and 3 in Canada...
(MLS) is the top-level men's professional soccer league in the United States and Canada. MLS has 18 teams in the 2011 season
2011 Major League Soccer season
The 2011 Major League Soccer season was the 99th season of FIFA-sanctioned soccer, the 33rd with a national first-division league, in the United States and Canada, and the 16th season of Major League Soccer. The season marked the arrival of two new league clubs, Portland Timbers and Vancouver...
, with 16 across the United States and 2 in Canada. The league began play in 1996, its creation having been a requirement for hosting the 1994 World Cup
1994 FIFA World Cup
The 1994 FIFA World Cup, the 15th staging of the FIFA World Cup, was held in nine cities across the United States from June 17 to July 17, 1994. The United States was chosen as the host by FIFA on July 4, 1988...
in the United States. MLS will expand to 19 clubs in 2012 when the Montreal Impact replace the current second division team
Montreal Impact
Montreal Impact was a Canadian professional soccer club based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1992, the team played in the North American Soccer League , the second tier of the American Soccer Pyramid until the 2011 season. The owner Joey Saputo now operates the MLS team Montreal ImpactThe...
of the same name. MLS hopes to add a 20th team by 2012 or shortly thereafter.
Unlike many previous professional soccer leagues in the United States (such as the North American Soccer League
North American Soccer League
North American Soccer League was a professional soccer league with teams in the United States and Canada that operated from 1968 to 1984.-History:...
), MLS was originally designed to maintain parity between clubs and rely on mostly American talent. Many notable international players have played with MLS teams, including: Hugo Sánchez
Hugo Sánchez
Hugo Sánchez Márquez , popularly nicknamed Pentapichichi, or Hugol, is a Mexican football coach and former striker. He played for four European clubs, including Real Madrid. Sanchez is considered the first highly talented Mexican player. He was also a member of the Mexico national team, and...
, Jorge Campos, Carlos Valderrama, Lothar Matthäus
Lothar Matthäus
Lothar Herbert Matthäus , is a German football manager and former player.In 1990, he was named European Footballer of the Year and World Soccer Player of the Year after captaining West Germany to victory in the 1990 World Cup...
, Hristo Stoichkov
Hristo Stoichkov
Hristo Stoichkov Stoichkov , sometimes Stoitchkov; born 8 February 1966 in Plovdiv) is a retired Bulgarian footballer. He is regarded as one of the best footballers of his generation and the greatest Bulgarian footballer of all time. Nicknamed The Dagger , The Dog , The Modern Left...
, Cuauhtémoc Blanco
Cuauhtémoc Blanco
Cuauhtémoc Blanco Bravo is a Mexican professional footballer currently signed for Irapuato in the Mexican Liga de Ascenso.Known for his aggressive yet charismatic personality on the field, playing most of his career as a deep-lying forward and his last years as an attacking midfielder...
, Carl Robinson
Carl Robinson
Carl Robinson is a Welsh footballer who currently plays for the New York Red Bulls in Major League Soccer.-Wolverhampton Wanderers:...
, David Beckham
David Beckham
David Robert Joseph Beckham, OBE is an English footballer who plays midfield for Los Angeles Galaxy in Major League Soccer, having previously played for Manchester United, Preston North End, Real Madrid, and A.C...
, Freddie Ljungberg
Fredrik Ljungberg
Karl Fredrik "Freddie" Ljungberg is a Swedish footballer who currently plays as a right winger for Shimizu S-Pulse in Japan. Ljungberg was captain of the Swedish national team until he announced his international retirement after UEFA Euro 2008.Ljungberg was a model for Calvin Klein underwear...
, Thierry Henry
Thierry Henry
Thierry Daniel Henry is a French professional footballer who plays for the New York Red Bulls in Major League Soccer.Henry was born in Les Ulis, Essonne where he played for an array of local sides as a youngster and showed great promise as a goal-scorer. He was spotted by AS Monaco in 1990 and...
, Rafael Marquez
Rafael Márquez
Rafael Márquez Álvarez is a Mexican footballer who plays for New York Red Bulls in Major League Soccer and the Mexico national team. He plays as a centre back or defensive midfielder....
, and most recently, Robbie Keane
Robbie Keane
Robert David "Robbie" Keane is an Irish association football player who plays as a striker for Los Angeles Galaxy in Major League Soccer and captains the Irish national football team....
.
In 2011, MLS reported an average attendance of 17,872 per game, becoming the third most-highly attended professional sports league in America. This was a substantial increase from the previous season. Statistical analysis of the 2010 US Census, based largely on demographic trends among Hispanic
Hispanic and Latino Americans
Hispanic or Latino Americans are Americans with origins in the Hispanic countries of Latin America or in Spain, and in general all persons in the United States who self-identify as Hispanic or Latino.1990 Census of Population and Housing: A self-designated classification for people whose origins...
populations, in addition to a new multimillion dollar television deal with major American sports broadcaster NBC Sports
NBC Sports
NBC Sports is the sports division of the NBC television network. Formerly "a service of NBC News," it broadcasts a diverse array of programs, including the Olympic Games, the NFL, the NHL, MLS, Notre Dame football, the PGA Tour, the Triple Crown, and the French Open, among others...
has led to Major League Soccer being considered a major league.
Arena Football League
The Arena Football LeagueArena Football League
The Arena Football League is the highest level of professional indoor American football in the United States. It is currently the second longest running professional football league in the United States, after the National Football League. It was founded in 1987 by Jim Foster...
is the highest level of play in the indoor/arena
Arena football
Arena football is a variety of gridiron football played by the Arena Football League . It is a proprietary game, the rights to which are owned by Gridiron Enterprises, and is played indoors on a smaller field than American or Canadian outdoor football, resulting in a faster and higher-scoring game....
styles of gridiron football
Gridiron football
Gridiron football , sometimes known as North American football, is an umbrella term for related codes of football primarily played in the United States and Canada. The predominant forms of gridiron football are American football and Canadian football...
. As the name implies the sport is played in an indoor arena
Arena
An arena is an enclosed area, often circular or oval-shaped, designed to showcase theater, musical performances, or sporting events. It is composed of a large open space surrounded on most or all sides by tiered seating for spectators. The key feature of an arena is that the event space is the...
on a much smaller field than American football. The league was founded in 1987 and operated continuously until 2009, with an ongoing revival starting in 2010, overcoming the perception that it was merely a fad
FAD
In biochemistry, flavin adenine dinucleotide is a redox cofactor involved in several important reactions in metabolism. FAD can exist in two different redox states, which it converts between by accepting or donating electrons. The molecule consists of a riboflavin moiety bound to the phosphate...
. From 2000 to 2009, the AFL had a developmental league, af2
Af2
AF2 was the name of the Arena Football League's developmental league; it was founded in 1999 and played its first season in 2000. Like parent AFL, the AF2 played using the same arena football rules and style of play. League seasons ran from April through July with the postseason and ArenaCup...
.
The AFL indefinitely suspended operations in 2009. The af2 conducted its full 2009 season, but came to an end when none of its franchise committed to playing the next year. Afterward some teams from both the AFL and af2 came together to organize a new league for the 2010 season, initially known as Arena Football 1. The AF1 purchased both predecessor leagues' assets in December 2009 and it adopted the Arena Football League name. Since resuming play in 2010 the Arena Football League had an average attendance of 8,154 per game and a total attendance of 970,369.
Canadian Football League
The Canadian Football LeagueCanadian Football League
The Canadian Football League or CFL is a professional sports league located in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football, a form of gridiron football closely related to American football....
is the highest level of play in Canadian football
Canadian football
Canadian football is a form of gridiron football played exclusively in Canada in which two teams of 12 players each compete for territorial control of a field of play long and wide attempting to advance a pointed prolate spheroid ball into the opposing team's scoring area...
. Although some teams trace their existence to the 1860s, the modern league organization was not solidified into its present configuration until 1958 and now consists of eight teams, all based in Canada, with a ninth team set to be added in 2014. The Grey Cup
Grey Cup
The Grey Cup is both the name of the championship of the Canadian Football League and the name of the trophy awarded to the victorious team. It is Canada's largest annual sports and television event, regularly drawing a Canadian viewing audience of about 3 to 4 million individuals...
is awarded annually to the champion every November and is the best attended sporting event in the nation. The oldest extant teams, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats
Hamilton Tiger-Cats
The Hamilton Tiger-Cats are a Canadian Football League team based in Hamilton, Ontario, founded in 1950 with the merger of the Hamilton Tigers and the Hamilton Wildcats. The Tiger-Cats play their home games at Ivor Wynne Stadium...
and the Toronto Argonauts
Toronto Argonauts
The Toronto Argonauts are a professional Canadian football team competing in the East Division of the Canadian Football League. The Toronto, Ontario based team was founded in 1873 and is one of the oldest existing professional sports teams in North America, after the Chicago Cubs and the Atlanta...
, trace their origins to the late 1860s and early 1870s, which ranks them amongst the oldest professional sports teams of any kind still in existence on the continent. The CFL attempted an expansion into the United States
CFL USA
The term CFL USA refers to the abortive expansion of the Canadian Football League into the United States in the early-to-mid 1990s. The 1993 CFL season saw the addition of the first American team to the league, the Sacramento Gold Miners...
between 1993 and 1995, though the expansion teams all either folded or relocated to Canadian cities.
The CFL is the second most popular league in Canada, after the NHL. It has the third highest average attendance of the North American leagues, behind the NFL and Major League Baseball; in 2010 the average attendance was 26,781, with a total attendance of 1,928,225.
National Lacrosse League and Major League Lacrosse
The National Lacrosse LeagueNational Lacrosse League
The National Lacrosse League is a men's professional indoor lacrosse league in North America. It currently has nine teams; three in Canada and six in the United States. Unlike other lacrosse leagues which play in the summer, the NLL plays its games in the winter and spring. Each year, the playoff...
(NLL) and Major League Lacrosse
Major League Lacrosse
Major League Lacrosse, or MLL, is a professional men's field lacrosse league that is made up of five teams in the United States and one team in Canada.- History :...
(MLL) represent the top level of professional lacrosse
Lacrosse
Lacrosse is a team sport of Native American origin played using a small rubber ball and a long-handled stick called a crosse or lacrosse stick, mainly played in the United States and Canada. It is a contact sport which requires padding. The head of the lacrosse stick is strung with loose mesh...
in North America. The NLL plays box lacrosse
Box lacrosse
Box lacrosse, also known as indoor lacrosse and sometimes shortened to boxla, LAX or simply box, is an indoor version of lacrosse played mostly in North America. The game originated in Canada, where it is the most popular version of the game played in contrast to the traditional field lacrosse game...
(indoors), while MLL plays field lacrosse
Field lacrosse
Field lacrosse, sometimes referred to as the "fastest sport on two feet," is a full contact outdoor men's sport played with ten players on each team. The sport originated among Native Americans, and the modern rules of field lacrosse were initially codified by Canadian William George Beers in 1867....
(outdoors). The NLL was founded in 1986, while MLL was founded in 1999; the leagues had their inaugural seasons in 1987 and 2001, respectively. In 2010 the NLL had an average attendance of 9,559 per game, with a total attendance of 841,208. MLL had an average attendance of 5,278 per game, with a total attendance of 190,033.
Women's National Basketball Association
The Women's National Basketball AssociationWomen's National Basketball Association
The Women's National Basketball Association is a women's professional basketball league in the United States. It currently is composed of twelve teams. The league was founded on April 24, 1996 as the women's counterpart to the National Basketball Association...
(WNBA) is the top competition in women's basketball
Women's basketball
Women's basketball is one of the few women's sports that developed in tandem with its men's counterpart. It became popular, spreading from the east coast of the United States to the west coast , in large part via women's colleges...
and one of only two fully professional women's sports leagues in North America. Founded in 1996 and beginning play in the 1997 season
1997 WNBA Season
-External links:*...
, it is the longest-running American professional women's sport league in history.
The league's attendance has fluctuated over the last several seasons. It had an average per-game attendance of 8,039 in 2009 and 7,834 in 2010. Total attendance was 1,598,160 in 2010. In 2007, the league signed a television deal with ESPN
ESPN
Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, commonly known as ESPN, is an American global cable television network focusing on sports-related programming including live and pre-taped event telecasts, sports talk shows, and other original programming....
that would run from 2009-2016. This deal is the first to ever pay rights fees to women's teams. In 2009 it had a total television viewership of 413,000 in combined cable and broadcast television.
Finances
The top four major leagues each have revenues that can be many times greater than the payrolls of less popular major leagues in the two nations. In terms of overall league revenue, the NFL, MLB and the NBA (in that order) rank as the three of the four most lucrative sports leagues in the world, with the Premier League of EnglishEngland
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
soccer
Football (soccer)
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...
being in third or fourth place (depending on exchange rates, as well as what is counted as league revenue - calculating finances in European soccer is somewhat more complicated compared to US/Canada). The NHL is ranked in fifth place.
Revenue comparison
| League | Revenue (M) | Ref |
|---|---|---|
| NFL | $9,000 | |
| MLB | $7,000 | |
| NBA | $3,800 | |
| NHL | $2,900 | |
| MLS | $280 |
Franchise stability
All of the top four major leagues exhibit stability in most of their franchises. No team from any of the top four major leagues has collapsed outright in decades. Although all of the top four major leagues have had at least one franchise relocate to another city in the last fifteen years, relocation of teamsRelocation of professional sports teams
Relocation of professional sports teams is a practice which involves a sporting franchise moving from one metropolitan area to another, although occasionally moves between municipalities in the same conurbation are also included...
is generally uncommon compared to past leagues and minor leagues. All four of the top major leagues have had frequent franchise collapses and relocations in their early histories, but this has been much less common in the past several decades.
Unlike some other leagues in other countries which use a system of promotion and relegation
Promotion and relegation
In many sports leagues around the world, promotion and relegation is a process that takes place at the end of each season. Through it, teams are transferred between divisions based on their performance that season...
, franchises in these leagues are stable, and do not change annually. Instead, teams with worse records may receive better draft picks
Draft (sports)
A draft is a process used in the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, Russia and the Philippines to allocate certain players to sports teams. In a draft, teams take turns selecting from a pool of eligible players...
for the following year's season, as to ensure a level of parity.
With the folding of franchises now a rare occurrence, the numbers of teams in these leagues only change through expansion
Expansion team
An expansion team is a brand new team in a sports league. The term is most commonly used in reference to the North American major professional sports leagues, but is applied to sports leagues worldwide that use a closed franchise system of league membership. The term comes from the expansion of the...
. The most recent expansion occurred in 2004, when the NBA added the Charlotte Bobcats
Charlotte Bobcats
The Charlotte Bobcats is a professional basketball team based in Charlotte, North Carolina. They play in the Southeast Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Basketball Association. The Bobcats were established in 2004 as an expansion team, two seasons after Charlotte's previous NBA...
