The major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada commonly refer to the highest men's professional competitions of
team sports in those countries. The four leagues traditionally included in the definition are
Major League Baseball (MLB), the
National Basketball Association
The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United St ...
(NBA), the
National Football League
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...
(NFL), and the
National Hockey League
The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...
(NHL). Other prominent leagues include
Major League Soccer (MLS) and the
Canadian Football League
The Canadian Football League (CFL; french: Ligue canadienne de football—LCF) is a professional sports league in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football. The league consists of nine teams, each located in a ci ...
(CFL).
MLB, NBA, NFL, and NHL are commonly referred to as the "Big Four." Each of these is the wealthiest professional club competition in its sport worldwide, and along with the English
Premier League
The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Fo ...
they make up the top five
sports leagues by revenue in the world.
In addition, the sports of these four leagues were all developed in their modern forms in North America, and all except
American football
American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...
have become popular internationally. Because the leagues enjoy a significant place in
popular culture in the U.S. and Canada, the best players from these leagues often become
cultural icon
A cultural icon is a person or an artifact that is identified by members of a culture as representative of that culture. The process of identification is subjective, and "icons" are judged by the extent to which they can be seen as an authentic ...
s in both countries.
Each of the Big Four leagues, as well as
Major League Soccer and the
Canadian Football League
The Canadian Football League (CFL; french: Ligue canadienne de football—LCF) is a professional sports league in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football. The league consists of nine teams, each located in a ci ...
, averages at least 15,000 fans in attendance per game as of 2018. The two indoor leagues, the NHL and NBA, play in arenas that average under 19,000 seats, resulting in the CFL holding the third highest average attendance of the six leagues, at close to 24,000 per game, after the NFL and MLB.
[ Major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada#Attendance]
The Big Four leagues currently have 30–32 teams each, most of which are concentrated in the most populous metropolitan areas of the United States and Canada. Unlike the
promotion and relegation systems used in sports leagues in various other regions around the world, North American sports leagues are
closed leagues that maintain the same teams from season-to-season. Expansion of the league usually occurs by adding newly formed teams, though mergers with competing leagues have also occurred. Teams do not leave the league unless they are disbanded (which has not happened since 1954) or merged with another team (which has not happened since
1978).
Relocation can change the name of a team, but it is generally still considered to be the same entity.
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...
, American football, and
ice hockey
Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice h ...
have had professional leagues continuously for over 100 years; early leagues such as the
National Association of Professional Base Ball Players,
Ohio League
The Ohio League was an informal and loose association of American football clubs active between 1902 and 1919 that competed for the Ohio Independent Championship (OIC). As the name implied, its teams were mostly based in Ohio. It is the direct pr ...
, and
National Hockey Association
The National Hockey Association (NHA), officially the National Hockey Association of Canada Limited, was a professional ice hockey organization with teams in Ontario and Quebec, Canada. It is the direct predecessor of today's National Hockey Lea ...
formed the basis of the modern MLB, NFL, and NHL, respectively.
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...
was invented in 1891, and its first professional league formed in the 1920s. The
Basketball Association of America, founded in 1946, formed the basis of the NBA in 1949 and has lasted for over 75 years.
Soccer (or association football) was first professionalized in 1894, but leagues suffered greatly from lack of sustainability and seldom lasted more than a decade. The sport's greatest successes were in the form of the
American Soccer League (1921–1933), the original
North American Soccer League (1968–1984) or NASL, and, currently,
Major League Soccer (1996–present). MLS is the seventh highest attended professional soccer league worldwide.
[MLSsoccer.com, The expansion, refs, Cascadia: MLS Commissioner Don Garber covers it all in annual address, February 27, 2013, http://www.mlssoccer.com/news/article/2013/02/27/expansion-refs-cascadia-commissioner-garber-covers-it-all-march-soccer-addre]
The term "major league" is usually limited to professional team sports. Individual professional sports competitions such as
PGA Tour golf and
NASCAR Cup Series auto racing
Auto racing (also known as car racing, motor racing, or automobile racing) is a motorsport involving the racing of automobiles for competition.
Auto racing has existed since the invention of the automobile. Races of various sorts were organise ...
are also very popular and serve as those sports' most prominent competitions with levels of media coverage, competition, and fan following comparable to the major professional team sports.
Amateur competitions such as
college football and
college basketball
In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...
, at the upper echelons, also enjoy strong media coverage and fan followings but are generally recognized as inferior to the major professional leagues in level of play because of the inherent limits of the amateur sports system.
"Big Four" leagues
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball is the highest level of play of
baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...
in North America and the world, and the oldest of the major American leagues. It consists of the
National League
The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team ...
(founded in 1876) and the
American League
The American League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the American League (AL), is one of two leagues that make up Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada. It developed from the Western League, a minor league ...
(founded in 1901). With the establishment of the American League in 1901 also came the trademarking of "Major League Baseball". Cooperation between the two leagues began in 1903 inasmuch as the two league champions began playing a "
World Series". In 1904, however, there was no World Series played because one of the league champions refused to play. During the offseason, the owners of each league voted to have the league champions automatically play one another in the World Series and it would be 90 years before another World Series wasn't played, in 1994, due to a work stoppage. The two leagues merged on an organizational level in 2000 with the elimination of separate league offices; 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 team sport in the U.S.
National Basketball Association
The
National Basketball Association
The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United St ...
is the premier
basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...
league in the world,
and the youngest of the major American leagues. It was founded as the Basketball Association of America in 1946, and adopted its current name in 1949, when the BAA merged with the rival
National Basketball League. Four teams from the rival
American Basketball Association joined the NBA with the
ABA–NBA merger
The ABA-NBA merger was a major pro sports business maneuver in 1976 when the American Basketball Association (ABA) combined with the National Basketball Association (NBA), after multiple attempts over several years. The NBA and ABA had entered ...
in 1976. It currently has 30 teams, 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. The NBA is watched by audiences both domestically and internationally. It is the most popular league of the four worldwide.
National Football League
The
National Football League
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...
is a professional
American football
American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...
league and was founded in 1920 as a combination of various teams from regional leagues such as the
Ohio League
The Ohio League was an informal and loose association of American football clubs active between 1902 and 1919 that competed for the Ohio Independent Championship (OIC). As the name implied, its teams were mostly based in Ohio. It is the direct pr ...
, the
New York Pro Football League
The New York Pro Football League (NYPFL) 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 Foo ...
, and the Chicago circuit as a successor to
Western Pennsylvania Professional Football Circuit The Western Pennsylvania Professional Football Circuit was a loose association of American football clubs that operated from 1890 to approximately 1940. Originally amateur, professionalism was introduced to the circuit in 1892; cost pressures pushed ...
