In
professional sports
In professional sports, as opposed to amateur sports, participants receive payment for their performance. Professionalism in sport has come to the fore through a combination of developments. Mass media and increased leisure have brought larg ...
, a franchise player is an athlete who is both the best player on their team and one that the team can build their "
franchise
Franchise may refer to:
Business and law
* Franchising, a business method that involves licensing of trademarks and methods of doing business to franchisees
* Franchise, a privilege to operate a type of business such as a cable television p ...
" around for the foreseeable future.
Overview
In the United States, outstanding players were referred to as "franchises" at least as far back as the 1950s.
["franchise, n. I. 2. c. (b)" ]OED Online
The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a com ...
. June 2003. Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
. June 2010. By the 1970s, the concept of a "franchise" player who single-handedly generates success was commonly understood in the sporting trade. The term ''franchise player'' was in widespread use by the early 1980s to describe both star rookies like
John Elway
John Albert Elway Jr. (born June 28, 1960) is an American professional football executive and former quarterback who is the president of football operations for the Denver Broncos of the National Football League (NFL).
Elway played college f ...
and
Kelvin Bryant
Kelvin LeRoy Bryant (born September 26, 1960) is a former American football running back in the National Football League and the United States Football League.
High school
Bryant played two years of varsity football at Tarboro High School in Ta ...
and veterans like
George Brett
George Howard Brett (born May 15, 1953) is an American former professional baseball player who played all of his 21 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a third baseman for the Kansas City Royals.
Brett's 3,154 career hits are second-mos ...
. While the term is primarily associated with
North American
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Ca ...
and
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
sports,
it is sometimes used in reference to athletes in sports outside the United States, such as
rugby league
Rugby league football, commonly known as just rugby league and sometimes football, footy, rugby or league, is a full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular field measuring 68 metres (75 yards) wide and 112 ...
and
association football
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...
(soccer) players.
See also
*
Designated player
The Designated Player Rule, nicknamed the Beckham Rule, allows Major League Soccer franchises to sign up to three players that would be considered outside their salary cap (either by offering the player higher wages or by paying a transfer fee ...
*
Franchise tag
In the National Football League (NFL), the franchise tag is a designation a team may apply to a player scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent. The tag binds the player to the team for one year if certain conditions are met. Each team has on ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Franchise Player
Sports terminology