. The most recent expansion in the NFL was 2002; in the NHL, 2000, and in MLB, 1998. Recent expansion franchises have commanded huge entry fees, which are generally held to represent the price the new team must pay to gain its share of the existing teams' often guaranteed revenue streams. The Houston Texans paid an unprecedented $
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
700 million to join the NFL. By comparison, the Charlotte Bobcats paid $300 million to join the NBA. The Diamondbacks and Devil Rays paid $130 million each to join MLB while the Blue Jackets and Wild paid $80 million each to join the NHL.
The CFL and MLS also have a relatively high degree of stability, although not as much as the other four leagues. MLS has only once folded a franchise, when it contracted the Miami Fusion
Miami Fusion
Miami Fusion F.C. was a professional soccer club located in Fort Lauderdale, Florida that participated in Major League Soccer from 1998 to 2001. The club played in Lockhart Stadium, which was a former high school stadium converted into a soccer-specific stadium...
and Tampa Bay Mutiny
Tampa Bay Mutiny
The Tampa Bay Mutiny was a charter franchise of Major League Soccer active from 1996 - 2001. They initially played in Tampa Stadium and were immediately successful, winning the first MLS Supporters' Shield behind MLS MVP Carlos Valderrama and high-scoring forward Roy Lassiter, whose 27 goals in...
concurrently in 2001. MLS has had one franchise suspend operations, the San Jose Earthquakes
San Jose Earthquakes
The San Jose Earthquakes professional soccer team is located in the San Jose, California, United States suburb of Santa Clara, and participates in Major League Soccer , the top level soccer league in the United States and Canada....
, when the Houston Dynamo
Houston Dynamo
The Houston Dynamo is an American professional soccer club, based in Houston, Texas, that plays in Major League Soccer, the top professional soccer league in the United States and Canada. Founded in 2005 as Houston 1836, the team name was renamed to Houston Dynamo following protests from Hispanic...
joined the league in 2005; the Earthquakes returned in 2008. The CFL has never relocated any of its core Canadian teams, and apart from a largely failed expansion into the United States
CFL USA
The term CFL USA refers to the abortive expansion of the Canadian Football League into the United States in the early-to-mid 1990s. The 1993 CFL season saw the addition of the first American team to the league, the Sacramento Gold Miners...
, two teams in the CFL's history have folded: the original Montreal Alouettes
Montreal Alouettes
The Montreal Alouettes are a Canadian Football League team based in Montreal, Quebec.The current franchise named the Alouettes moved to Montreal from Baltimore, Maryland, in 1996 where they had been known as the Baltimore Stallions...
in 1987 (said team was replaced by the Montreal Concordes franchise until the Alouettes were revived in 1996 when an American team
Baltimore Stallions
The Baltimore Stallions were a Canadian Football League team based in Baltimore, Maryland, which played the 1994 and 1995 seasons. They were the most successful American team in the Canadian Football League, having two winning seasons and a division title. In 1995 they became the only American team...
that had originally played in Baltimore moved to Montreal), and the Ottawa Rough Riders
Ottawa Rough Riders
The Ottawa Rough Riders were a Canadian Football League team based in Ottawa, Ontario, founded in 1876. One of the oldest and longest lived professional sports teams in North America, the Rough Riders won the Grey Cup championship nine times. Their most dominant era was the 1960s and 1970s, a...
in 1996. An attempted revival of an Ottawa franchise, the Ottawa Renegades
Ottawa Renegades
Ottawa Renegades was the most recent name of a Canadian Football League team based in Ottawa, Ontario founded in 2002, seven years after the storied Ottawa Rough Riders folded...
, suspended operations in 2005 and is set to return to play in 2013.
United States
Major leagues tend to have franchises only in the largest, most heavily-populated cities and market areas. Most teams are in metro areas having populations over two million — all but one metropolitan area (Las VegasLas Vegas, Nevada
Las Vegas is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and is also the county seat of Clark County, Nevada. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city for gambling, shopping, and fine dining. The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, and is famous...
) of this size or larger have at least one team. This typically means at least one franchise (and often two) per league in each of the New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, and Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
areas. There are two major exceptions: The NFL has not had a franchise in L.A. since 1995, and the Green Bay
Green Bay, Wisconsin
Green Bay is a city in and the county seat of Brown County in the U.S. state of Wisconsin, located at the head of Green Bay, a sub-basin of Lake Michigan, at the mouth of the Fox River. It has an elevation of above sea level and is located north of Milwaukee. As of the 2010 United States Census,...
Packers
Green Bay Packers
The Green Bay Packers are an American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. They are members of the North Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League . The Packers are the current NFL champions...
survive in major league sports' smallest metropolitan area (less than 300,000) thanks to a unique community ownership, and their proximity to the larger Milwaukee area, not to mention the loyalty of their fanbase
Cheesehead
Cheesehead is a nickname, sometimes used disparagingly, referring to a person from Wisconsin, referring to the large volume of cheese production of the state...
. The Packers are the last remaining link to the NFL's small-town Midwest roots. Many such teams existed in the NFL before 1934 in places like Decatur, Illinois
Decatur, Illinois
Decatur is the largest city and the county seat of Macon County in the U.S. state of Illinois. The city, sometimes called "the Soybean Capital of the World", was founded in 1823 and is located along the Sangamon River and Lake Decatur in Central Illinois. In 2000 the city population was 81,500,...
; Dayton, Ohio
Dayton, Ohio
Dayton is the 6th largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County, the fifth most populous county in the state. The population was 141,527 at the 2010 census. The Dayton Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 841,502 in the 2010 census...
; and Muncie, Indiana
Muncie, Indiana
Muncie is a city in Center Township, Delaware County in east central Indiana, best known as the home of Ball State University and the birthplace of the Ball Corporation. It is the principal city of the Muncie, Indiana, Metropolitan Statistical Area, which has a population of 118,769...
.
Professional sports leagues as known today evolved during the decades between the Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
and World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, when the railroad was the main means of intercity transportation. As a result, virtually all major league teams were concentrated in the northeastern quarter of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, within roughly the radius of a day-long train ride. No MLB teams existed south or west of St. Louis
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
, the NFL was confined to the Great Lakes
Great Lakes
The Great Lakes are a collection of freshwater lakes located in northeastern North America, on the Canada – United States border. Consisting of Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, they form the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth by total surface, coming in second by volume...
and the Northeast, and the NBA's 1946 launch spanned only from the Iowa-Illinois Quad Cities
Quad Cities
The Quad Cities is a group of five cities straddling the Mississippi River on the Iowa–Illinois boundary. These cities, Davenport and Bettendorf and Rock Island, Moline, and East Moline , are the center of the Quad Cities Metropolitan Area, which, as of 2010, had an estimated population of...
to Boston. The NHL remained confined to six cities in the Northeast, Great Lakes and eastern Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
until 1967
1967 NHL expansion
The National Hockey League undertook a major expansion for the 1967–68 season, adding six new franchises to double the size of the league. This marked the first change in the composition of the league since 1942, when the Brooklyn Americans folded. Thus, the expansion ended the era of the Original...
, though in the 1910s and 1920s, teams from its predecessor league had contested the Stanley Cup
Stanley Cup
The Stanley Cup is an ice hockey club trophy, awarded annually to the National Hockey League playoffs champion after the conclusion of the Stanley Cup Finals. It has been referred to as The Cup, Lord Stanley's Cup, The Holy Grail, or facetiously as Lord Stanley's Mug...
at season's end with teams from western Canada and the Pacific Northwest
Pacific Northwest
The Pacific Northwest is a region in northwestern North America, bounded by the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains on the east. Definitions of the region vary and there is no commonly agreed upon boundary, even among Pacific Northwesterners. A common concept of the...
. College, minor league
Minor league
Minor leagues are professional sports leagues which are not regarded as the premier leagues in those sports. Minor league teams tend to play in smaller, less elaborate venues, often competing in smaller cities. This term is used in North America with regard to several organizations competing in...
and amateur
Amateur
An amateur is generally considered a person attached to a particular pursuit, study, or science, without pay and often without formal training....
teams existed from coast to coast in all four sports, but rarely played outside of their home region for regular season games. Early professional soccer activity was concentrated almost entirely on an East Coast corridor from Baltimore to Boston, though a series of leagues located solely within the St. Louis metropolitan area also served as de facto major leagues for periods.
As travel and settlement patterns changed, so did the geography of professional sports. With the arguable exception of the western hockey teams which competed for the Stanley Cup in the early 20th century and the independent Los Angeles Bulldogs
Los Angeles Bulldogs
The Los Angeles Bulldogs were a professional American football team that competed from 1936 to 1948...
football team of the 1930s and 1940s, there were no major league teams in the far west until after World War II. The first west coast
West Coast of the United States
West Coast or Pacific Coast are terms for the westernmost coastal states of the United States. The term most often refers to the states of California, Oregon, and Washington. Although not part of the contiguous United States, Alaska and Hawaii do border the Pacific Ocean but can't be included in...
major-league franchise was the NFL's Los Angeles Rams
St. Louis Rams
The St. Louis Rams are a professional American football team based in St. Louis, Missouri. They are currently members of the West Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League . The Rams have won three NFL Championships .The Rams began playing in 1936 in Cleveland,...
, who moved from Cleveland
Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state. The city is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately west of the Pennsylvania border...
in 1946. The same year, the All-America Football Conference
All-America Football Conference
The All-America Football Conference was a professional American football league that challenged the established National Football League from 1946 to 1949. One of the NFL's most formidable challengers, the AAFC attracted many of the nation's best players, and introduced many lasting innovations...
began play, with teams in Los Angeles
Los Angeles Dons
The Los Angeles Dons were an American football team in the now defunct All-America Football Conference from 1946 to 1949 that played in the Los Angeles Coliseum....
and San Francisco
San Francisco 49ers
The San Francisco 49ers are a professional American football team based in San Francisco, California, playing in the West Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League . The team was founded in 1946 as a charter member of the All-America Football Conference and...
(not to mention the Miami Seahawks
Miami Seahawks
The Miami Seahawks were a professional American football team based in Miami, Florida. They played in the All-America Football Conference for one season, 1946, before folding...
, who became the only southern-based major league franchise, although Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...
had previously had short-lived baseball and football
Louisville (NFL)
Louisville, Kentucky had two professional American football teams in the National Football League: the Breckenridges from 1921 to 1923 and the Colonels in 1926. The NFL intended for the Brecks to be a traveling team, however the team played a series of "home" games...
teams). The San Francisco franchise would be one of three AAFC teams admitted to the NFL after the AAFC's demise in 1949. Baseball would not extend west until 1958 in the controversial move of both New York-based National League franchises, the Brooklyn Dodgers
Los Angeles Dodgers
The Los Angeles Dodgers are a professional baseball team based in Los Angeles, California. The Dodgers are members of Major League Baseball's National League West Division. Established in 1883, the team originated in Brooklyn, New York, where it was known by a number of nicknames before becoming...
and New York Giants
San Francisco Giants
The San Francisco Giants are a Major League Baseball team based in San Francisco, California, playing in the National League West Division....
. The NBA would follow in 1960 with the move of the Minneapolis Lakers
Los Angeles Lakers
The Los Angeles Lakers are an American professional basketball team based in Los Angeles, California. They play in the Pacific Division of the Western Conference in the National Basketball Association...
to Los Angeles, while the NHL would not have a west coast presence until it doubled in size
1967 NHL expansion
The National Hockey League undertook a major expansion for the 1967–68 season, adding six new franchises to double the size of the league. This marked the first change in the composition of the league since 1942, when the Brooklyn Americans folded. Thus, the expansion ended the era of the Original...
in 1967. With the exception of the Los Angeles Kings
Los Angeles Kings
The Los Angeles Kings are a professional ice hockey team based in Los Angeles, California. They are members of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference of the National Hockey League...
, the NHL's initial franchises in the Southern and Western United States were ultimately unsuccessful — teams in Oakland, Atlanta, Kansas City and Denver all relocated. From 1982 until 1991, the Kings were the only U.S.-based NHL franchise south of St. Louis and/or west of the Twin Cities.
Since then, as newer, fast-growing Sunbelt areas such as Phoenix
Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix is the capital, and largest city, of the U.S. state of Arizona, as well as the sixth most populated city in the United States. Phoenix is home to 1,445,632 people according to the official 2010 U.S. Census Bureau data...
, Tampa
Tampa, Florida
Tampa is a city in the U.S. state of Florida. It serves as the county seat for Hillsborough County. Tampa is located on the west coast of Florida. The population of Tampa in 2010 was 335,709....
, and Dallas became prominent, the major sports leagues expanded or franchises relocated (usually quite controversially) to service these communities. Most major areas are well-represented, with all but seven continental U.S. metropolitan agglomerations over one million people hosting at least one major sports franchise. As of 2006, the largest metropolitan area without a major professional sports franchise is California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
's Inland Empire
Inland Empire (California)
The Inland Empire is a region in Southern California. The region sits directly east of the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The Inland Empire most commonly is used in reference to the U.S. Census Bureau's federally-defined Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario metropolitan area, which covers more than...
, which is located immediately due east of Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
and constitutes part of the Los Angeles television market. The highest ranking teams in the area are the Ontario Reign
Ontario Reign
The Ontario Reign is a ice hockey team from Ontario, California that play in the ECHL. Their home arena is the Citizens Business Bank Arena. They are a minor league affiliate team of the Los Angeles Kings of the National Hockey League.-Team History:...
, an ECHL
ECHL
The ECHL is a mid-level professional ice hockey league based in Princeton, New Jersey with teams scattered across the United States...
team, and several baseball teams in the single-A California League
California League
The California League is a Class A Advanced minor league baseball league which operates throughout the state of California. Before 2002, it was classified as a "High-A" league, indicating its status as a Class A league with the highest level of competition within that classification, and the fifth...
.
Los Angeles, the second largest city in the United States and Canada, is the largest city which does not have a complete set of the "big four" major-league sports: it has lacked a football team since 1995. (The L.A. region has two teams each, however, in baseball, basketball and ice hockey. It is also the only city with two Major League Soccer
Major League Soccer
Major League Soccer is a professional soccer league based in the United States and sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation . The league is composed of 19 teams — 16 in the U.S. and 3 in Canada...
clubs and the largest city with one or more Division I FBS college football teams.) The smallest market with a complete set of "big four" sports is Denver, which ranks #18 amongst US and Canadian cities.
The most populous independent metropolitan area outside of a major franchise's local market is Las Vegas
Las Vegas, Nevada
Las Vegas is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and is also the county seat of Clark County, Nevada. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city for gambling, shopping, and fine dining. The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, and is famous...
. Despite the area's explosive growth before the economic crisis, all four leagues are wary of placing a team there due to the city's legal gambling industry, which includes sports betting
Sports betting
Sports betting is the activity of predicting sports results and placing a wager on the outcome.-United States of America:Aside from simple wagers such as betting a friend that one's favorite baseball team will win its division or buying a football "square" for the Super Bowl, sports betting is...