. For its first two seasons, 1920 and 1921, it was known as the "American Professional Football Association" (APFA) before changing its name to the current name in 1922. 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, 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 XLIX
Super Bowl XLIX was an American football game played to determine the champions of the National Football League (NFL) for the 2014 season. The American Football Conference (AFC) champion New England Patriots defeated the National Football Conf ...
being the single most-watched program in U.S. television history.
The NFL is the only one of the major leagues not to have a presence in Canada, where the
Canadian Football League
The Canadian Football League (CFL; french: Ligue canadienne de football—LCF) is a professional sports league in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football. The league consists of nine teams, each located in a ci ...
(see below) is the premier professional league in a similar but not identical
gridiron football sport of
Canadian football.
National Hockey League
The
National Hockey League
The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...
is the premier professional
ice hockey
Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice h ...
league in the world, and it is the only one of the four major leagues to have been founded in Canada. It was formed in 1917 as a successor to the Canadian
National Hockey Association
The National Hockey Association (NHA), officially the National Hockey Association of Canada Limited, was a professional ice hockey organization with teams in Ontario and Quebec, Canada. It is the direct predecessor of today's National Hockey Lea ...
(founded in 1909), taking all but one of the NHA's teams. The NHL
partially absorbed the rival
World Hockey Association in 1979. There are 32 teams, with 25 in the U.S. and 7 in Canada. The most popular sports league in Canada, and widely followed across the northern and northeastern U.S., the NHL has expanded westward and southward in recent decades to attempt to gain a more national following in the United States, in cities such as
Denver,
San Jose,
Dallas
Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...
,
Miami
Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at ...
,
Nashville,
Phoenix
Phoenix most often refers to:
* Phoenix (mythology), a legendary bird from ancient Greek folklore
* Phoenix, Arizona, a city in the United States
Phoenix may also refer to:
Mythology
Greek mythological figures
* Phoenix (son of Amyntor), a ...
,
Raleigh,
Tampa, and
Las Vegas with varying success. Ice hockey still remains much more popular in the northern states of the U.S. closer to Canada, such as the Upper Midwest, New England and the mid-Atlantic States of New Jersey, New York (the New York Metropolitan area has 3 NHL teams compared to 2 for each of the other 3 leagues) and Pennsylvania, than in the rest of the United States. The NHL has more Canadian teams (seven) than MLB, the NBA, and
Major League Soccer combined (five).
Other notable professional leagues
Nate Silver of the
ESPN
ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...
-owned website ''
FiveThirtyEight
''FiveThirtyEight'', sometimes rendered as ''538'', is an American website that focuses on opinion poll analysis, politics, economics, and sports blogging in the United States. The website, which takes its name from the number of electors in th ...
'' has argued that there is a case to be made for the inclusion of
Major League Soccer and the
Canadian Football League
The Canadian Football League (CFL; french: Ligue canadienne de football—LCF) is a professional sports league in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football. The league consists of nine teams, each located in a ci ...
in the major professional sports leagues of North America.
Major League Soccer
Major League Soccer (MLS) is the top-level men's professional
soccer league in the United States. As of the league's next season in 2023, MLS has 29 teams, with 26 in the United States and 3 in Canada. The league began play in 1996, its creation a requirement by
FIFA for awarding the United States the right to host the
1994 World Cup
The 1994 FIFA World Cup was the 15th FIFA World Cup, the world championship for men's national soccer teams. It was hosted by the United States and took place from June 17 to July 17, 1994, at nine venues across the country. The United States w ...
. MLS was the first major Division I outdoor soccer league in the U.S. since the
North American Soccer League (NASL) operated from 1968 to 1984. MLS has increased in popularity following the adoption of the
Designated Player Rule
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 ...
in 2007, which allowed MLS to sign stars such as
David Beckham and
Thierry Henry. In 2017, MLS reported an average attendance of 22,112 per game, with total attendance exceeding 8.2 million overall, both breaking previous MLS attendance records, while 2018 saw
Atlanta United FC
Atlanta United FC, commonly known as Atlanta United, is an American professional soccer club based in Atlanta that competes in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference.
Founded in 2014, Atlanta United began pl ...
break multiple single-game attendance records, with crowd figures of over 70,000 among the highest team attendances worldwide.
With an average attendance of over 20,000 per game, MLS has the third-highest average attendance of any sports league in the U.S. after the NFL and MLB, fourth-highest in North America after the NFL, MLB, and CFL,
and is the seventh-highest attended professional soccer league worldwide.
The
Canadian Soccer Association does not sanction MLS as a first-division league, with that title going instead to the
Canadian Premier League
The Canadian Premier League (CPL or CanPL; french: Première ligue canadienne, links=no) is a professional men's soccer league in Canada. At the top of the Canadian soccer league system, it is the country's primary national soccer league compe ...
(CPL). However, MLS is generally acknowledged as having a higher quality of play than the CPL, and has significantly more media coverage and economic success.
Canadian Football League
The
Canadian Football League
The Canadian Football League (CFL; french: Ligue canadienne de football—LCF) is a professional sports league in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football. The league consists of nine teams, each located in a ci ...
is the highest level of play in
Canadian football. The league was organized in 1956 as a cooperative agreement between two regional leagues, the
Interprovincial Rugby Football Union
The East Division is one of the two regional divisions of the Canadian Football League, its counterpart being the West Division. Although the CFL was not founded until 1958, the East Division and its clubs are descended from earlier leagues.
T ...
(which dated to 1907) and the
Western Interprovincial Football Union
The West Division is one of the two regional divisions of the Canadian Football League (CFL), its counterpart being the East Division. Although the CFL was not founded until 1958, the West Division and its clubs are descended from earlier leagu ...
(which was founded in 1936), and became independent from
Canadian Rugby Union in 1958. The league now consists of nine teams, all based in Canada. The
Grey Cup is awarded annually to the champion every November and is the highest 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. From 1993 to 1995, the CFL attempted
expansion into the United States to cities without NFL teams, but all the clubs folded, while the management structure of the
Baltimore Stallions was moved to a relaunched
Montreal Alouettes franchise. The CFL is the second most popular league in Canada, after the NHL.
It has the third highest average attendance of the northern North American leagues, behind the NFL and MLB; in 2010 the average attendance was 26,781, with a total attendance of 1,928,225.
Traits of these major leagues
Overview
Major professional sports leagues are distinguished from other sports leagues in terms of business and economic factors, popularity of the league, and quality of play. The following table compares the Big Four leagues, plus CFL and the MLS, on certain attributes that collectively attempt to indicate whether the league has "major league" status. The table includes the longevity and stability of the league, as measured by the year founded, the last time the league underwent expansion and contraction, the number of teams in the league, and the popularity of the league, as measured by annual revenues and average attendance.
"Big Four"
Other
Revenues
The top four major leagues each have revenues that can be many times greater than the payrolls of less popular sports leagues in the two nations. In terms of overall league revenue, the NFL, MLB and the NBA rank as the top three most lucrative sports leagues in the world, with the English
Premier League
The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Fo ...
and the NHL ranked at fourth and fifth place.
Television exposure
The major sports leagues have their games televised on the Big Four U.S. broadcast TV networks—
ABC,
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...
,
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...
, and
Fox—enjoy strong TV viewer ratings, and earn significant revenues from these TV contracts.
All of the top four major sports leagues have had television contracts with at least one of the original "big three" U.S. broadcast television networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) since those networks' early years, indicative of the sports' widespread appeal since their inception, continuing today additionally with Fox. In Canada, the NHL has been broadcast on the
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation since 1952. In Canada, there is only one MLB team and one NBA team, and no Canadian NFL team exists; therefore, the U.S. national telecasts for those three leagues are usually simulcast by a Canadian broadcaster.
The NFL has the largest TV contracts, and earns over $6 billion annually from its contracts with Fox, CBS, NBC, ESPN and DirecTV for the 2014 through 2022 seasons.
MLB earns $1.5 billion annually from its contracts for the 2014 through 2021 seasons with ESPN, Fox, and Turner Sports (TBS).
The NBA's nine-year television deal beginning with the 2016–17 season with ABC/ESPN and TNT generates annual league TV revenues of $2.7 billion. The NHL's current U.S. television deal with ABC/ESPN and Turner Sports took effect with the 2021–22 season and runs through 2027–28; while the NHL did not announce the amount, outside reports indicated that Disney (parent of ABC and ESPN) was paying about $400 million and Turner about $225 million annually.
[ This $625m annual contract for American rights is in addition to the $433m annual fee ]Rogers Sportsnet
Sportsnet is a Canadian English-language sports specialty channel owned by Rogers Sports & Media. It was established in 1998 as CTV Sportsnet, a joint venture between CTV, Liberty Media, and Rogers Media. CTV parent Bell Globemedia then was r ...
pays for Canadian rights.
All four major sports leagues have launched a network of their own—NBA TV
NBA TV is an American sports-oriented pay television network owned by the National Basketball Association (NBA) and operated by Warner Bros. Discovery through its sports unit. Dedicated to basketball, the network features exhibition, regula ...
in the U.S. in 1999 and in Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
in 2001, the NFL Network
NFL Network (occasionally abbreviated on-air as NFLN) is an American sports-oriented pay television network owned by the National Football League (NFL) and is part of NFL Media, which also includes NFL.com, NFL Films, NFL Mobile, NFL Now and NF ...
in 2003, the NHL Network in Canada in 2001 and in the U.S.
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
in 2007, and the MLB Network
The MLB Network is an American television sports channel dedicated to baseball. It is primarily owned by Major League Baseball, with Warner Bros. Discovery through its sports unit, Comcast's NBC Sports Group, Charter Communications, and Cox C ...
in 2009. All networks remain in operation today except for the Canadian NHL Network, which was shut down shortly before the league's 2015–16 season.
Teams in the MLB, NBA, and NHL—which play several days per week—negotiate contracts with local broadcasters to air most of their games, both terrestrial networks and regional sports networks
In the United States and Canada, a regional sports network (RSN) is a cable television channel (many of which are also distributed on direct broadcast satellite services) that presents sports programming to a local market or geographical region. ...
. 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. NFL teams, which generally play once per week, do not negotiate local broadcast contracts, but are allowed to negotiate their own television deals for preseason games with syndication and broadcast stations.
MLS matches are shown in English on ESPN and Fox Sports, and in Spanish on Univision. MLS's eight-year contracts for U.S. rights for the 2015–2022 seasons earn a combined $105 million annually.
The CFL's current television deal with ESPN and its Canadian counterparts, the English-language TSN and French-language RDS, pays the CFL at least $50 million per year for both Canadian and American rights.
Attendance
Major professional sports leagues generally have significantly higher average attendance than other sports leagues. The following table shows the average attendance of all professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada that have an average attendance of 15,000 or higher. The table uses seasons played in 2019 or earlier because COVID-19 pandemic restrictions significantly reduced capacity for many games in seasons starting in 2020 or later.
Franchise valuations
Major-league franchises are generally worth very large amounts of money, due in large part to high revenues earned by the league's teams. These franchise valuations are reflected in periodic analyses of teams' values, as well as by the expansion fees commanded by the leagues. The highest value franchises in the respective leagues tend to be located in the largest markets (e.g., MLB's New York Yankees, NHL's New York Rangers), whereas the lowest value franchises tend to be in smaller markets (e.g., NFL's Buffalo Bills, NBA's New Orleans Pelicans). The NHL has the largest multiples between the highest-value and lowest-value teams, with the New York Rangers worth 5.5 times as much as the Arizona Coyotes.
Recent expansion franchises have commanded huge entry fees, which represent the price the new team must pay to gain its share of the existing teams' often guaranteed revenue streams. The Houston Texans paid $700 million to join the NFL in 2002. By comparison, the Charlotte Bobcats (now the Hornets) paid $300 million to join the NBA. The Arizona Diamondbacks and Tampa Bay Rays (originally Devil Rays) paid $130 million each to join MLB. The most recent NHL entry, the Seattle Kraken (which started play in 2021), paid $650 million to join the league, a 30% increase from the $500 million paid by the Vegas Golden Knights to join the league in 2017. The Golden Knights' fee was a dramatic increase from the $80 million paid by each of the previous two teams to enter the NHL, the Columbus Blue Jackets and Minnesota Wild. Two of the six most recently announced Major League Soccer expansion teams, 2019 entrant FC Cincinnati and 2020 arrival Nashville SC, each paid a $150 million expansion fee, a significant increase from the $100 million that New York City FC paid to join MLS in 2015. MLS has since announced plans to expand to 30 teams by 2023, and set the expansion fee for the 28th and 29th teams (ultimately Sacramento Republic FC and St. Louis City SC) at $200 million. The 30th team, ultimately unveiled as 2022 entry Charlotte FC, reportedly paid $325 million. For comparison, the Ottawa Redblacks paid C$7 million to join the Canadian Football League.
Franchise stability
All of the top four major leagues exhibit stability in most of their franchises
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 ...