. In the U.S., for a professional sports organization to have any association, real or perceived, with gambling interests has been taboo
Taboo
A taboo is a strong social prohibition relating to any area of human activity or social custom that is sacred and or forbidden based on moral judgment, religious beliefs and or scientific consensus. Breaking the taboo is usually considered objectionable or abhorrent by society...
ever since the 1919
1919 World Series
The 1919 World Series matched the American League champion Chicago White Sox against the National League champion Cincinnati Reds. Although most World Series have been of the best-of-seven format, the 1919 World Series was a best-of-nine series...
Black Sox Scandal
Black Sox Scandal
The Black Sox Scandal took place around and during the play of the American baseball 1919 World Series. Eight members of the Chicago White Sox were banned for life from baseball for intentionally losing games, which allowed the Cincinnati Reds to win the World Series...
; this taboo was recently reinforced by the Tim Donaghy
Tim Donaghy
Tim Donaghy is a former professional basketball referee who worked in the National Basketball Association for 13 seasons, from 1994 to 2007. During his career in the NBA, Donaghy officiated in 772 regular season games and 20 playoff games...
scandal. All four leagues forbid their teams or personnel to have any type of contact or association with gambling interests and any connection between professional sports and gambling, no matter how benign, quickly gains the attention of law enforcement. Additionally, the city's abundance of entertainment options might make it difficult for a Las Vegas-based team to attract a large and stable fan base. The highest ranking teams in Las Vegas are the UFL's Las Vegas Locomotives
Las Vegas Locomotives
The Las Vegas Locomotives are a professional American football team based in Las Vegas, Nevada who play in the United Football League. The team plays its home games in Sam Boyd Stadium, home field for the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Jim Fassel is the franchise's head coach, president, and...
, the ECHL
ECHL
The ECHL is a mid-level professional ice hockey league based in Princeton, New Jersey with teams scattered across the United States...
's Las Vegas Wranglers
Las Vegas Wranglers
The Las Vegas Wranglers are a professional ice hockey team based in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Wranglers are members of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference of the ECHL...
, and the Las Vegas 51s
Las Vegas 51s
The Las Vegas 51s, formerly known as the Las Vegas Stars, are a minor league baseball team. They are the Triple-A affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays. They play at Cashman Field in Las Vegas, Nevada. The team competes in the Pacific Coast League...
, a AAA baseball team. Both the Arena Football League and Canadian Football League have placed franchises in the area that have failed, twice in the former league's case, while the Locomotives are on the verge of being relocated to Salt Lake City. The NBA hosted its 2007 All-Star Weekend
2007 NBA All-Star Game
The 2007 NBA All-Star Game was played on Sunday, February 18, 2007 at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas's Thomas and Mack Center in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States. It was the 56th annual All-Star Game. It was the first time the All-Star Game was played in a city without an NBA franchise and...
in Las Vegas, at which point both the league and the city expressed interest in locating a team there. However, NBA Commissioner David Stern
David Stern
David Joel Stern is the commissioner of the National Basketball Association. He started with the Association in 1966 as an outside counsel, joined the NBA in 1978 as General Counsel, and became the league's Executive Vice President in 1980. He became Commissioner in 1984 succeeding Larry O'Brien...
says the city will need a new arena larger and more modern than the Thomas & Mack Center
Thomas & Mack Center
The Thomas & Mack Center is an arena, located on the campus of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. For ring events, the capacity is 19,522, for basketball, the capacity is 18,776.-History:...
before it will even host another All-Star Weekend. While the event was initially regarded as successful and incident-free, media reports of criminal incidents (including two shootings related to the event, one of them involving NFL
National Football League
The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...
player Adam Jones
Adam Jones (American football)
Adam "Pac-Man" Bernard Jones is an American cornerback and return specialist who is currently playing for the Cincinnati Bengals. He was drafted in the first round with the sixth-overall pick in the 2005 NFL Draft by the Tennessee Titans. He played college football at West Virginia.Jones has also...
) that began to surface after the conclusion of the weekend may hurt the city's chances of gaining an NBA or any major league team. Las Vegas also hosts the NHL's annual Frozen Fury
Frozen Fury
Frozen Fury is an annual pre-season ice hockey game between the Los Angeles Kings and the Colorado Avalanche of the National Hockey League , held at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, first played in 1997. On two occasions, the Kings have faced different teams instead of the...
preseason game between the Los Angeles Kings
Los Angeles Kings
The Los Angeles Kings are a professional ice hockey team based in Los Angeles, California. They are members of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference of the National Hockey League...
and the Colorado Avalanche
Colorado Avalanche
The Colorado Avalanche are a professional ice hockey team based in Denver, Colorado, United States. They are members of the Northwest Division of the Western Conference of the National Hockey League . The Avalanche have won the Stanley Cup twice, in 1995–96 and 2000–01. The franchise...
.
The most populous individual city without a major professional sports franchise is Austin, Texas
Austin, Texas
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...
, which sits in the middle of a conglomeration of teams in other Texas cities such as Houston, San Antonio, and the Dallas–Fort Worth Metroplex
Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex
The Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington Metropolitan Statistical Area, a title designated by the U.S. Census as of 2003, encompasses 12 counties within the U.S. state of Texas. The area is divided into two metropolitan divisions: Dallas–Plano–Irving and Fort Worth–Arlington. Residents of the area...
. Austin's television market is currently the 51st largest in the United States, smaller than all major league cities except for Green Bay and smaller than the market for many cities with no major league team.
Other major metro areas without a major professional franchise are Norfolk, Virginia
Norfolk, Virginia
Norfolk is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. With a population of 242,803 as of the 2010 Census, it is Virginia's second-largest city behind neighboring Virginia Beach....
(the "Hampton Roads
Hampton Roads
Hampton Roads is the name for both a body of water and the Norfolk–Virginia Beach metropolitan area which surrounds it in southeastern Virginia, United States...
" metro area) and Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...
. Both boast television markets larger than those for Jacksonville, Buffalo, New Orleans and Green Bay, each of which has at least one major professional franchise.
Hampton Roads is nearly 200 miles (321.9 km) from the nearest major sports teams in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
and Raleigh, North Carolina
Raleigh, North Carolina
Raleigh is the capital and the second largest city in the state of North Carolina as well as the seat of Wake County. Raleigh is known as the "City of Oaks" for its many oak trees. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city's 2010 population was 403,892, over an area of , making Raleigh...
. Hampton Roads previously hosted a successful franchise
Virginia Squires
The Virginia Squires were a basketball franchise in the former American Basketball Association from 1970 until just before the ABA-NBA merger in 1976.-In Oakland :...
in the American Basketball Association
American Basketball Association
The American Basketball Association was a professional basketball league founded in 1967. The ABA ceased to exist with the ABA–NBA merger in 1976.-League history:...
. Its highest ranking teams as of 2011 are the Virginia Destroyers of the UFL, the Norfolk Admirals
Norfolk Admirals
The Norfolk Admirals are a minor professional ice hockey team in the American Hockey League, and are affiliated with the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Admirals play in Norfolk, Virginia, at the Norfolk Scope.-History:...
of the AHL
American Hockey League
The American Hockey League is a 30-team professional ice hockey league based in the United States and Canada that serves as the primary developmental circuit for the National Hockey League...
, and the Norfolk Tides
Norfolk Tides
The Norfolk Tides are a minor league baseball team in the Triple-A International League. They play at Harbor Park in Norfolk, Virginia. Since 2007 they have been a farm team of the Baltimore Orioles; prior to that, they had a 38-year affiliation with the New York Mets.-Franchise history:The...
of the IL
International League
The International League is a minor league baseball league that operates in the eastern United States. Like the Pacific Coast League and the Mexican League, it plays at the Triple-A level, which is one step below Major League Baseball. It was so named because it had teams in both the United States...
. Virginia is also the most populous state without a major team playing within its borders, though its northern reaches are served by the Washington clubs—two of which, the NHL's Capitals
Washington Capitals
The Washington Capitals are a professional ice hockey team based in Washington, D.C. They are members of the Southeast Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League . Since their founding in 1974, "The Caps" have won one conference championship to reach the 1998 Stanley Cup...
and NFL's Redskins
Washington Redskins
The Washington Redskins are a professional American football team and members of the East Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League . The team plays at FedExField in Landover, Maryland, while its headquarters and training facility are at Redskin Park in Ashburn,...
, have their operational headquarters and practice facilities in Virginia; the Redskins also own two radio stations—WXTG
WXTG (AM)
WXTG is a Sports Radio formatted broadcast radio station licensed to Hampton, Virginia, serving the Peninsula of Hampton Roads. WXTG is owned and operated by Red Zebra Broadcasting....
and WXTG-FM
WXTG-FM
WXTG-FM is a Sports Radio formatted broadcast radio station licensed to Virginia Beach, Virginia, serving the Southside of Hampton Roads. WXTG-FM is owned and operated by Red Zebra Broadcasting.-History:...
—in the Norfolk market. The Hampton Roads television market is ranked 42nd in the U.S.
Louisville hosted major league baseball and NFL teams long ago, and was home to the successful Kentucky Colonels
Kentucky Colonels
The Kentucky Colonels were a member of the American Basketball Association for all of the league's nine years. The name is derived from the historic Kentucky colonels. The Colonels won the most games and had the highest winning percentage of any franchise in the league's history, but the team did...
of the ABA, a team kept out of the 1976 merger of that league with the NBA. Louisville's television market is the 48th largest in the United States. Louisville is also considerably closer to larger markets than Hampton Roads is—Louisville is about 120 miles (193.1 km) from Indianapolis
Indianapolis
Indianapolis is the capital of the U.S. state of Indiana, and the county seat of Marion County, Indiana. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city's population is 839,489. It is by far Indiana's largest city and, as of the 2010 U.S...
(#28) and 90 miles (144.8 km) from Cincinnati (#25), and Nashville
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
(#36) is also within 200 miles. Compared to Las Vegas and Norfolk, Louisville has much less representation in minor professional sport; only the AAA Louisville Bats
Louisville Bats
The Louisville Bats, which play in Louisville, Kentucky, are the AAA minor league baseball affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds. The team, formerly known as the Louisville RiverBats, plays in the International League...
and some marginally professional low-level teams reside in Louisville. While Louisville itself has economics roughly typical for moderately large U.S. metropolitan areas, and a substantial corporate sector, the same cannot be said for large portions of its state of Kentucky. More than 50 of the state's 120 counties lie within the U.S. federal
Appalachian Regional Commission
The Appalachian Regional Commission is a United States federal-state partnership that works with the people of Appalachia to create opportunities for self-sustaining economic development and improved quality of life...
definition of historically impoverished Appalachia
Appalachia
Appalachia is a term used to describe a cultural region in the eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York state to northern Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Canada to Cheaha Mountain in the U.S...
. This makes revenue generation more difficult than in more wealthy regions of the country.
Another interesting case is El Paso–Juárez
El Paso–Juárez
El Paso–Juárez, also known as Juárez-El Paso, the Borderplex or Paso del Norte, is a binational metropolitan area, or conurbation, on the border between Mexico and the United States. The region is centered on two large cities: Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico and El Paso, Texas, USA...
. With its metro area population of well over two million, it is easily larger than several major league markets. However, over half its inhabitants live on the Mexican
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
side of the historically contentious international border that splits it. This is not necessarily an issue on the Canadian border, as Detroit-Windsor and the Buffalo Niagara Region
Buffalo Niagara Region
The Buffalo Niagara Region is a part of the Great Lakes region of North America, comprising most of Western New York in the United States and the Niagara Peninsula in Ontario, Canada...
megalopoli have a more symbiotic cross-border relationship. This is part of the reason Buffalo, one of the smallest major league markets in the United States, still is able to support two major league teams.
Canada
The NHL has been the dominant professional sports league in CanadaCanada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, and was first established in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
in 1917. Some US-based leagues, like MLB and the NBA, have awarded franchises to Canada, though outside of franchises in Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
(a media market comparable in size to the ten largest in the US), most have been unsuccessful.
The National Hockey League
National Hockey League
The National Hockey League is an unincorporated not-for-profit association which operates a major professional ice hockey league of 30 franchised member clubs, of which 7 are currently located in Canada and 23 in the United States...
was established in 1917 in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
with four hockey clubs in three Canadian cities (Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
, Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
and Ottawa
Ottawa
Ottawa is the capital of Canada, the second largest city in the Province of Ontario, and the fourth largest city in the country. The city is located on the south bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario...
). The first American club, based in Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
, joined the league in 1924, but American hockey clubs had existed before the NHL expanded into the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. The first US-based club to compete for the Stanley Cup was the Portland Rosebuds
Portland Rosebuds
Portland Rosebuds is the name of at least three professional teams based in Portland, Oregon during the first half of the 20th century. Two were professional men's ice hockey teams playing their home games at the Portland Ice Arena, one from 1914 to 1918 and another in 1925-6...
of the Pacific Coast Hockey League
Pacific Coast Hockey League
The Pacific Coast Hockey League was an ice hockey minor league with teams in the western United States and western Canada that existed in several incarnations: from 1928 to 1931, from 1936 to 1941, and from 1944 to 1952.-PCHL 1928-1931:...
, who lost the 1916 series to the Montreal Canadiens
Montreal Canadiens
The Montreal Canadiens are a professional ice hockey team based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. They are members of the Northeast Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League . The club is officially known as ...
(then of the National Hockey Association
National Hockey Association
The National Hockey Association was a professional ice hockey organization with teams in Ontario and Quebec, Canada. It is the direct predecessor organization to today's National Hockey League...
). The next year, the PCHA's Seattle Metropolitans
Seattle Metropolitans
The Seattle Metropolitans were a professional ice hockey team based in Seattle, Washington which played in the Pacific Coast Hockey Association from 1915 to 1924. They won the Stanley Cup in 1917, becoming the first American team to do so...
took the Cup away from the Canadiens. The Boston Bruins
Boston Bruins
The Boston Bruins are a professional ice hockey team based in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. They are members of the Northeast Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League . The team has been in existence since 1924, and is the league's third-oldest team and its oldest in the...
are the oldest US-based franchise in the NHL, having played in the league since 1924.
When the WHA and NHL merged, the NHL inherited teams in three Canadian metro areas that were under one million in population at the time, Edmonton
Edmonton
Edmonton is the capital of the Canadian province of Alberta and is the province's second-largest city. Edmonton is located on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Capital Region, which is surrounded by the central region of the province.The city and its census...
, Winnipeg
Winnipeg
Winnipeg is the capital and largest city of Manitoba, Canada, and is the primary municipality of the Winnipeg Capital Region, with more than half of Manitoba's population. It is located near the longitudinal centre of North America, at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers .The name...
and Quebec City
Quebec City
Quebec , also Québec, Quebec City or Québec City is the capital of the Canadian province of Quebec and is located within the Capitale-Nationale region. It is the second most populous city in Quebec after Montreal, which is about to the southwest...
. The NHL later added teams in Calgary
Calgary
Calgary is a city in the Province of Alberta, Canada. It is located in the south of the province, in an area of foothills and prairie, approximately east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies...