. No team from the top four leagues has collapsed outright since the 1970s. The last team to cease operations was the NHL's Cleveland Barons The name Cleveland Barons has been used by three professional hockey teams and one junior team.
*Cleveland Barons (NHL), the National Hockey League team that played between 1976 and 1978
*Cleveland Barons (1937–1973), the original American Hockey ...
in 1978, when financial pressures forced a merger with the Minnesota North Stars
The Minnesota North Stars were a professional ice hockey team in the National Hockey League (NHL) for 26 seasons, from 1967 to 1993. The North Stars played their home games at the Met Center in Bloomington, Minnesota, and the team's colors for ...
. MLB voted in 2001 to contract from 30 teams to 28, but ran into opposition and never executed the contraction plan. Unlike many leagues in other countries which use a system of promotion and relegation, franchises in these leagues are stable, and do not change annually.
Relocation of teams is generally uncommon compared to minor leagues. However, all of the top four major leagues have had at least one franchise relocate to another city since 2004. Among the Big Four leagues, the NFL has had the highest number of recent relocations, relocating three teams over the course of the late 2010s. The NHL is the most recent to expand, having added the Las Vegas-based Vegas Golden Knights
The Vegas Golden Knights are a professional ice hockey team based in the Las Vegas metropolitan area. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Pacific Division in the Western Conference. Founded in 2017 as an expan ...
in 2017 and the Seattle Kraken in 2021 (none of the other Big Four leagues have added expansion teams since 2004).
Since 2005, in contrast to the Big Four leagues, MLS has operated on a policy of continuous expansion; after bottoming out at 10 teams in 2004, it has never gone more than one season without adding one or two expansion teams, with further expansion teams already scheduled through 2023 and no indication that the league will cease awarding expansion teams. By 2023, MLS will have nearly tripled in size from its 2005 minimum, with 29 teams. The league has contracted three teams in its history: teams in Miami
Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...
and Tampa Bay
Tampa Bay is a large natural harbor and shallow estuary connected to the Gulf of Mexico on the west-central coast of Florida, comprising Hillsborough Bay, McKay Bay, Old Tampa Bay, Middle Tampa Bay, and Lower Tampa Bay. The largest freshwater in ...
folded in 2002, and the Los Angeles-based Chivas USA
Chivas USA (pronounced ''CHEE-vahs'') was an American professional soccer team based in the Los Angeles suburb of Carson, California. The club played from 2005 to 2014 in Major League Soccer (MLS) and was a subsidiary of Mexican club C.D. Guada ...
squad folded in 2014. MLS has had one franchise relocate, the San Jose Earthquakes
The San Jose Earthquakes are an American professional soccer team based in San Jose, California. The Earthquakes compete as a member club of the Western Conference of Major League Soccer (MLS). Originally as the San Jose Clash, the franchise ...
, which became the Houston Dynamo
Houston Dynamo FC (formerly officially, but still commonly, called the Houston Dynamo) is an American professional soccer club based in Houston. The Dynamo compete in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the Western Conference. Establi ...
in 2006; the Earthquakes returned as an expansion club in 2008, inheriting the pre-relocation history of the original Earthquakes.
All seven CFL franchises between Vancouver and Toronto have been in place since the BC Lions
The BC Lions are a professional Canadian football team based in Vancouver, British Columbia. The Lions compete in the West Division of the Canadian Football League (CFL), and play their home games at BC Place.
The Lions played their first season ...
were founded in 1954. The league has had problems in the two markets east of Toronto; both Montreal and Ottawa have each seen two CFL teams fail since the 1980s, although both cities have active teams as of the 2014 season (the cities are now represented by the Alouettes and Redblacks, respectively). Among existing teams, none has ever formally relocated from one city to another; the Alouettes, however, inherited a management structure from the Baltimore Stallions, a team from the league's unsuccessful 1990s-era South Division South Division may refer to:
* South Division (AFL), a division of the Arena Football League
* South Division (CFL), a former division of the Canadian Football League
* South Division (NAHL), a division of the North American Hockey League
* South ...
. The CFL has had either eight or nine teams in operation since its inception except for the 1994 and 1995 seasons in which the league temporarily expanded into the United States.
In the fifty years between 1903 and 1953, MLB experienced no franchise changes (no new franchises, no franchises ceasing operations, and no franchises moving), the longest such period of stability of any Big Four league.
Number and locations of franchises
Each of the Big Four leagues has at least 30 teams (the NFL has had 32 teams since 2002 and the NHL added its 32nd team in 2021), and each has had at least 29 teams since the year 2000. Major League Soccer has 28 teams; it adopted a policy of continuous expansion at a rate of one to two new franchises a year since 2005, and was set to reach its long-range target of 30 teams in 2023 before the Sacramento expansion bid was placed on hold. The CFL has nine franchises, with a tenth team potentially joining in the early 2020s.
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, residual rights, or both. For example, to obtain the consent of the Baltimore Orioles
The Baltimore Orioles are an American professional baseball team based in Baltimore. The Orioles compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) American League East, East division. As one of the American L ...
to place an MLB team in Washington (about away), a deal was struck under the terms of which television and radio broadcast rights to Nationals games are handled by the Orioles franchise. Regarding territorial rights, the main concern for many team owners is television revenue, although the possibility of reduced ticket sales remains a concern for some teams. Because the NFL shares all of its television revenue equally, and most of its teams sell out their stadiums, some NFL owners are seen as less reluctant to share their territories. For example, the return of the NFL to Baltimore
Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...
in 1996 attracted no serious opposition from the Washington Redskins
The Washington Commanders are a professional American football team based in the Washington metropolitan area. The Commanders compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) N ...
organization.
As of 2022, 49 metropolitan areas (42 in the U.S., seven in Canada) have at least one team in the Big Four leagues. Austin FC
Austin FC is an American professional soccer club based in Austin, Texas. The club competes in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the Western Conference. Founded in 2018, the club began play in the 2021 season. Their home stadium is Q2 ...
, which started play in 2021, is the first and only MLS team in a market not also occupied by at least one Big Four team. The CFL has one team, the Saskatchewan Roughriders
The Saskatchewan Roughriders are a professional Canadian football team based in Regina, Saskatchewan. The Roughriders compete in the Canadian Football League (CFL) as a member club of the league's West Division.
The Roughriders were founded in 1 ...
, in a market not served by any other major league (the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, while having their city to themselves, are on the outskirts of both the Buffalo-Niagara Region
The Buffalo Niagara Region is an economic region that is part of the Great Lakes region of North America, comprising much of Western New York in the United States. The Regional Institute of the University at Buffalo has defined the region as incl ...
and the extended Greater Toronto Area). The newest market any of the Big Four leagues have entered is the Las Vegas Valley
The Las Vegas Valley is a major metropolitan area in the Southern Nevada, southern part of the U.S. state of Nevada, and the second largest in the Southwestern United States. The state's largest urban agglomeration, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Stat ...
, which received the Vegas Golden Knights
The Vegas Golden Knights are a professional ice hockey team based in the Las Vegas metropolitan area. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Pacific Division in the Western Conference. Founded in 2017 as an expan ...
in 2017 and the Las Vegas Raiders
The Las Vegas Raiders are a professional American football team based in the Las Vegas metropolitan area. The Raiders compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) West divis ...
in 2020.
United States
Major leagues have franchises placed nationwide, with multiple franchises in each of the United States' four census regions—Northeast, Midwest, South, and West.
Major leagues tend to place franchises only in the largest, most populated metropolitan areas. Most major league teams are in metro areas having populations over two million. All but seven continental U.S. metropolitan areas over one million people host at least one major sports franchise. All five U.S.-based major leagues each currently have at least two teams in both the New York/North Jersey area and the Los Angeles/Anaheim market. MLB, which historically (as a result of its history as two rival leagues) had a team in each component league in Boston, Philadelphia and St. Louis up until the mid-20th century, still has AL and NL teams in Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area. 13 American metropolitan areas have a complete set of one or more teams in each of the Big Four leagues; 11 of those 13 also have teams in MLS.
MLB, more than any other major league, focuses its teams in the largest markets. MLB is the only major league that does not have any teams in markets with fewer than 1.75 million people; both it and the NFL have teams in every U.S. market with over 4 million people. The NHL is the major league that least follows the general trend, due to the fact that a disproportionate number of its franchises are in cities with cold winters. The NHL lacks teams in a number of southern metropolitan areas with populations of over 3 million (Houston, Atlanta, San Diego) but has five teams in northern metropolitan areas with fewer than 1.25 million people, all of which are in or adjacent to Canada (the lone American team in a metro area of that size being the Buffalo Sabres
The Buffalo Sabres are a professional ice hockey team based in Buffalo, New York. The Sabres compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Atlantic Division in the Eastern Conference. The team was established in 1970, along w ...
). While only one MLB team, the San Diego Padres
The San Diego Padres are an American professional baseball team based in San Diego. The Padres compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West division. Founded in 1969, the club has won two NL penna ...
, is located in a market that has no other major league teams, seven NBA teams are located in cities devoid of any additional "Big Four" franchises: Memphis Grizzlies
The Memphis Grizzlies (referred to locally as the Grizz) are an American professional basketball team based in Memphis, Tennessee. The Grizzlies compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Western Conference ...
, Oklahoma City Thunder
The Oklahoma City Thunder are an American professional basketball team based in Oklahoma City. The Thunder compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Western Conference Northwest Division. The team plays i ...
, Orlando Magic
The Orlando Magic are an American professional basketball team based in Orlando, Florida. The Magic compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference Southeast Division. The franchise was establ ...
, Portland Trail Blazers
The Portland Trail Blazers (colloquially known as the Blazers) are an American professional basketball team based in Portland, Oregon. The Trail Blazers compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Western Con ...
, Sacramento Kings
The Sacramento Kings are an American professional basketball team based in Sacramento, California. The Kings compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Western Conference Pacific Division. The Kings are the oldest ...
, San Antonio Spurs
The San Antonio Spurs are an American professional basketball team based in San Antonio. The Spurs compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Western Conference Southwest Division. The team plays its home ...
and Utah Jazz
The Utah Jazz are an American professional basketball team based in Salt Lake City. The Jazz compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Western Conference (NBA), Western Conference, Northwest Division (NBA), ...
(Salt Lake City
Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the Capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Utah, most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the county seat, seat of Salt Lake County, Utah, Sal ...
). Four of these seven NBA-only cities also lack an MLS team (Memphis, Oklahoma City, Sacramento, San Antonio; Sacramento was scheduled to become home to an MLS team in 2023, but this move has since been placed on hold).
The NFL has one major exception. The Green Bay Packers
The Green Bay Packers are a professional American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The Packers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC North, North division. It ...
survive in major league sports' smallest metropolitan area (300,000 population) thanks to a unique community ownership, proximity to the neighboring Milwaukee
Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee is ...
market (giving a combined metro area of over two million), a league business model that relies more heavily on equally-distributed television revenue that puts small-market teams at less of a disadvantage, and the loyalty of their Cheesehead
Cheesehead is a nickname in the United States for a person from Wisconsin or for a fan of the Green Bay Packers NFL football franchise.
Current usage
Wisconsin is associated with cheese because the state historically produced more dairy produ ...
fan base. The only Packers home games that have failed to sell out since 1960 were games during the 1987 players' strike that were played with replacement players; neither the Packers nor the NFL consider those games to have interrupted the team's ongoing streak of sellouts. Green Bay is one of two NFL teams, the other being the Jacksonville Jaguars
The Jacksonville Jaguars are a professional American football team based in Jacksonville, Florida. The Jaguars compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference (AFC) South division. The team play ...
, that are the only major league franchises in their metropolitan area.
Both MLB and the NFL have had two prolonged recent exceptions in which the league was absent from one of the U.S.'s ten most populous metropolitan areas; from 1972 to 2004, ninth-place Washington, D.C. had no MLB team, and from 1995 to 2016, second-place Los Angeles had no NFL teams.
The NHL's national footprint is a relatively recent situation. Historically, the league was concentrated in the northeast, with no teams south of New York City or west of Chicago from 1935 until 1967. The league expanded its footprint westward in a 1967 expansion but, other than the unsuccessful Atlanta Flames
The Atlanta Flames were a professional ice hockey team based in Atlanta from 1972 until 1980. They played home games in the Omni Coliseum and were members of the West and later Patrick divisions of the National Hockey League (NHL). Along with t ...
, avoided the South until making a major expansion into the territory in the 1990s.
Both the NBA and MLS have higher concentrations of teams in the western United States than the other major leagues. Whereas the NBA's teams tend to be somewhat more evenly distributed across the United States, MLS's presence in areas of the southern United States has historically been sparse; after MLS folded its two Florida-based teams after the 2001 season, it did not re-enter the South until Orlando City SC joined the league in 2015, with Atlanta United FC following in 2017. With the addition of Minnesota United FC in 2017 and Inter Miami CF
Club Internacional de Fútbol Miami, known as Inter Miami CF or simply Inter Miami, is an American professional soccer club based in the Miami metropolitan area. Established in 2018, the club began play in Major League Soccer (MLS) in the 2 ...
in 2020, MLS remains absent from two markets with an otherwise complete set of the Big Four leagues: Detroit and Phoenix.