(via relocation from Atlanta) and Ottawa
Ottawa
Ottawa is the capital of Canada, the second largest city in the Province of Ontario, and the fourth largest city in the country. The city is located on the south bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario...
(via expansion), to go with pre-existing teams in Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
, Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
and Vancouver
Vancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
. The distinctive place hockey
Ice hockey
Ice hockey, often referred to as hockey, is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent's net. The game is played between two teams of six players each. Five members of each team skate up and down the ice trying to take...
holds in Canadian culture allowed these franchises to compete with teams in larger cities for some time. However, the teams in Winnipeg and Quebec City
Quebec Nordiques
The Quebec Nordiques were a professional ice hockey team based in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. The Nordiques played in the World Hockey Association and the National Hockey League...
were eventually moved to much larger media markets in the U.S., respectively Phoenix
Phoenix Coyotes
The Phoenix Coyotes are a professional ice hockey team based in Glendale, Arizona. They are members of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference of the National Hockey League . They play their home games at Jobing.com Arena....
and Denver
Colorado Avalanche
The Colorado Avalanche are a professional ice hockey team based in Denver, Colorado, United States. They are members of the Northwest Division of the Western Conference of the National Hockey League . The Avalanche have won the Stanley Cup twice, in 1995–96 and 2000–01. The franchise...
. The three remaining small-market Canadian teams (Calgary, Edmonton, and Ottawa) have survived largely because their markets are growing rapidly; all three metro areas in question are now over one million in population and are thus comparable in size to some of the smaller American metro areas with teams in other leagues such as Salt Lake City, Jacksonville
Jacksonville, Florida
Jacksonville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Florida in terms of both population and land area, and the largest city by area in the contiguous United States. It is the county seat of Duval County, with which the city government consolidated in 1968...
, and Memphis
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....
. Calgary and Edmonton's positions were also greatly aided by the growth of the oil economy in Alberta in the mid-2000s. Still more recently, the NHL's Canadian teams have benefited greatly from the rise of the Canadian dollar
Canadian dollar
The Canadian dollar is the currency of Canada. As of 2007, the Canadian dollar is the 7th most traded currency in the world. It is abbreviated with the dollar sign $, or C$ to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies...
to parity with its U.S. counterpart
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
. As a result, the NHL returned to Winnipeg for the 2011–12 season, with the Atlanta Thrashers
Atlanta Thrashers
The Atlanta Thrashers were a professional ice hockey team based in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Atlanta was granted a franchise in the National Hockey League on June 25, 1997, and became the league's 28th franchise when it began play in the 1999–2000 NHL season...
relocating to become the newest version of the Winnipeg Jets
Winnipeg Jets
The Winnipeg Jets were a professional ice hockey team based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. They began play in the World Hockey Association in 1972, moving to the National Hockey League in 1979 following the collapse of the WHA...
.
The first Major League Baseball team in Canada was the Montreal Expos
Montreal Expos
The Montreal Expos were a Major League Baseball team located in Montreal, Quebec from 1969 through 2004, holding the first MLB franchise awarded outside the United States. After the 2004 season, MLB moved the Expos to Washington, D.C. and renamed them the Nationals.Named after the Expo 67 World's...
who began play in 1969. In 2005, they moved to Washington D.C. and became the Washington Nationals
Washington Nationals
The Washington Nationals are a professional baseball team based in Washington, D.C. The Nationals are a member of the Eastern Division of the National League of Major League Baseball . The team moved into the newly built Nationals Park in 2008, after playing their first three seasons in RFK Stadium...
. The Toronto Blue Jays
Toronto Blue Jays
The Toronto Blue Jays are a professional baseball team located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The Blue Jays are a member of the Eastern Division of Major League Baseball 's American League ....
, who began play in 1977, became the first team outside the United States to win the World Series in 1992 and 1993.
The Toronto Huskies
Toronto Huskies
The Toronto Huskies were a team in the Basketball Association of America during the 1946–47 season, based in Toronto, Ontario...
were a charter member of what is now known as the NBA, but they only lasted from 1946 to 1947. The NBA returned to Toronto in 1995 when the Raptors
Toronto Raptors
The Toronto Raptors are a professional basketball team based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. They are part of the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference in the National Basketball Association . The team was established in 1995, along with the Vancouver Grizzlies, as part of the NBA's re-expansion...
joined the league. That same year, the Vancouver Grizzlies
Memphis Grizzlies
The Memphis Grizzlies are a professional basketball team based in Memphis, Tennessee, USA. The team is part of the Southwest Division of the Western Conference in the National Basketball Association . Along with the Toronto Raptors, the Grizzlies were established in 1995 as part of the NBA's...
began play, but moved to Memphis
Vancouver Grizzlies relocation to Memphis
The Vancouver Grizzlies relocation to Memphis was a successful effort by the ownership group of the Vancouver Grizzlies to move the team from the Canadian city of Vancouver, British Columbia, to the US city of Memphis, Tennessee. The team began play as the Memphis Grizzlies in the 2001–02 season...
in 2001.
The NFL has a working agreement with the Canadian Football League
Canadian Football League
The Canadian Football League or CFL is a professional sports league located in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football, a form of gridiron football closely related to American football....
(CFL) which is second in popularity only to the NHL in that country. In the 1950s and 1960s, selected NFL teams would travel north to Canada to play a CFL team in pre-season "American Bowl" games. In 2008 the Buffalo Bills
Buffalo Bills
The Buffalo Bills are a professional football team based in Buffalo, New York. They are currently members of the East Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...
began playing one regular-season game each year
Bills Toronto Series
The Bills Toronto Series is a five-year deal consisting of a series of National Football League games featuring the Buffalo Bills played at the Rogers Centre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The series began in the 2008 NFL season and will end during the 2012 NFL season...
in Toronto. Toronto is about 90 miles (145 km) from Buffalo
Buffalo, New York
Buffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...
and is considered by both the Bills and the NFL as a part of the team's market. The Bills currently draw about 15,000 Canadian fans per game, and the Bills' ownership sees Toronto's corporate market as key to securing the franchise's future, as the Bills have effectively maxed out their revenue potential in the economically struggling Buffalo area
Buffalo-Niagara Falls metropolitan area
The Buffalo-Niagara Falls Metropolitan Statistical Area is a metropolitan area, designated by the United States Census Bureau, encompassing two counties – Erie and Niagara – in Western New York, with a population, as of the 2010 census, of 1,135,509 inhabitants...
. In order to minimize any perceived conflict with the CFL, the first two regular-season games under the contract were played after that league's season-ending Grey Cup
Grey Cup
The Grey Cup is both the name of the championship of the Canadian Football League and the name of the trophy awarded to the victorious team. It is Canada's largest annual sports and television event, regularly drawing a Canadian viewing audience of about 3 to 4 million individuals...
, and the 2011 game was scheduled both on a day that neither CFL team in Southern Ontario was playing and a weekend in which both teams played away games. The 2010 game was played on the last day of the CFL regular season, with the Bills playing in Toronto at 1:00 pm local time
Eastern Time Zone
The Eastern Time Zone of the United States and Canada is a time zone that falls mostly along the east coast of North America. Its UTC time offset is −5 hrs during standard time and −4 hrs during daylight saving time...
and the CFL Toronto Argonauts
Toronto Argonauts
The Toronto Argonauts are a professional Canadian football team competing in the East Division of the Canadian Football League. The Toronto, Ontario based team was founded in 1873 and is one of the oldest existing professional sports teams in North America, after the Chicago Cubs and the Atlanta...
playing in Montreal
Montreal Alouettes
The Montreal Alouettes are a Canadian Football League team based in Montreal, Quebec.The current franchise named the Alouettes moved to Montreal from Baltimore, Maryland, in 1996 where they had been known as the Baltimore Stallions...
at 4:00 pm, while the Hamilton Tiger-Cats
Hamilton Tiger-Cats
The Hamilton Tiger-Cats are a Canadian Football League team based in Hamilton, Ontario, founded in 1950 with the merger of the Hamilton Tigers and the Hamilton Wildcats. The Tiger-Cats play their home games at Ivor Wynne Stadium...
had played their scheduled home game the previous day.
Ownership restrictions
All four major leagues have strict rules regarding who may own a team, and also place some restrictions on what other sort of activities the owners may engage in. To prevent the perception of being in a conflict of interestConflict of interest
A conflict of interest occurs when an individual or organization is involved in multiple interests, one of which could possibly corrupt the motivation for an act in the other....
, the major leagues generally do not allow anyone to own a stake in more than one franchise, a rule adopted after several high-profile controversies involving ownership of multiple baseball teams
Cleveland Spiders
The Cleveland Spiders were a Major League Baseball team which played between 1887 and 1899 in Cleveland, Ohio. The team played at National League Park from 1889 to 1890 and at League Park from 1891 to 1899.- 1887-1891 :...
in the 1890s. Notably, Major League Soccer
Major League Soccer
Major League Soccer is a professional soccer league based in the United States and sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation . The league is composed of 19 teams — 16 in the U.S. and 3 in Canada...
has been unable to adopt this sort of league structure — it operates as a single entity league and for the sake of stability has been forced to allow soccer enthusiasts such as the late Lamar Hunt
Lamar Hunt
Lamar Hunt was an American sportsman and promoter of American football, soccer, basketball, and ice hockey in the United States and an inductee into three sports' halls of fame. He was one of the founders of the American Football League and Major League Soccer , as well as MLS predecessor the...
to own multiple teams at least for now (see below). However, there have been four recent exceptions to this rule in the major leagues:
- After being blocked in their bid to eliminate or "contract" two franchises in 2001, Major League Baseball purchased the Montreal ExposMontreal ExposThe Montreal Expos were a Major League Baseball team located in Montreal, Quebec from 1969 through 2004, holding the first MLB franchise awarded outside the United States. After the 2004 season, MLB moved the Expos to Washington, D.C. and renamed them the Nationals.Named after the Expo 67 World's...
from its owners. Under the league's control, the franchise was moved to Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
and renamed the NationalsWashington NationalsThe Washington Nationals are a professional baseball team based in Washington, D.C. The Nationals are a member of the Eastern Division of the National League of Major League Baseball . The team moved into the newly built Nationals Park in 2008, after playing their first three seasons in RFK Stadium...
before being sold to a local group led by Theodore N. Lerner. - The NHLNational Hockey LeagueThe National Hockey League is an unincorporated not-for-profit association which operates a major professional ice hockey league of 30 franchised member clubs, of which 7 are currently located in Canada and 23 in the United States...
purchased the Phoenix CoyotesPhoenix CoyotesThe Phoenix Coyotes are a professional ice hockey team based in Glendale, Arizona. They are members of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference of the National Hockey League . They play their home games at Jobing.com Arena....
from former owner Jerry MoyesJerry MoyesJerry Moyes is the founder, chairman and CEO of Phoenix-based Swift Transportation, one of the largest trucking companies in the nation. Moyes is also owner of charter airline Swift Air. He was a majority owner of the Phoenix Coyotes of the National Hockey League before the Coyotes filed...
in 2009, following a declaration of bankruptcy by the latter and a legal proceeding in the face of a competing bid by Research In MotionResearch In MotionResearch In Motion Limited or RIM is a Canadian multinational telecommunications company headquartered in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada that designs, manufactures and markets wireless solutions for the worldwide mobile communications market...
co-CEO Jim BalsillieJim BalsillieJames Laurence "Jim" Balsillie is a Canadian businessman and co-CEO of the Canadian company Research In Motion. He is a member of the Trilateral Commission, a private political organization...
, who would have attempted to relocate the franchise to Hamilton, OntarioHamilton, OntarioHamilton is a port city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Conceived by George Hamilton when he purchased the Durand farm shortly after the War of 1812, Hamilton has become the centre of a densely populated and industrialized region at the west end of Lake Ontario known as the Golden Horseshoe...
. - In December 2010, the NBANational Basketball AssociationThe National Basketball Association is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in North America. It consists of thirty franchised member clubs, of which twenty-nine are located in the United States and one in Canada...
purchased the New Orleans Hornets from founding owner George ShinnGeorge ShinnGeorge Shinn is the former owner of the Charlotte/New Orleans Hornets as well the Charlotte Knights and Gastonia Rangers minor league baseball teams along with the Raleigh/Durham Skyhawks of the World League of American Football. He purchased the Hornets for $32,500,000 in 1987...
. Shinn had announced plans to sell his majority stake in the team to minority partner and local businessman Gary Chouest in April 2010, but the deal fell through by early December. The league took the step of purchasing the team because it believed that the cash-strapped Shinn could no longer afford to operate the team but could not find a buyer. The NBA plans to remain in control until a buyer can be found. - In Aprll 2011, MLB took over the day-to-day operations of the Los Angeles DodgersLos Angeles DodgersThe Los Angeles Dodgers are a professional baseball team based in Los Angeles, California. The Dodgers are members of Major League Baseball's National League West Division. Established in 1883, the team originated in Brooklyn, New York, where it was known by a number of nicknames before becoming...
, with CommissionerCommissioner of BaseballThe Commissioner of Baseball is the chief executive of Major League Baseball and its associated minor leagues. Under the direction of the Commissioner, the Office of the Commissioner of Baseball hires and maintains the sport's umpiring crews, and negotiates marketing, labor, and television contracts...
Bud SeligBud SeligAllan Huber "Bud" Selig is the ninth and current Commissioner of Major League Baseball, having served in that capacity since 1992 as the acting commissioner, and as the official commissioner since 1998...
citing financial and governance issues stemming from the bitter divorce of owners FrankFrank McCourt (executive)Frank McCourt is the owner and chairman of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Dodger Stadium in Chavez Ravine. In , he purchased a controlling interest of the Dodgers from Fox Entertainment Group, owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation...
and Jamie McCourtJamie McCourtJamie McCourt is the former CEO of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team-Early life:Jamie McCourt was born in Baltimore, Maryland, to Jewish parents. Her father, Jack Luskin, ran the Luskin's chain of appliance stores in Maryland. As a 17-year-old freshman at Georgetown University, she met...
. Although not mentioned in Selig's official statement, one unnamed source indicated that Selig was considering forcing a sale of the team. After the divorce was settled, Frank McCourt agreed in November 2011 to sell the Dodgers.
Many major professional sports leagues generally forbid religious groups
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
, government
Government
Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...
s (usually they are some cases where government entities can own a team, usually county level), and non-profit organizations owning a team.
All of the top four major leagues grant some sort of territorial exclusivity to their owners, precluding the addition of another team in the same area unless the current team's owners consent, which is generally obtained in exchange for compensation and/or residual rights regarding the new franchise. For example, to obtain the consent of Baltimore Orioles
Baltimore Orioles
The Baltimore Orioles are a professional baseball team based in Baltimore, Maryland in the United States. They are a member of the Eastern Division of Major League Baseball's American League. One of the American League's eight charter franchises in 1901, it spent its first year as a major league...
owner Peter Angelos
Peter Angelos
Peter G. Angelos , is an American trial lawyer.Angelos is also the majority owner of the Baltimore Orioles, a baseball team in the American League East Division.-Career:...
to place an MLB team in Washington (which is about 35 miles (56.3 km) from Oriole Park at Camden Yards
Oriole Park at Camden Yards
Oriole Park at Camden Yards is a Major League Baseball ballpark located in Baltimore, Maryland. Home field of the Baltimore Orioles, it is the first of the "retro" major league ballparks constructed during the 1990s and early 2000s, and remains one of the most highly praised. The park was...