The CFL had a total of six teams in the United States over a three-year period between 1993 and 1995, all in medium-sized markets that lacked an NFL team at the time; of the seven markets those teams occupied, three (Baltimore, San Antonio and Sacramento) had other major league franchises at the time, and two would later receive a major team (Memphis and Las Vegas). The league also played occasional games in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s.
The largest metropolitan area without a major professional sports franchise depends on the definition of "metropolitan area". Among areas defined by the United States Census Bureau
The United States Census Bureau (USCB), officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The Census Bureau is part of the ...
as Metropolitan Statistical Areas
In the United States, a metropolitan statistical area (MSA) is a geographical region with a relatively high population density at its core and close economic ties throughout the area. Such regions are neither legally incorporated as a city or tow ...
(MSAs), California's Inland Empire
The Inland Empire (IE) is a metropolitan area and region inland of and adjacent to coastal Southern California, centering around the cities of San Bernardino and Riverside, and bordering Los Angeles County to the west. It includes the cities o ...
is the largest without a major franchise. However, it is part of Greater Los Angeles
Greater Los Angeles is the second-largest metropolitan region in the United States with a population of 18.5 million in 2021, encompassing five counties in Southern California extending from Ventura County in the west to San Bernardino Coun ...
, a region defined by the US Census as a Combined Statistical Area
Combined statistical area (CSA) is a United States Office of Management and Budget (OMB) term for a combination of adjacent metropolitan (MSA) and micropolitan statistical areas (µSA) across the 50 US states and the territory of Puerto Ric ...
(CSA), and is thus part of the Los Angeles television market. The largest CSA without a major franchise is the Hampton Roads
Hampton Roads is the name of both a body of water in the United States that serves as a wide channel for the James River, James, Nansemond River, Nansemond and Elizabeth River (Virginia), Elizabeth rivers between Old Point Comfort and Sewell's ...
area of southeastern Virginia, spilling over into a small part of North Carolina. The largest TV market without a major franchise is the Hartford
Hartford is the capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It was the seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960. It is the core city in the Greater Hartford metropolitan area. Census estimates since the ...
–New Haven
New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,02 ...
market, covering all of Connecticut except Fairfield County Fairfield County is the name of three counties in the United States:
* Fairfield County, Connecticut
* Fairfield County, Ohio
Fairfield County is a county located in the U.S. state of Ohio. As of the 2020 census, the population was 158,921. ...
(the state's closest to New York City); Hartford's last major league squad, the NHL's Whalers, left in 1997.
Canada
The NHL
The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...
has been the dominant professional sports league in Canada, and was first established in Canada in 1917.
The NHL was initially based entirely in eastern Canada; by 1925, Hamilton and Quebec City no longer had NHL teams, while Ottawa would leave in 1934, by which point American teams were slowly being added. The first Canadian expansion team would come in 1970 with a team in Vancouver
Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...
; the NHL later added teams in Edmonton
Edmonton ( ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. Edmonton is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Alberta's central region. The city ancho ...
, Winnipeg
Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749,6 ...
and Quebec City
Quebec City ( or ; french: Ville de Québec), officially Québec (), is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Quebec. As of July 2021, the city had a population of 549,459, and the Communauté métrop ...
(through absorption of WHA franchises), Calgary
Calgary ( ) is the largest city in the western Canadian province of Alberta and the largest metro area of the three Prairie Provinces. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806, makin ...
(via relocation from Atlanta
Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...
) and Ottawa (via expansion) to go with the still-extant Toronto and Montreal teams. The distinctive place hockey
Hockey is a term used to denote a family of various types of both summer and winter team sports which originated on either an outdoor field, sheet of ice, or dry floor such as in a gymnasium. While these sports vary in specific rules, numbers o ...
holds in Canadian culture
The culture of Canada embodies the artistic, culinary, literary, humour, musical, political and social elements that are representative of Canadians. Throughout Canada's history, its culture has been influenced by European culture and traditi ...
allowed these franchises to compete with teams in larger cities for some time. However, the teams in Winnipeg
Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749,6 ...
and Quebec City
Quebec City ( or ; french: Ville de Québec), officially Québec (), is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Quebec. As of July 2021, the city had a population of 549,459, and the Communauté métrop ...
were eventually moved to larger media markets in the U.S. The NHL returned to Winnipeg in 2011 with the Atlanta Thrashers
The Atlanta Thrashers were a professional ice hockey team based in Atlanta. Atlanta was granted a franchise in the National Hockey League (NHL) on June 25, 1997, and became the League's 28th franchise when it began play in the 1999–2000 seaso ...
relocating to become the current version of the Winnipeg Jets
The Winnipeg Jets are a professional ice hockey team based in Winnipeg. The team competes in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Central Division in the Western Conference, and is owned by True North Sports & Entertainment, pl ...
. Excluding the CFL, the NHL is the only major league to have teams in Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg or Ottawa, all markets with fewer than 1.25 million, smaller than any U.S. NHL market except Buffalo. However, those Canadian cities benefit from the country's very high level of hockey fandom. A 2013 study by Nate Silver estimated that all of these markets had roughly the same numbers of avid hockey fans as U.S. markets with several times their total population.
The Canadian Football League
The Canadian Football League (CFL; french: Ligue canadienne de football—LCF) is a professional sports league in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football. The league consists of nine teams, each located in a ci ...
has teams in all seven current NHL markets, in addition to Hamilton, Ontario
Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Hamilton has a population of 569,353, and its census metropolitan area, which includes Burlington and Grimsby, has a population of 785,184. The city is approximately southwest of T ...
, and Regina, Saskatchewan
Regina () is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Saskatchewan. The city is the second-largest in the province, after Saskatoon, and is a commercial centre for southern Saskatchewan. As of the 2021 C ...
. At least eight of these nine markets have hosted CFL teams every year since the league's officially listed inception in 1958, and no other Canadian market has ever had a CFL team of its own. In 2015, the CFL commenced Northern Kickoff, originally slated to be one preseason game and later expanded to a regular season game as well, both of which were played in Fort McMurray
Fort McMurray ( ) is an urban service area in the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo in Alberta, Canada. It is located in northeast Alberta, in the middle of the Athabasca oil sands, surrounded by boreal forest. It has played a significant ...
, an oil sands boomtown with a metro area population of less than 70,000, the smallest market to host major professional football in the modern era. Fort McMurray is in relatively close proximity to Edmonton
Edmonton ( ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. Edmonton is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Alberta's central region. The city ancho ...