), a deal was struck under the terms of which television and radio broadcast rights to Nationals games are handled by the Orioles franchise, who formed a new network (the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network
Mid-Atlantic Sports Network
Mid-Atlantic Sports Network is a regional sports network owned by two Major League Baseball franchises—the Baltimore Orioles and Washington Nationals -- and televises every available game of both teams, live and in high-definition...
) to produce and distribute the games for both franchises on local affiliates and cable/satellite systems. Similarly, the primary reason that the NHL will not expand into Hamilton is because the city's arena, Copps Coliseum
Copps Coliseum
Copps Coliseum is a sports and entertainment arena, on the corner of Bay Street North and York Boulevard, in Hamilton, Ontario. Depending on event, the Copps Coliseum has a capacity of up to 19,000.It is named after the former Hamilton mayor, Victor K...
, is within 50 miles of First Niagara Center, the home arena and headquarters of the Buffalo Sabres
Buffalo Sabres
The Buffalo Sabres are a professional ice hockey team based in Buffalo, New York. They are members of the Northeast Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League .-Founding and early success: 1970-71—1980-81:...
and is closer still to Air Canada Centre
Air Canada Centre
The Air Canada Centre is a multi-purpose indoor sporting arena located on Bay Street in Downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada.The arena is popularly known as the ACC or the Hangar ....
, where the Toronto Maple Leafs
Toronto Maple Leafs
The Toronto Maple Leafs are a professional ice hockey team based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. They are members of the Northeast Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League...
play.
Some major leagues, such as the NFL, have even stronger ownership restrictions. The NFL currently forbids large ownership groups or publicly-traded corporations from purchasing NFL teams. This policy allows the league office to deal with individual owners instead of boards of directors
Board of directors
A board of directors is a body of elected or appointed members who jointly oversee the activities of a company or organization. Other names include board of governors, board of managers, board of regents, board of trustees, and board of visitors...
, although the Packers' ownership group was grandfathered
Grandfather clause
Grandfather clause is a legal term used to describe a situation in which an old rule continues to apply to some existing situations, while a new rule will apply to all future situations. It is often used as a verb: to grandfather means to grant such an exemption...
into the current policy. The NFL also forbids its majority owners from owning any sports teams (except for soccer teams and Arena Football League
Arena Football League
The Arena Football League is the highest level of professional indoor American football in the United States. It is currently the second longest running professional football league in the United States, after the National Football League. It was founded in 1987 by Jim Foster...
teams) in other NFL cities, and prohibits owners from investing in casino
Casino
In modern English, a casino is a facility which houses and accommodates certain types of gambling activities. Casinos are most commonly built near or combined with hotels, restaurants, retail shopping, cruise ships or other tourist attractions...
s or being otherwise involved in gambling
Gambling
Gambling is the wagering of money or something of material value on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning additional money and/or material goods...
operations. (NFL owners may freely own soccer teams without league restrictions because Lamar Hunt won a court challenge stemming from his investment in the old North American Soccer League
North American Soccer League
North American Soccer League was a professional soccer league with teams in the United States and Canada that operated from 1968 to 1984.-History:...
. When he died in December 2006, he owned 2 teams in Major League Soccer
Major League Soccer
Major League Soccer is a professional soccer league based in the United States and sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation . The league is composed of 19 teams — 16 in the U.S. and 3 in Canada...
, FC Dallas
FC Dallas
FC Dallas is an American professional soccer club based in the Dallas suburb of Frisco, Texas which competes in Major League Soccer , the top professional soccer league in the United States of America and Canada...
and the Columbus Crew
Columbus Crew
The Columbus Crew is an American professional soccer club based in Columbus, Ohio which competes in Major League Soccer , the top professional soccer league in the United States and Canada...
, and he had only sold a third team, the Kansas City Wizards (now Sporting Kansas City), less than four months before.)
Regarding territorial rights, the main concern for many team owners has become television revenue although the possibility of reduced ticket sales remains a concern for some teams. Because the National Football League
National Football League
The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...
shares all of its television revenue equally, and most of its teams sell out their stadiums with little difficulty, some NFL owners are seen as being less reluctant to share their territories. For example, the return of the NFL to Baltimore
Baltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
in 1996 attracted no serious opposition from the Washington Redskins
Washington Redskins
The Washington Redskins are a professional American football team and members of the East Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League . The team plays at FedExField in Landover, Maryland, while its headquarters and training facility are at Redskin Park in Ashburn,...
organization.
Weathering challenges from rival leagues
All of the majors have bested at least one rival league formed with the intention of being just as "big" as the established league, often by signing away star players and by locating franchises in cities that were already part of the existing league. In many cases, the major leagues have absorbed the most successful franchises from its failing rival, or merged outright with it.- The National LeagueNational LeagueThe National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League , is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball, and the world's oldest extant professional team sports league. Founded on February 2, 1876, to replace the National Association of Professional...
withstood three early challenges in its first quarter century of existence. The American AssociationAmerican Association (19th century)The American Association was a Major League Baseball league that existed for 10 seasons from to . During that time, it challenged the National League for dominance of professional baseball...
began in 1882 in response to the NL leaving several lucrative markets vacant, the NL banning the sale of beerBeerBeer is the world's most widely consumed andprobably oldest alcoholic beverage; it is the third most popular drink overall, after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of sugars, mainly derived from malted cereal grains, most commonly malted barley and malted wheat...
at games and the NL's steep (at the time) spectator admittance fee of 50 cents. It was a viable competitor to the NL for most of its existence and its champion competed in an informal World SeriesWorld SeriesThe World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball, played between the American League and National League champions since 1903. The winner of the World Series championship is determined through a best-of-seven playoff and awarded the Commissioner's Trophy...
with the NL's champion for several years. Four of the AA's teams defected to the NL in its later years and it expired in 1891. Labor problems led to the formation of the Players LeaguePlayers LeagueThe Players' National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs, popularly known as the Players' League , was a short-lived but star-studded professional American baseball league of the 19th century...
for the 1890 season; it attracted a significant percentage of the existing high-caliber baseball talent and caused the NL and AA significant financial harm, but it lacked robust financial backing and folded after only one season. The minor Western LeagueWestern League (U.S. baseball)The Western League of Professional Baseball Clubs, simply called the Western League, was a minor league baseball league originally founded on February 11, 1885, and focused in the Midwest....
moved several franchises in NL cities and cities abandoned by the NL for the 1900 and 1901 seasons and renamed itself the American LeagueAmerican LeagueThe American League of Professional Baseball Clubs, or simply the American League , is one of two leagues that make up Major League Baseball in the United States and Canada. It developed from the Western League, a minor league based in the Great Lakes states, which eventually aspired to major...
in direct competition with the NL. The NL and AL made peace in 1903; the resulting agreement formed what today is known as Major League BaseballMajor League BaseballMajor League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...
. MLB withstood the challenge of the Federal LeagueFederal LeagueThe Federal League of Base Ball Clubs, known simply as the Federal League, was an American professional baseball league that operated as a "third major league", in competition with the established National and American Leagues, from to...
in 19141914 in sports-American football:College championship* College football national championship –Auburn Tigers, Army Black Knights, Illinois Fighting Illini and Texas Longhorns -Association football:England...
and prevented the Continental LeagueContinental LeagueThe Continental League was a proposed third major league for baseball, announced in 1959 and scheduled to begin play in the 1961 season...
from getting off the ground in the early 1960s by awarding franchises to some of the proposed CL cities. Before the end of World War IIWorld War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, the combination of a gentlemen's agreementGentlemen's agreementA gentlemen's agreement is an informal agreement between two or more parties. It may be written, oral, or simply understood as part of an unspoken agreement by convention or through mutually beneficial etiquette. The essence of a gentlemen's agreement is that it relies upon the honor of the parties...
and the restrictive policies of Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain LandisKenesaw Mountain LandisKenesaw Mountain Landis was an American jurist who served as a federal judge from 1905 to 1922 and as the first Commissioner of Baseball from 1920 until his death...
prevented African AmericanAfrican AmericanAfrican Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
players from playing Major League Baseball, and various Negro Leagues sprung up to showcase black players' talents. Although no official cross-league play took place, white and black players often faced off in post-season barnstormingBarnstorm (sports)Barnstorming in athletics refers to sports teams or individuals that travel to various locations, usually small towns, to stage exhibition matches....
tours where the Negro League players showed themselves to be MLB players' competitive equals. After Jackie RobinsonJackie RobinsonJack Roosevelt "Jackie" Robinson was the first black Major League Baseball player of the modern era. Robinson broke the baseball color line when he debuted with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947...
broke the major league color barrierBaseball color lineThe color line in American baseball excluded players of black African descent from Organized Baseball, or the major leagues and affiliated minor leagues, until Jackie Robinson signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers organization for the 1946 season...
in 1947, the influx of black stars into the major leagues drained the Negro Leagues of talent and eventually caused their collapse. - The NBA withstood the challenge of the American Basketball AssociationAmerican Basketball AssociationThe American Basketball Association was a professional basketball league founded in 1967. The ABA ceased to exist with the ABA–NBA merger in 1976.-League history:...
in the 1960s and 70s, absorbed four of its most successful franchises (Denver NuggetsDenver NuggetsThe Denver Nuggets are a professional basketball team based in Denver, Colorado. They play in the National Basketball Association . They were founded as the Denver Rockets in 1967 as a charter franchise of the American Basketball Association, and became one of that league's more successful teams...
, Indiana PacersIndiana PacersThe Indiana Pacers are a professional basketball team based in Indianapolis, Indiana. They are members of the Central Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Basketball Association...
, New York NetsNew Jersey NetsThe New Jersey Nets are a professional basketball team based in Newark, New Jersey. They are members of the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference in the National Basketball Association...
and San Antonio SpursSan Antonio SpursThe San Antonio Spurs are an American professional basketball team based in San Antonio, Texas. They are part of the Southwest Division of the Western Conference in the National Basketball Association ....
) in a 1976 merger, and adopted several of the ABA's rule variations, most notably the three-point shotThree-point field goalA three-point field goal is a field goal in a basketball game, made from beyond the three-point line, a designated arc radiating from the basket...
. - The NFL has fought off the most rivals throughout the years, and to this day faces a competing startup league every few years. Four (all unrelated) were named American Football League; the last of theseAmerican Football LeagueThe American Football League was a major American Professional Football league that operated from 1960 until 1969, when the established National Football League merged with it. The upstart AFL operated in direct competition with the more established NFL throughout its existence...
existed from 19601960 in sports1960 in sports describes the year's events in world sport.-Alpine skiing:* The men's Olympic Gold Medal:** Downhill: Jean Vuarnet, France** Slalom: Ernst Hinterseer, Austria** Giant Slalom: Roger Staub, Switzerland** The women's Olympic Gold Medal:...
-19701970 in sports1970 in sports describes the year's events in world sport.-Alpine skiing:* Alpine Skiing World Cup** Men's overall season champion – Karl Schranz, Austria** Women's overall season champion – Michèle Jacot, France-American football:...
, before merging with the NFL. In the AFL's last years, it achieved parity with the NFL: AFL teams won the last two of the four pre-merger Super BowlSuper BowlThe Super Bowl is the championship game of the National Football League , the highest level of professional American football in the United States, culminating a season that begins in the late summer of the previous calendar year. The Super Bowl uses Roman numerals to identify each game, rather...
games, and TV ratings and in-person attendance for the two leagues were about the same. Another strong rival to the NFL was the All-America Football ConferenceAll-America Football ConferenceThe All-America Football Conference was a professional American football league that challenged the established National Football League from 1946 to 1949. One of the NFL's most formidable challengers, the AAFC attracted many of the nation's best players, and introduced many lasting innovations...
of 19461946 in sports-American football:* All-America Football Conference begins play. Cleveland Browns win the championship by beating New York Yankees 14-9.* Chicago Bears win the NFL crown by defeating the New York Giants 24-14 in New York.-Association football:England...
-19491949 in sports-American football:* Cleveland Browns 21–7 San Francisco 49ers for the All-America Football Conference championship. After the 1949 season, the Browns, 49ers and original Baltimore Colts all joined the NFL for the 1950 season....
; three of their seven teams merged with the NFL for the 19501950 in sports-American football:* NFL Championship – Cleveland Browns win 30–28 over the Los Angeles Rams* Oklahoma Sooners – college football champions.* Coaches Poll established to rank top 20 American college football teams-Association football:...
season, and two of the three still exist in the NFL. Other rival football leagues have included the World Football LeagueWorld Football LeagueThe World Football League was a short-lived gridiron football league that played in 1974 and part of 1975. Although the league's proclaimed ambition was to bring American football onto a worldwide stage, the farthest the WFL reached was placing a team – the Hawaiians – in Honolulu, Hawaii. The...
of 19741974 in sports1974 in sports describes the year's events in world sport.-Alpine skiing:* Alpine Skiing World Cup** Men's overall season champion: Piero Gros, Italy** Women's overall season champion: Annemarie Pröll, Austria-American football:...
-19751975 in sports1975 in sports describes the year's events in world sport.-Alpine skiing:* Alpine Skiing World Cup** Men's overall season champion: Gustav Thöni, Italy** Women's overall season champion: Annemarie Pröll, Austria-American football:...
, the United States Football LeagueUnited States Football LeagueThe United States Football League was an American football league which was in active operation from 1983 to 1987. It played a spring/summer schedule in its first three seasons and a traditional autumn/winter schedule was set to commence before league operations ceased.The USFL was conceived in...
of 19821982 in sports1982 in sports describes the year's events in world sport.-Alpine skiing:* Alpine Skiing World Cup:** Men's overall season champion: Phil Mahre, United States** Women's overall season champion: Erika Hess, Switzerland-American football:...
-19851985 in sports1985 in sports describes the year's events in world sport.-Alpine skiing:* Alpine Skiing World Cup:** Men's overall season champion: Marc Girardelli, Luxembourg** Women's overall season champion: Michela Figini, Switzerland-American football:...
, the Canadian Football League'sCanadian Football LeagueThe Canadian Football League or CFL is a professional sports league located in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football, a form of gridiron football closely related to American football....
American franchisesCFL USAThe term CFL USA refers to the abortive expansion of the Canadian Football League into the United States in the early-to-mid 1990s. The 1993 CFL season saw the addition of the first American team to the league, the Sacramento Gold Miners...
of 19931993 CFL seasonThe 1993 Canadian Football League season is considered to be the 40th season in modern-day Canadian football, although it is officially the 36th Canadian Football League season.-CFL news in 1993:...