, which was expected to boost attendance, but fewer than 5,000 fans attended the regular season game, and no games have been held in the city since. Regular season games have been played in Moncton
Moncton (; ) is the most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of New Brunswick. Situated in the Petitcodiac River Valley, Moncton lies at the geographic centre of the The Maritimes, Maritime Provinces. The ...
in 2010, 2011, 2013 and 2019 to gauge expansion to the Maritime provinces in the Touchdown Atlantic
Touchdown Atlantic (French: ''Touché Atlantique'') is a series of neutral site Canadian Football League games played in the maritime provinces of Canada.
In 2003, the league had struck a committee to examine the feasibility of adding a tenth t ...
; the expansion team, the Atlantic Schooners
The Atlantic Schooners were a conditional Canadian Football League (CFL) expansion team that was to begin play in 1984 in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. However, team ownership could not secure funding for a stadium and the franchise application was w ...
, has been proposed twice, once unsuccessfully in the 1980s, and another in the late 2010s that is still being considered. Hamilton, in addition to hosting the 2013 Touchdown Atlantic, played the rest of their 2013 season in Guelph
Guelph ( ; 2021 Canadian Census population 143,740) is a city in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. Known as "The Royal City", Guelph is roughly east of Kitchener and west of Downtown Toronto, at the intersection of Highway 6, Highway 7 and Wel ...
during the construction of Tim Hortons Field
Tim Hortons Field, nicknamed "The Donut Box", is a multi-purpose stadium in Hamilton, Ontario, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Built as a replacement for Ivor Wynne Stadium, Tim Hortons Field is primarily used for Canadian football and association fo ...
.
The first Major League Baseball team in Canada was the Montreal Expos
The Montreal Expos (french: link=no, Les Expos de Montréal) were a Canadian professional baseball team based in Montreal, Quebec. The Expos were the first Major League Baseball (MLB) franchise located outside the United States. They played in t ...
, who began play in 1969. In 2005, they moved to Washington, D.C. and became the Washington Nationals
The Washington Nationals are an American professional baseball team based in Washington, D.C.. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member of the National League (NL) East division. From 2005 to 2007, the team played in RFK Stadiu ...
. The Toronto Blue Jays
The Toronto Blue Jays are a Canadian professional baseball team based in Toronto. The Blue Jays compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. Since 1989, the team has played its home games ...
, who began play in 1977, became the first team outside the United States to win the World Series in 1992 and 1993.
The NBA expanded into Canada in 1995 when the Vancouver Grizzlies
The Vancouver Grizzlies were a Canadian professional basketball team based in Vancouver. They were part of the Midwest Division of the Western Conference of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The team was established in 1995, along w ...
and the Raptors joined the league. The Grizzlies moved to Memphis
Memphis most commonly refers to:
* Memphis, Egypt, a former capital of ancient Egypt
* Memphis, Tennessee, a major American city
Memphis may also refer to:
Places United States
* Memphis, Alabama
* Memphis, Florida
* Memphis, Indiana
* Memp ...
in 2001.
MLS has teams in Vancouver
Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...
, Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...
, and Montreal
Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...
.
The NFL is the only major league to have no team based in a Canadian city; the closest teams to Canada are the Buffalo Bills and Detroit Lions
The Detroit Lions are a professional American football team based in Detroit. The Lions compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) North Division. The team play their home games at Ford ...
, both representing cities located on the U.S.–Canada border. The Lions play in downtown Detroit
Downtown Detroit is the central business district and a residential area of the city of Detroit, Michigan, United States. Locally, downtown tends to refer to the 1.4 square mile region bordered by M-10 (Lodge Freeway) to the west, Interstate 75 ( ...
, from Windsor, Ontario
Windsor is a city in southwestern Ontario, Canada, on the south bank of the Detroit River directly across from Detroit, Michigan, United States. Geographically located within but administratively independent of Essex County, it is the souther ...
. The Bills' stadium is located south of the Canada–U.S. border. From 2008 to 2013, the Bills played 8 games in Toronto as part of the Bills Toronto Series
The Bills Toronto Series was a series of National Football League (NFL) games featuring the Buffalo Bills played at Rogers Centre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The original series began in the 2008 season and ran through 2012. The Bills were orig ...
which included one regular season game per year. On August 22, 2019, the Oakland Raiders
The Oakland Raiders were a professional American football team that played in Oakland from its founding in 1960 to 1981 and again from 1995 to 2019 before relocating to the Las Vegas metropolitan area where they now play as the Las Vegas Raide ...
played the Green Bay Packers
The Green Bay Packers are a professional American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The Packers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC North, North division. It ...
in a preseason game at IG Field
IG Field (formerly Investors Group Field) is an outdoor stadium in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The stadium, which opened in 2013, is located on the University of Manitoba campus next to University Stadium.
Owned by Triple B Stadium Inc., a consortium ...
in Winnipeg
Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749,6 ...
.
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.
The major leagues generally do not allow anyone to own a stake in more than one franchise, to prevent the perception of being in a conflict of interest
A conflict of interest (COI) is a situation in which a person or organization is involved in multiple interests, financial or otherwise, and serving one interest could involve working against another. Typically, this relates to situations i ...
. This rule was adopted after several high-profile controversies involving ownership of multiple baseball teams in the 1890s. Additionally, the NHL's "Original Six
The Original Six () are the teams that comprised the National Hockey League (NHL) between 1942 and 1967. The six teams are the Boston Bruins, Chicago Black Hawks, Detroit Red Wings, Montreal Canadiens, New York Rangers, and Toronto Maple Leaf ...
" period, from 1942 to 1967, was marked by the Norris family owning a controlling stake in half of the league's teams, a factor in the league's stagnation during that period.
With the exception of the NFL, every other major league has had at least one case since 2000 where the league itself has taken ownership or control of a franchise:
* MLB — Purchased the Montreal Expos
The Montreal Expos (french: link=no, Les Expos de Montréal) were a Canadian professional baseball team based in Montreal, Quebec. The Expos were the first Major League Baseball (MLB) franchise located outside the United States. They played in t ...
in 2001 and moved the franchise to Washington, D.C. as the Nationals in 2005 before selling the team to a local group in 2006. MLB also took over the operations of the Los Angeles Dodgers
The Los Angeles Dodgers are an American professional baseball team based in Los Angeles. The Dodgers compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West division. Established in 1883 in the city of Brooklyn ...
in 2011, citing financial and governance issues stemming from the divorce of the team's co-owners, before Frank McCourt
Francis McCourt (August 19, 1930July 19, 2009) was an Irish-American teacher and writer. He won a Pulitzer Prize for his book ''Angela's Ashes'', a tragicomic memoir of the misery and squalor of his childhood.