-19951995 CFL seasonThe 1995 Canadian Football League season is considered to be the 42nd season in modern-day Canadian football, although it is officially the 38th Canadian Football League season.-CFL News in 1995:...
, and the XFLXFLThe XFL was a professional American football league that played for one season in 2001. The league was founded by Vince McMahon, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of WWE...
of 20012001 in sports2001 in sports describes the year's events in world sport.-Alpine skiing:* Alpine Skiing World Cup** Men's overall season champion: Hermann Maier, Austria** Women's overall season champion: Janica Kostelić, Croatia-American football:...
. All told, 13 of the NFL's current 32 franchises were absorbed from a rival league — all 10 AFL franchises of the 1960s, the Cleveland BrownsCleveland BrownsThe Cleveland Browns are a professional football team based in Cleveland, Ohio. They are currently members of the North Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...
and San Francisco 49ersSan Francisco 49ersThe San Francisco 49ers are a professional American football team based in San Francisco, California, playing in the West Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League . The team was founded in 1946 as a charter member of the All-America Football Conference and...
from the AAFC, and the St. Louis RamsSt. Louis RamsThe St. Louis Rams are a professional American football team based in St. Louis, Missouri. They are currently members of the West Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League . The Rams have won three NFL Championships .The Rams began playing in 1936 in Cleveland,...
(originally based in Cleveland and later relocated to Los AngelesLos ÁngelesLos Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
) of the 1936 AFL (the NFL, however, does not officially recognize the link between the AFL Cleveland Rams and today's franchise). Another three NFL franchises have been added or moved to USFL cities since the USFL's demise in 1986, these being PhoenixArizona CardinalsThe Arizona Cardinals are a professional American football team based in Glendale, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix. They are currently members of the Western Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League...
, JacksonvilleJacksonville JaguarsThe Jacksonville Jaguars are a professional American football team based in Jacksonville, Florida, U.S. They are currently members of the South Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...
and BaltimoreBaltimore RavensThe Baltimore Ravens are a professional football franchise based in Baltimore, Maryland.The Baltimore Ravens are officially a quasi-expansion franchise, having originated in 1995 with the Cleveland Browns relocation controversy after Art Modell, then owner of the Cleveland Browns, announced his...
. - Prior to the challenge of the World Hockey AssociationWorld Hockey AssociationThe World Hockey Association was a professional ice hockey league that operated in North America from 1972 to 1979. It was the first major competition for the National Hockey League since the collapse of the Western Hockey League in 1926...
, the NHL prevented the old Western Hockey LeagueWestern Hockey League (minor pro)The Western Hockey League was a minor pro ice hockey league that operated from 1952 to 1974. Managed for most of its history by Hockey Hall of Fame member Al Leader, it was created out of the merger of the Pacific Coast Hockey League and the Western Canada Senior Hockey League...
from achieving parity with the NHL by doubling in size1967 NHL expansionThe National Hockey League undertook a major expansion for the 1967–68 season, adding six new franchises to double the size of the league. This marked the first change in the composition of the league since 1942, when the Brooklyn Americans folded. Thus, the expansion ended the era of the Original...
in 1967. During its existence from 1972 to 1979, the WHA was able to strongly challenge the dominance of the NHL; the WHA initially attracted star players such as Bobby HullBobby HullRobert Marvin "Bobby" Hull, OC is a former Canadian ice hockey player. He is regarded as one of the greatest ice hockey players of all time and perhaps the greatest left winger to ever play the game. Hull was famous for his blonde hair, blinding skating speed, and having the hardest shot, earning...
and Derek SandersonDerek SandersonDerek Michael Sanderson, nicknamed "Turk", , is a former Canadian professional ice hockey centre who is now a bank executive and restaurateur....
to its teams by offering substantially higher salaries than did the NHL at the time. To compete for free agents, NHL teams were forced to match this salary escalation, bringing hockey players' salaries to parity with those of other American/Canadian professional athletes. Unfortunately, many WHA franchises were mired in financial difficulty, due to high player salaries, and there were frequent franchise moves even in mid-season. With the WHA faced with collapse, NHL President John ZieglerJohn Ziegler (sports administrator)John A. Ziegler, Jr was the fourth president of the National Hockey League.In 1977, Ziegler became the fourth president of the NHL, succeeding Clarence Campbell...
negotiated a merger of the leagues. The four strongest teams joined into the NHL: the Edmonton OilersEdmonton OilersThe Edmonton Oilers are a professional ice hockey team based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. They are members of the Northwest Division in the Western Conference of the National Hockey League ....
, the Quebec NordiquesQuebec NordiquesThe Quebec Nordiques were a professional ice hockey team based in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. The Nordiques played in the World Hockey Association and the National Hockey League...
(now the Colorado AvalancheColorado AvalancheThe Colorado Avalanche are a professional ice hockey team based in Denver, Colorado, United States. They are members of the Northwest Division of the Western Conference of the National Hockey League . The Avalanche have won the Stanley Cup twice, in 1995–96 and 2000–01. The franchise...
), the New England Whalers (later renamed the Hartford WhalersHartford WhalersThe Hartford Whalers were a professional ice hockey team based for most of its existence in Hartford, Connecticut, U.S.A.. The club played in the World Hockey Association from 1972–79 and in the National Hockey League from 1979–97...
and now the Carolina HurricanesCarolina HurricanesThe Carolina Hurricanes are a professional ice hockey team based in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA. They are members of the Southeast Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League , and play their home games at the 18,680-seat RBC Center...
), and the Winnipeg Jets (now the Phoenix CoyotesPhoenix CoyotesThe Phoenix Coyotes are a professional ice hockey team based in Glendale, Arizona. They are members of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference of the National Hockey League . They play their home games at Jobing.com Arena....
). A few WHA players became NHL stars after the merger, including Mark MessierMark MessierMark Douglas Messier is a former Canadian professional ice hockey centre of the National Hockey League and current special assistant to the president and general manager of the New York Rangers. He spent a quarter of a century in the NHL with the Edmonton Oilers, New York Rangers, and Vancouver...
, Wayne GretzkyWayne GretzkyWayne Douglas Gretzky, CC is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player and former head coach. Nicknamed "The Great One", he is generally regarded as the best player in the history of the National Hockey League , and has been called "the greatest hockey player ever" by many sportswriters,...
, Mark HoweMark HoweMark Steven Howe is an American former professional ice hockey defenseman who played 16 seasons in the National Hockey League and 6 seasons in the World Hockey Association . He is the son of Colleen and Gordie Howe, and early in his career was a teammate of his father...
and Mike LiutMike LiutMichael Dennis Liut is a retired Canadian professional ice hockey goaltender.Liut played for the Cincinnati Stingers of the World Hockey Association from 1977 to 1979 and for the St. Louis Blues, Hartford Whalers, and Washington Capitals of the National Hockey League from 1979 to 1992. He won...
.
Player development
Generally, all of the top major leagues possess highly evolved and sophisticated player development systems that they utilize to develop and train personnel.- The vast majority of MLB players are developed through the minor league baseballMinor league baseballMinor league baseball is a hierarchy of professional baseball leagues in the Americas that compete at levels below Major League Baseball and provide opportunities for player development. All of the minor leagues are operated as independent businesses...
system. Prospective players traditionally were drafted or (before the first MLB draft in 1965) signed to a contractContractA contract is an agreement entered into by two parties or more with the intention of creating a legal obligation, which may have elements in writing. Contracts can be made orally. The remedy for breach of contract can be "damages" or compensation of money. In equity, the remedy can be specific...
with an MLB team directly after high schoolHigh schoolHigh school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....
and then assigned to the appropriate minor league level for development. With the growth of college baseballCollege baseballCollege baseball is baseball that is played on the intercollegiate level at institutions of higher education. Compared to football and basketball, college competition in the United States plays a less significant contribution to cultivating professional players, as the minor leagues primarily...
in the past few decades, more and more players opt to play at the collegiate level and delay entry into the MLB draft. Individual teams' large scouting staffs have given way to smaller staffs and subscriptions to commercial player scouting services. Entering the majors directly from high school or college is almost unknown; most of the few that have were quickly reassigned to the minors. MLB clubs have also recruited many players from the Japanese leagues, with which MLB has a formal relationship; Japanese players under contract in the Japanese leagues must be postedPosting systemThe is a baseball player transfer system that operates between Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball and the United States' Major League Baseball . Despite the drafting of the United States – Japanese Player Contract Agreement in 1967 designed to regulate NPB players moving to MLB, problems...
. MLB teams also sign Latin American players from countries with strong baseball cultures, such as the Dominican RepublicDominican RepublicThe Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of La Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries...
. Often these players are still in high school. A notable exception is Cuba; although there are several Cuban baseball players in MLB they have had to defectDefectionIn politics, a defector is a person who gives up allegiance to one state or political entity in exchange for allegiance to another. More broadly, it involves abandoning a person, cause or doctrine to whom or to which one is bound by some tie, as of allegiance or duty.This term is also applied,...
. - CollegeCollege basketballCollege basketball most often refers to the USA basketball competitive governance structure established by the National Collegiate Athletic Association . Basketball in the NCAA is divided into three divisions: Division I, Division II and Division III....
and high schoolHigh schoolHigh school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....
basketball produce most of the NBA's talent, although minimum age rules have ended the NBA's practice of drafting players directly from high school beginning in 20062006 NBA DraftThe 2006 NBA Draft was held on June 28, 2006 at the Theatre at Madison Square Garden in New York City and was broadcast in the United States on ESPN. In this draft, National Basketball Association teams took turns selecting amateur U.S. college basketball players and other eligible players,...
. The D-LeagueNBA Development LeagueThe NBA Development League, or NBA D-League, is the National Basketball Association's official minor league basketball organization. Known until summer 2005 as the National Basketball Development League , the NBA D-League started with eight teams in the fall of 2001...
was implemented in 2001 by the NBA to perform the role of a farm system in helping with player development and market reach, but NBA teams more frequently recruit talent from overseas professional leagues, mostly in EuropeEuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
with a few players being recruited from leagues in Latin AmericaLatin AmericaLatin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
, ChinaPeople's Republic of ChinaChina , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
, and AustraliaNational Basketball League (Australasia)The National Basketball League, also known as the iiNet NBL Championship for sponsorship reasons, is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in Australasia....
. - Semi-pro football and minor leagues such as the Continental Football LeagueContinental Football LeagueThe Continental Football League was a professional minor American football league that operated in North America from 1965 through 1969. It was established following the collapse of the original United Football League, and hoped to become the major force in professional football outside of the...
once flourished up to the 1970s, but today the source for almost all NFL players is college footballCollege footballCollege football refers to American football played by teams of student athletes fielded by American universities, colleges, and military academies, or Canadian football played by teams of student athletes fielded by Canadian universities...
. From 1995 to 2007, the NFL maintained its own six-team minor league, NFL EuropeNFL EuropeNFL Europe was an American football league which operated in Europe from 1991 until 2007. Backed by the National Football League , the largest professional American football league in the United States, it was founded as the World League of American Football to serve as a type of spring league...
, which also served to introduce the game of American football in European markets; NFL Europe, however, was rarely used and produced few NFL-caliber players. NFL teams also recruit players from indoor leagues, and occasionally signs players from the Canadian Football LeagueCanadian Football LeagueThe Canadian Football League or CFL is a professional sports league located in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football, a form of gridiron football closely related to American football....
. The independent United Football League, whose season ends a month before the NFL season does (and will end even sooner in 2011), makes its players available to NFL teams at the end of the UFL season for a fee. Amateur and semi-pro football still exists, with several national and regional leagues, but professional leagues almost never recruit players from them. American football also has the least global reach for prospects, with the exceptions of American SamoaAmerican SamoaAmerican Samoa is an unincorporated territory of the United States located in the South Pacific Ocean, southeast of the sovereign state of Samoa...
, which has deep connections to the gameAmerican football in American SamoaAmerican football is a popular sport in American Samoa, and a significant number of Samoan players have played in the National Football League in the United States. Football in Samoa is played by the same rules as in the United States. In 2010, the island was home to twenty eight players who...
, and the acquisition of several retired players from other codes of football primarily as kickers and punters. As of 2010, professional football is the only one of the four major sports that does not have a formalized farm system, due primarily to injury concerns. - Each NHL team has an affiliate in North America's top-tier minor hockey league, the American Hockey LeagueAmerican Hockey LeagueThe American Hockey League is a 30-team professional ice hockey league based in the United States and Canada that serves as the primary developmental circuit for the National Hockey League...
, and in lower leagues such as the Central Hockey LeagueCentral Hockey LeagueThe Central Hockey League is a mid-level professional hockey league, owned by Global Entertainment Corporation. Its current champions are the Bossier-Shreveport Mudbugs, which defeated the Colorado Eagles four games to three in the 2011 playoffs....
or ECHLECHLThe ECHL is a mid-level professional ice hockey league based in Princeton, New Jersey with teams scattered across the United States...
. For decades, the traditional route to the NHL has been through junior hockey and the Canadian Hockey LeagueCanadian Hockey LeagueThe Canadian Hockey League is an umbrella organization that represents the three Canadian-based major junior ice hockey leagues for players 16 to 20 years of age. The CHL was founded in 1975 as the Canadian Major Junior Hockey League, and is composed of its three member leagues, the Western Hockey...
(CHL), generally regarded as the world's premier competition for 15- through 20-year-olds. In recent decades, NHL teams have drafted and/or signed prospects from top European amateur and professional organizations, and a growing number of NHL hopefuls are forgoing the quasi-professional CHL in favor of NCAA Division I college hockey. Additionally, the US now has two Junior A hockey leagues that provide many NHL players (some via NCAA hockey) in the USHL and NAHL. Regardless of which route hockey players take to sign an NHL contract, almost all are initially assigned to an affiliate in their NHL team's minor league system for development. - Unlike its respective compatriot leagues, MLS does not run a minor league system. Instead, it relies on the development of talent through youth academies, which is now a requirement for all MLS clubs. These academies are commonplace for soccer clubs throughout the World, and MLS clubs can operate youth teams as young as 13–14 years old. Even some youth academy teams participate in lower-tier leagues, a majority participate in MLS Reserve DivisionMLS Reserve DivisionThe MLS Reserve Division is an USA soccer league for the reserve teams of Major League Soccer.It was inaugurated on April 9, 2005, with the first official reserve game being a 2-0 victory by Chivas USA over the host San Jose Earthquakes, and disbanded after the 2008 season.The reserve division...
matches. Minor professional leagues, such as the modern North American Soccer League and USL ProUSL ProThe USL Professional Division, commonly known as USL Pro , is a professional men's soccer league in the United States that began its inaugural season in 2011....
, also exist.
Team loyalties
In the United States and Canada, where there is no tradition of promotion and relegationPromotion and relegation
In many sports leagues around the world, promotion and relegation is a process that takes place at the end of each season. Through it, teams are transferred between divisions based on their performance that season...
in team sports, the top league in a sport generally commands the loyalties of that sport's followers. Even if a city is home to a minor league team, a sport's fan in that city will typically call a major league team their "favorite team" and follow it more closely. This contrasts with European soccer, for example, where clubs in lower-level leagues have passionate supporters that root for the club to be promoted to higher levels of competition.
Such loyalty has been noticed primarily within the NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL. Contrastingly, it has been noticed that there are numerous passionate supporters rooting for not only MLS sides, but local NASL and USL teams as well.
Television exposure
All of the top four major leagues have had television contracts with at least one of the original "big three" U.S. broadcast television networks (CBSCBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
, NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
, and ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
) since those networks' early years, indicative of the sports' widespread appeal since their inception, continuing today additionally with FOX
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
. Regular season games, as well as important contests such as championship and all-star game
All-star game
An all-star game is an exhibition game played by the best players in their sports league, except in the circumstances of professional sports systems in which a democratic voting system is used...
s are often televised in prime time
Prime time
Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast programming during the middle of the evening for television programing.The term prime time is often defined in terms of a fixed time period—for example, from 19:00 to 22:00 or 20:00 to 23:00 Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast...
. In the last generation, fast-growing cable and satellite networks have taken a larger chunk of the major sports' pie. All four major sports have a network of their own. NBA TV
NBA TV
NBA TV is a television specialty channel that is dedicated to showcasing the sport of basketball in the United States. The network is financially backed by the National Basketball Association , which also uses NBA TV as a way of advertising their out of market package NBA League Pass, and partner...
launched in 1999, followed by NFL Network
NFL Network
NFL Network is an American television specialty channel owned and operated by the National Football League . It was launched November 4, 2003, only eight months after the league's 32 team owners voted unanimously to approve its formation...
in 2003 and NHL Network in 2007. Major League Baseball introduced MLB Network
MLB Network
MLB Network is an American television specialty channel dedicated to professional baseball. It is primarily owned by Major League Baseball. Comcast, DirecTV, Time Warner Cable and Cox Communications have minority ownership of the new network, with MLB retaining a controlling two-thirds share...
in 2009, and though it was the last to launch, it launched in more television households than the other networks presently have due to partnerships with cable and satellite operators.
Comparing the sizes of annual television contracts, the NFL is by far the largest, at over $3.8 billion, with the NBA and MLB both in distant second and third ($500 million and $479 million respectively). The NHL is in fourth place, at $200 million in the latest U.S. contract, not counting the Canadian share. Of the four, the NFL is most dependent on television revenues, drawing over 40% of its revenue from television contracts; this is mostly due to the much shorter seasons and reduced ticket sales opportunities compared to other professional leagues.
The NHL began airing games on NBC starting in January 2006 and the NHL Network, launched in Canada in 2001, has been available to U.S. cable and satellite subscribers since 2007. In addition, the NHL broadcasts games nationally in the U.S. on Versus
Versus (TV channel)
Versus is a sports-oriented cable television channel in the United States. It was previously known as Outdoor Life Network and was launched on July 1, 1995, focusing on fishing, hunting, and other outdoor sports...
, generally on Monday and Tuesday nights. Since 1952 the NHL has been broadcast on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...
's Hockey Night in Canada
Hockey Night in Canada
Hockey Night in Canada is the branding used for CBC Sports' presentations of the National Hockey League...
. The 2006 Stanley Cup Finals
2006 Stanley Cup Finals
The 2006 Stanley Cup Final was a best-of-seven playoff series that determined the National Hockey League champion for the 2005–06 season. As a culmination of the 2006 Stanley Cup playoffs, the Eastern Conference champion Carolina Hurricanes defeated the Western Conference champion Edmonton Oilers...
attracted 2.63 million viewers on the CBC
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...
.
Although the NFL's revenues from contracts benefiting and shared equally amongst all teams in the league is several times greater than any of the other three major leagues, teams in the other leagues (MLB, NBA, NHL) negotiate contracts with local broadcasters to air most of their games (because of the much larger supply of regular-season games in the other leagues as opposed to the NFL, major U.S. networks have no interest in showing those sports every day, except during postseason play); some teams (such as the New York Yankees
New York Yankees
The New York Yankees are a professional baseball team based in the The Bronx, New York. They compete in Major League Baseball in the American League's East Division...
) may even partially or fully own the cable network upon which their games are broadcast, and often receive more revenue from local broadcasts than any other source.
All four leagues are universally considered to be the top league in their respective sports, not only in revenue, but also in quality of talent, player salaries, and worldwide interest. However, of the four major leagues, the NFL has the least presence outside both countries; it is mainly an American and Canadian interest. Basketball is a strong spectator and participation sport all over the world, and the NBA is unquestionably its top league. Hockey (Europe) and baseball (East Asia, Latin America) have loyal followings in some of the world's other regions as well. Selling league broadcasting rights to foreign markets is another way for the leagues to generate revenue, and all the leagues have tried to exploit revenue streams outside of their home market.
High player salaries
The average annual salarySalary
A salary is a form of periodic payment from an employer to an employee, which may be specified in an employment contract. It is contrasted with piece wages, where each job, hour or other unit is paid separately, rather than on a periodic basis....
for players in the four major leagues is about $
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
2.9 million in 2008, although player salaries can range from $300,000 for backup players to $20 million for superstars.
- NBA players have the highest average player salaries of the four leagues at $4.9 million; however, their teams also have the smallest rosters.
- The NFL has the highest average team payrollPayrollIn a company, payroll is the sum of all financial records of salaries for an employee, wages, bonuses and deductions. In accounting, payroll refers to the amount paid to employees for services they provided during a certain period of time. Payroll plays a major role in a company for several reasons...
. The league had a hard salary capSalary capIn professional sports, a salary cap is a cartel agreement between teams that places a limit on the amount of money that can be spent on player salaries. The limit exists as a per-player limit or a total limit for the team's roster, or both...
that reached $128 million in 2009, but NFL owners opted out of their collective bargaining agreement (CBA) with the NFL players union after that season, resulting in no cap for the 2010 season. This also resulted in the temporary end of the league's hard salary floor, which was over $110 million per team in 2009 under the same agreement. After a brief lockout during the 2011 offseason, the owners and union signed a new CBA which imposes a hard salary cap of $120 million and floor of $108 million in the 2011 season. However, NFL payrolls are distributed among rosters that are far larger than the other three leagues (many players on rosters see little to no actual game play), and teams play far fewer games (a fifth of the NHL and NBA, and a tenth of MLB), making their players among the lowest paid on the average at $1.3 million. - Following the settlement of the NHL lockout, NHL players were also due to be paid about US$1.3 million on average, although this quickly increased because the lockout did not have the adverse effect on league revenues that was expected. For the 2010–11 NHL season2010–11 NHL seasonThe 2010–11 NHL season was the 94th season of operation of the National Hockey League . It was the fourth consecutive season that opened in Europe with NHL Premiere . A record three events were scheduled, all in previous NHL Premiere cities: Helsinki, Finland; Stockholm, Sweden; and Prague, Czech...
, the average player salary was slightly above the pre-lockout level of US$1.8 million. In the same season, the league's salary cap was US$59.4 million per team (the league's CBA requires that all salaries be paid in U.S. dollars, even by Canadian teams), with the salary floor set at US$16 million under the cap. Since the end of the lockout, the league's revenue situation has been helped considerably by substantial increases in revenue by its Canadian teams, combined with the rise of the Canadian dollar to essential parity with its U.S. counterpart. - MLB is in the middle at about $2.5 million per player. MLB is now alone among the major leagues in that it lacks any form of a salary capSalary capIn professional sports, a salary cap is a cartel agreement between teams that places a limit on the amount of money that can be spent on player salaries. The limit exists as a per-player limit or a total limit for the team's roster, or both...
and has enacted only modest forms of revenue sharingRevenue sharingRevenue sharing has multiple, related meanings depending on context.In business, revenue sharing refers to the sharing of profits and losses among different groups. One form shares between the general partner and limited partners in a limited partnership...
and luxury taxesLuxury tax (sports)A luxury tax in professional sports is a surcharge put on the aggregate payroll of a team to the extent to which it exceeds a predetermined guideline level set by the league...
, and compared to the other leagues there is a far greater disparity between MLB payrolls. The New York YankeesNew York YankeesThe New York Yankees are a professional baseball team based in the The Bronx, New York. They compete in Major League Baseball in the American League's East Division...
had the highest payroll of any American sports team in 2006 when they paid $194 million in players' salaries - nearly twice the NFL salary cap and nearly thirteen times the payroll of the Florida MarlinsFlorida MarlinsThe Miami Marlins are a professional baseball team based in Miami, Florida, United States. Established in 1993 as an expansion franchise called the Florida Marlins, the Marlins are a member of the Eastern Division of Major League Baseball's National League. The Marlins played their home games at...
who spent about $15 million (significantly less than the mandatory minimum team payrolls in the NFL and NHL).
Dominance of the respective sport
One other trait that each of the top four major leagues share is that they are the premier competitions of their respective sport on the world stage. Major League Baseball is increasingly luring away the starsPosting system
The is a baseball player transfer system that operates between Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball and the United States' Major League Baseball . Despite the drafting of the United States – Japanese Player Contract Agreement in 1967 designed to regulate NPB players moving to MLB, problems...
from the Japanese leagues, the European hockey leagues have become a major source of star talent for National Hockey League clubs, and the National Basketball Association frequently recruits talent from professional leagues in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
and China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
.
Baseball, basketball, and hockey
The perceived lack of competition from the rest of the world has contributed to the long-standing but controversial practice of the American media dubbing the champions of MLB, the NBA and the NFL the world championsChampion
A champion is the victor in a challenge, contest or competition.There can be a territorial pyramid of championships, e.g. local, regional / provincial, state, national, continental and world championships, and even further divisions at one or more of these levels, as in soccer. Their champions...
. The early Stanley Cup
Stanley Cup
The Stanley Cup is an ice hockey club trophy, awarded annually to the National Hockey League playoffs champion after the conclusion of the Stanley Cup Finals. It has been referred to as The Cup, Lord Stanley's Cup, The Holy Grail, or facetiously as Lord Stanley's Mug...
champions from both the NHL and the early leagues the NHL eventually displaced were also called world champions in the early decades of professional hockey by Americans and Canadians alike - in fact the phrase can be found on past engravings on the Cup
Chronology of Stanley Cup engravings
This is a chronology of Stanley Cup engravings.A unique feature of the Stanley Cup is that, with few exceptions in the past, it is the only trophy in professional sports that has the name of the winning players, coaches, management, and club staff engraved on it.This has not always been the case...
. However, that term fell out of favor in the latter half of the 20th century. The International Ice Hockey Federation
International Ice Hockey Federation
The International Ice Hockey Federation is the worldwide governing body for ice hockey and in-line hockey. It is based in Zurich, Switzerland, and has 70 members...
has proposed a world championship playoff between the Stanley Cup winners and the champions of the European Hockey League (see below).
If the popularity of baseball and basketball keeps growing in various countries outside of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, some think that the NBA and MLB may begin to place franchises in foreign markets. The popularity of baseball in Southeast Asia, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
and Central America
Central America
Central America is the central geographic region of the Americas. It is the southernmost, isthmian portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast. When considered part of the unified continental model, it is considered a subcontinent...
is growing, along with the talent of prospective players from the regions. Meanwhile, the popularity of basketball has grown to be the second highest in the world in terms of national associations. (after soccer) though it also trails cricket (which is popular in many countries with large populations e.g. India) in terms of total fans.
However, one major detractor against foreign expansion by MLB or the NBA is that the sports in question enjoy much of their popularity in relatively poor countries that would probably be unable to financially support a sports franchise using the American model. The only clear exception to this would be the popularity of baseball in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, where well-established baseball leagues already exist.
Due to the popularity of hockey in some of the most prosperous parts of Europe, many believe that the major league with the best chance of success outside North America would be the NHL. This has led to the possibility of European NHL franchises being discussed in the past, although NHL officials have repeatedly said they have no current plans to create a European division. The most that has come out of this has been the "Super Series
Super Series
The Super Series were exhibition games between Soviet teams and NHL teams that took place on each NHL opponents' home ice in North America from 1976 to 1991. The Soviet teams were usually club teams from the Soviet hockey league. The exception was in 1983, when the Soviet National Team represented...
" tour in the 1970s and 80s where the Soviet club teams played NHL teams in exhibition games. During the first and most famous of these tours Red Army Moscow
HC CSKA Moscow
HC CSKA Moscow is a Russian ice hockey club that plays in the Kontinental Hockey League. It is referred to in the West as "Central Red Army" or the "Red Army Team" for its past affiliation with the Soviet Army, popularly known as the Red Army...
played the Montreal Canadiens
Montreal Canadiens
The Montreal Canadiens are a professional ice hockey team based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. They are members of the Northeast Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League . The club is officially known as ...
in what the media called an unofficial world championship. However, this was during the height of the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
when the Soviet League had comparable talent to the NHL - since the decline of Communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
in Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
in the late 1980s
Revolutions of 1989
The Revolutions of 1989 were the revolutions which overthrew the communist regimes in various Central and Eastern European countries.The events began in Poland in 1989, and continued in Hungary, East Germany, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and...
, better financed NHL teams have enticed away most the elite players from the former Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
. Professional leagues in Sweden, Finland and Switzerland also have a high level of talent, but the higher salaries and elite level of play offered in the NHL has also lured away many of their best players. Significantly, ice hockey is either popular in countries with a relatively low average income (e.g. Russia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Belarus, Kazakhstan), a very small population (e.g. Sweden, Switzerland, Finland), or both (e.g. Latvia). In the largest and most populous nations of Europe, such as France, Italy and the UK, hockey is not a major sport. Germany is a partial exception, although hockey is clearly not the most popular sport in that country.
The IIHF has proposed that instead of a direct NHL presence in Europe a world championship playoff between the Stanley Cup winners and the champions of the European Hockey League should be held each year. The NHL's position on this proposal is not entirely clear, but many believe that the players union
NHL Players Association
The National Hockey League Players' Association or NHLPA is the labor union for the group of professional hockey players who are under Standard Player Contracts to the thirty member clubs in the National Hockey League located in the United States and Canada...
would be unlikely to support it. Beginning in the 2007–08 NHL season, the NHL began playing exhibition game
Exhibition game
An exhibition game is a sporting event in which there is no competitive value of any significant kind to any competitor regardless of the outcome of the competition...
s against European teams in the "NHL Premiere" series, the NHL Challenge
NHL Challenge
The NHL Challenge series allows select NHL teams to travel outside of North America to conduct training camp and participate in exhibition games...
, and the Victoria Cup. Since the debut of the series, NHL teams have won 24 games to the European teams' four.
Recently talks about NBA franchises being located in Europe have intensified. For logistical reasons it would be necessary to have a minimum of two and probably four or more teams in Europe, so that visiting Canadian/American teams could play multiple opponents during a single trip. Possible cities for such expansion include London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
, Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
, Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
, Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
, and Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
. Although current NBA commissioner David Stern
David Stern
David Joel Stern is the commissioner of the National Basketball Association. He started with the Association in 1966 as an outside counsel, joined the NBA in 1978 as General Counsel, and became the league's Executive Vice President in 1980. He became Commissioner in 1984 succeeding Larry O'Brien...
and former NBA star Michael Jordan
Michael Jordan
Michael Jeffrey Jordan is a former American professional basketball player, active entrepreneur, and majority owner of the Charlotte Bobcats...
are among those who have endorsed the concept of NBA teams in Europe, increasing cooperation between the NBA and ULEB
ULEB
ULEB was founded in 1991, with the aim to help in the cooperation and development of European professional club basketball leagues...
, the body that organizes the Euroleague, may make a permanent NBA presence in Europe less likely, at least for the foreseeable future. In 2005, the two bodies agreed to organize a summer competition known as the NBA Europe Live Tour
NBA Europe Live Tour
NBA Europe Live Tour is an event organised yearly since 2006. Its purpose is to bring teams from the National Basketball Association to play games against mainly Euroleague but also Eurocup teams....
featuring four NBA teams and four Euroleague clubs, with the first competition taking place in 2006.
A major obstacle for anyone trying to establish either an NBA or NHL presence in Europe is that with soccer being in the dominant position that it enjoys on that continent, building state of the art
State of the art
The state of the art is the highest level of development, as of a device, technique, or scientific field, achieved at a particular time. It also refers to the level of development reached at any particular time as a result of the latest methodologies employed.- Origin :The earliest use of the term...
indoor arenas suitable for ice hockey and/or basketball has not become a priority in European cities until very recently. No arena likely to meet the standards of either league existed anywhere in Europe until the Manchester Evening News Arena
Manchester Evening News Arena
The Manchester Evening News Arena is an indoor arena situated in Manchester, England. It is adjacent to Manchester Victoria station near Corporation Street...
opened in 1995, followed by Cologne's Kölnarena and Lisbon's Atlantic Pavilion
Pavilhão Atlântico
Pavilhão Atlântico is an indoor arena in Lisbon, Portugal. Pavilhão Atlântico holds 20,000 people and was built in 1998 for Expo '98.-History:...
in 1998. The next NBA/NHL-caliber arena in Europe opened in 2003, when Sinan Erdem Dome opened in Istanbul
Istanbul
Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...
. The following year saw two more such arenas open—the Olympic Indoor Hall
Olympic Indoor Hall
The O.A.C.A. Olympic Indoor Hall which is part of the Olympic Athletic Center of Athens "Spiros Louis" , was completed in 1995 and was the largest indoor venue in use for sporting events at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece. It is located in the suburb of Maroussi...
in Athens and Sazka Arena, now O2 Arena, in Prague. Belgrade Arena
Belgrade Arena
The Belgrade Arena is an indoor arena located in Novi Beograd, Belgrade. It is designed as a universal hall for sport, cultural events and other programs. With a total space that covers 48,000 square metres, and an official total capacity of 19,982 seats , it is one of the largest indoor arenas in...
and the Madrid Sports Palace
Palacio de Deportes de la Comunidad de Madrid
Palacio de Deportes de la Comunidad de Madrid is an indoor sporting arena located in the City of Madrid, Spain. Its capacity is 15,000 people for basketball matches, 14,000 for handball matches and 18,000 for concerts .The former building, which was built in 1960, was destroyed by a fire in 2001...
followed in 2005, although the capacity of the latter is marginal by today's NBA standards. The O2
The O2 arena (London)
The O2 Arena is a multi-purpose indoor arena located in the centre of The O2, a large entertainment complex on the Greenwich peninsula in London, England.With a capacity of up to 20,000 depending on the event, it is second largest...
opened in London in 2007, O2 World
O2 World
O2 World is a multi-use indoor arena, in the Friedrichshain neighborhood, of Berlin, that opened in September 2008. Developed by Anschutz Entertainment Group, it was named O2 World, when O2 Germany purchased the naming rights...
in Berlin (another arena of NBA/NHL standards but marginal capacity) followed in 2008, and plans are in the works for an NBA/NHL-caliber venue in Moscow.
American football
Despite being the member of the top four major league sports with the least international exposure, American football is the most popular professional league in the United States. The NFL has also attempted to promote its game worldwide by scheduling selected pre-season gamesExhibition game
An exhibition game is a sporting event in which there is no competitive value of any significant kind to any competitor regardless of the outcome of the competition...
since 1976 in Mexico, Europe, Australia, and Japan and through NFL Europe
NFL Europe
NFL Europe was an American football league which operated in Europe from 1991 until 2007. Backed by the National Football League , the largest professional American football league in the United States, it was founded as the World League of American Football to serve as a type of spring league...
(which, although it began with teams throughout Western Europe
Western Europe
Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...
, had relocated several teams to the point where almost all of its teams were in Germany by the time of the league's demise); the latter venture was never profitable and ultimately ceased operations in 2007. Starting in 2005, the NFL has begun holding one regular season game outside the United States. The 2005 matchup
Fútbol Americano
"Fútbol Americano" was the marketing name used for the first-ever National Football League regular season game ever held outside the United States. Played on October 2, 2005 at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City, the Arizona Cardinals defeated the San Francisco 49ers, 31-14...
in Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
between the San Francisco 49ers and Arizona Cardinals drew a crowd of over 103,000 to Azteca Stadium
Estadio Azteca
Estadio Azteca is a stadium in Santa Ursula, Mexico City, Mexico. It is the official home stadium of the Mexico national football team and the Mexican team Club América.The stadium was the venue for football soccer in the 1968 Summer Olympics....
(a 1994 crowd of over 112,000 at Azteca Stadium is the largest to attend a pre-season game). This was followed by a regular-season game at the New Wembley Stadium
Wembley Stadium
The original Wembley Stadium, officially known as the Empire Stadium, was a football stadium in Wembley, a suburb of north-west London, standing on the site now occupied by the new Wembley Stadium that opened in 2007...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
in 2007
2007 NFL season
The 2007 NFL season was the 88th regular season of the National Football League.Regular-season play was held from September 6 to December 30....
, becoming the NFL's first venture in the UK since the collapse of two NFL Europe teams based there; the league has played an annual game in Wembley each year since. Preliminary talks had been ongoing to expand the NFL season to 18 regular season games, with each team playing one game overseas, although such talk has been curtailed because the expansion was not approved in labor negotiations. There has been talk of expanding the International Series to Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
.
Canadian football
For a time after World War II and into the 1950s, the Canadian Football League and the NFL operated on roughly equal footing financially, with many US-born star players heading north for more money. That all changed in the sixties with the rise of the American Football League; by 1970, massive US television revenues available to the NFL made the American-based league much more successful. Due to this change to the pecking order, the CFL became virtually unknown beyond North America. Efforts have been made to turn the situation around, including the failed CFL USA experiment in the 1990s. Today, the CFL's international coverage is led by NASN, Fox Sports International, and the U.S. Armed Forces Network. CFL coverage is now available in 172 countries.The Canadian Football League’s annual Grey Cup championship game has a worldwide audience reaching over 100 million television viewers across the U.S., Mexico, Europe, the Middle East and many other countries. In the United States, the 2008 Grey Cup was available to 62 million homes in standard definition television and to DISH Network’s 12 million customers in High Definition on VOOM HD Networks’ World Sport HD channel (available in the New York City metropolitan area on Cablevision). CFL and Grey Cup coverage in Mexico is provided by TVC Deportes, the cable sports channels owned and operated by cable television groups across the country. Regular-season games on TVC Deportes has delivered the league a growing fan base in the important Mexican market. Also, the Grey Cup is also available to nearly 8 million subscribers on Sirius XM satellite radio.
Soccer
Although it remains the smallest "major" sport in Canada and the United States, soccer does have the benefit of having the biggest following in the world. MLS teams have turned a profit for the first time in their history and attendances are better than the league predicted a decade ago. The introduction of soccer specific stadiums and greater revenue control is believed to be crucial to growth. Major League Soccer teams compete with top teams from Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean in the new CONCACAF Champions LeagueCONCACAF Champions League
The CONCACAF Champions League is the annual international club football championship for teams from the CONCACAF region ....
, the winners of which compete in the annual FIFA Club World Cup
FIFA Club World Cup
The FIFA Club World Cup is a football competition between the champion clubs from all six continental confederations.The first FIFA Club World Championship took place in Brazil in January 2000...
each December.
Holiday showcases
Three of the major sports leagues have always been showcased on a major U.S. holiday. The NFL has always played on Thanksgiving DayThanksgiving Classic
The National Football League's Thanksgiving Classic is a series of games played during the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States. It has been a regular occurrence since the league's inception in 1920. Since 2006, three games are played every Thanksgiving...
since it's inception in 1920. The NBA has always played on Christmas Day since 1947. And since 2008, the NHL has had the Winter Classic
NHL Winter Classic
The NHL Winter Classic is an annual event held by the National Hockey League on New Year's Day where regular-season games are played outdoors, in areas hosted by NHL teams. Though largely derived from the Heritage Classic outdoor game held in Edmonton in 2003, the Winter Classic has so far only...
on New Year's Day
New Year's Day
New Year's Day is observed on January 1, the first day of the year on the modern Gregorian calendar as well as the Julian calendar used in ancient Rome...
.
Relations between leagues
Although they are competitors, the "big four" leagues also cooperate. Some owners have teams in multiple leagues; as mentioned above, the NFL restricts cross-league ownership but the other leagues do not. There are common business and legal interests; the leagues will often support one another in legal matters since the courts' decisions might establish precedents that affect them all. One recent example was the Supreme CourtSupreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
decision in 2010 in American Needle, Inc. v. National Football League, in which the NFL (which ultimately lost the case) received amicus curiae
Amicus curiae
An amicus curiae is someone, not a party to a case, who volunteers to offer information to assist a court in deciding a matter before it...
briefs from the NBA, NHL, and MLS. The leagues' commissioners occasionally meet in person, most recently in 2009.
In the early years of the NFL and to a lesser extent the NHL, it was not uncommon for teams to share nicknames with their MLB counterparts. For example, until 1957
Major League Baseball relocation of 1950s-1960s
The Major League Baseball relocation of 1950s-1960s is the move of several Major League Baseball franchises to the Western and Southern United States. This was in stark contrast to the early years of modern baseball, when the American League intentionally put teams in National League cities to...
New York City played host to baseball
History of the New York Giants (NL)
The history of the New York Giants, before the franchise moved to San Francisco, lasted from 1883 to 1957. It featured five of the franchise's six World Series wins and 17 of its 21 National League pennants...
and football
New York Giants
The New York Giants are a professional American football team based in East Rutherford, New Jersey, representing the New York City metropolitan area. The Giants are currently members of the Eastern Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League...
Giants. MLB's Pittsburgh Pirates
Pittsburgh Pirates
The Pittsburgh Pirates are a Major League Baseball club based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They play in the Central Division of the National League, and are five-time World Series Champions...
shared its nickname with an NFL team (which ultimately became the Pittsburgh Steelers
Pittsburgh Steelers
The Pittsburgh Steelers are a professional football team based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The team currently belongs to the North Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League . Founded in , the Steelers are the oldest franchise in the AFC...
) as well as a now-defunct early NHL team
Pittsburgh Pirates (NHL)
The Pittsburgh Pirates were an American professional ice hockey team in the National Hockey League , based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from 1925–26 to 1929–30. The nickname comes from the baseball team also based in the city...
. Furthermore, the Steelers, Pirates, and Penguins
Pittsburgh Penguins
The Pittsburgh Penguins are a professional ice hockey team based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They are members of the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League . The franchise was founded in 1967 as one of the first expansion teams during the league's original...
all utilize similar team colors. The most recent example of two major teams sharing a franchise name was between 1960 and 1987; when the NFL's Chicago Cardinals
Arizona Cardinals
The Arizona Cardinals are a professional American football team based in Glendale, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix. They are currently members of the Western Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League...
relocated to Saint Louis, Missouri, it was allowed to keep the Cardinals name despite the established existence of a baseball team of the same name
St. Louis Cardinals
The St. Louis Cardinals are a professional baseball team based in St. Louis, Missouri. They are members of the Central Division in the National League of Major League Baseball. The Cardinals have won eleven World Series championships, the most of any National League team, and second overall only to...
.
The leagues also cooperate in the construction and use of facilities. Many NBA and NHL teams share arenas, and, in years past such sharing was very common for MLB and NFL teams, though only one such situation currently exists. (Another such situation ended when the Florida Marlins completed their 2011 season
2011 Florida Marlins season
The Florida Marlins' 2011 season was the 19th season for the Major League Baseball franchise. This was the final year in which the Marlins played their home games at Sun Life Stadium, as well as the final season for the team under the name "Florida Marlins"....
. The team, which previously shared Sun Life Stadium with the Miami Dolphins
Miami Dolphins
The Miami Dolphins are a Professional football team based in the Miami metropolitan area in Florida. The team is part of the Eastern Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...
, will become the Miami Marlins and move into a new, baseball-only stadium for the 2012 season
2012 Miami Marlins season
The Miami Marlins' 2012 season will be the 20th season for the Major League Baseball franchise. The Marlins are scheduled to move into Miami Ballpark for the 2012 season, as part of the agreement, they renamed themselves from the "Florida Marlins" to the "Miami Marlins".-Batting:Note: G = Games...
.) More recently, MLS teams have used NFL stadiums as either full time home fields or for special event games. Also notable in recent years has been the NHL's Winter Classic
NHL Winter Classic
The NHL Winter Classic is an annual event held by the National Hockey League on New Year's Day where regular-season games are played outdoors, in areas hosted by NHL teams. Though largely derived from the Heritage Classic outdoor game held in Edmonton in 2003, the Winter Classic has so far only...
and Heritage Classic
Heritage Classic
The Heritage Classic was an outdoor ice hockey game played on November 22, 2003, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, between the Edmonton Oilers and the Montreal Canadiens. It was the first National Hockey League game to be played outdoors as a part of regular season play...
which have been held in NFL, CFL and MLB stadiums.
See also
- List of American and Canadian cities by number of major professional sports franchises
- Major professional sports teams of the United States and Canada
- Sports in the United StatesSports in the United StatesSports in the United States is an important part of American culture. The four most popular team sports are ones that developed in North America: American football, baseball, basketball and ice hockey...
- Sports in Canada
- Sports in Mexico
- List of professional sports leagues
- List of attendance figures at domestic professional sports leagues - a summary of total and average attendances for the major sports leagues from around the world.
External links
- North American Pro Sports Teams - Lists every league that has operated in Canada and / or the United States. Grouped by city.
- USA Today Salary Database - Lists and sorts team payroll by year for all teams in MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL, and Major League SoccerMajor League SoccerMajor League Soccer is a professional soccer league based in the United States and sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation . The league is composed of 19 teams — 16 in the U.S. and 3 in Canada...
.