Early life and education
Frank Mc ...
sold the Dodgers to an ownership group in March 2012.
* NHL — Took over the Buffalo Sabres
The Buffalo Sabres are a professional ice hockey team based in Buffalo, New York. The Sabres compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Atlantic Division in the Eastern Conference. The team was established in 1970, along w ...
in 2002 after owner John Rigas
John James Rigas (November 14, 1924 – September 30, 2021) was an American businessman who was one of the founders of Adelphia Communications Corporation, which at its peak was one of the largest cable TV companies in the United States. He wa ...
was arrested for embezzlement
Embezzlement is a crime that consists of withholding assets for the purpose of conversion of such assets, by one or more persons to whom the assets were entrusted, either to be held or to be used for specific purposes. Embezzlement is a type ...
, and sold the team to Tom Golisano
Blase Thomas Golisano (born November 14, 1941) is an American billionaire businessman and philanthropist.
He is the founder of Paychex, which offers payroll and human resources services to businesses. Golisano owned Greenlight Networks, a fiber ...
in 2003. The NHL also seized the Phoenix Coyotes
The Arizona Coyotes are a professional ice hockey team based in the Phoenix metropolitan area. The Coyotes compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Central Division in the Western Conference and currently play at the Mull ...
in 2009 to prevent its owner from selling it to a buyer who intended to relocate the team, and sold the team to a Phoenix-area group in 2013.
* NBA — Purchased the New Orleans Hornets
New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created.
New or NEW may refer to:
Music
* New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz
Albums and EPs
* ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013
* ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, ...
from its owner in December 2010, and sold the team to owner Tom Benson
Thomas Milton Benson (July 12, 1927 – March 15, 2018) was an American businessman, philanthropist and sports franchise owner. He was the owner of several automobile dealerships before buying the New Orleans Saints of the National Football Leagu ...
in April 2012.
* MLS — Purchased Chivas USA
Chivas USA (pronounced ''CHEE-vahs'') was an American professional soccer team based in the Los Angeles suburb of Carson, California. The club played from 2005 to 2014 in Major League Soccer (MLS) and was a subsidiary of Mexican club C.D. Guada ...
from Jorge Vergara
Jorge Carlos Vergara Madrigal (; 3 March 1955 – 15 November 2019) was a Mexican businessman and film producer. He was the founder of the multi-level marketing company Grupo Omnilife. In addition to its health products business, Grupo Omnili ...
in 2014 and folded the team after the 2014 season. A new L.A. franchise, Los Angeles FC, began play in 2018 as an expansion team and did not inherit Chivas USA's history.
* CFL — Seized the Ottawa Renegades
The Ottawa Renegades were a Canadian Football League franchise based in Ottawa, Ontario founded in 2002, six years after the storied Ottawa Rough Riders folded. After four seasons, the Renegades franchise was suspended indefinitely by the league ...
from owner Bernard Glieberman
Bernard "Bernie" Glieberman is an American real estate mogul and the president of Crosswinds Communities. Despite having made his fortune in real estate, Glieberman was perhaps best known for, with his son Lonie, making several unsuccessful and co ...
in 2006, suspended the franchise, then sold it to Jeff Hunt
Jeff Hunt is a Canadian businessman who is an owner of the Ottawa Redblacks football club of the Canadian Football League and the Ottawa 67's hockey club of the Ontario Hockey League. He started a carpet-cleaning firm called Canway. His firm wa ...
, who reactivated it in 2014 as the Ottawa Redblacks
The Ottawa Redblacks (officially stylized as REDBLACKS) ( French: Le Rouge et Noir d'Ottawa) are a professional Canadian football team based in Ottawa, Ontario. The team plays in the East Division of the Canadian Football League (CFL).
Startin ...
. The CFL also accepted ownership in 2019 of the Montreal Alouettes from owner Robert Wetenhall
Robert Carl "Bob" Wetenhall Sr. (February 14, 1935 – September 3, 2021) was an American businessman who owned the Montreal Alouettes Football Club of the Canadian Football League from 1997 through 2018.
Biography
Robert (Bob) Wetenhall was ...
in order to keep it operating until the league announced Sid Spiegel and Gary Stern as the team's new owners in January 2020.
The NFL (nor any of its predecessors) has not taken over operations of any team since 1962, when the American Football League took over the nearly bankrupt Titans of New York
The history of the New York Jets American football team began in 1959 with the founding of the Titans of New York, an original member of the American Football League (AFL); they began actual play the following year. The team had little success i ...
in an effort to prevent the team from folding; in 1963, a new ownership group bought the franchise and it became the New York Jets
The New York Jets are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Jets compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division. The J ...
.
The NFL has stronger ownership restrictions. The NFL forbids ownership by groups of over 24 people or publicly-traded corporations, except the grandfathered Green Bay Packers
The Green Bay Packers are a professional American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The Packers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC North, North division. It ...
. Additionally, the league requires that at least one member of the ownership group hold a 30% interest, with stringent limits on the amount of debt that a new ownership group can take on. The NFL also forbids its owners from owning any other professional American football teams; this rule has not always been in place (as the NFL owners previously owned minor league teams in the 1940s) but was in place by the 1980s, when the DeBartolo family was scrutinized for owning both the San Francisco 49ers
The San Francisco 49ers (also written as the San Francisco Forty-Niners) are a professional American football team based in the San Francisco Bay Area. The 49ers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the league's National ...
and USFL
The United States Football League (USFL) was a professional American football league that played for three seasons, 1983 through 1985. The league played a spring/summer schedule in each of its active seasons. The 1986 season was scheduled to be ...
's Pittsburgh Maulers (as different members of the family owned each team, the league allowed the DeBartolos to keep the 49ers). Arena Football League
The Arena Football League (AFL) was a professional arena football league in the United States. It was founded in 1986, but played its first official games in the 1987 season, making it the third longest-running professional football league in ...
teams were exempt from this rule during that league's existence. NFL owners were long prohibited from owning major league baseball, basketball and hockey teams unless they were in the NFL team's home market, or not located in other NFL cities. This last set of restrictions was lifted in October 2018; many owners believed that cross-ownership restrictions had outlived their purpose, and they had largely been disregarded since Stan Kroenke
Enos Stanley Kroenke (; born July 29, 1947) is an American billionaire businessman. He is the owner of Kroenke Sports & Entertainment, which is the holding company of Arsenal F.C. of the Premier League and Arsenal W.F.C. of the WSL, the Los ...
, who purchased the then-St. Louis Rams and moved them to Los Angeles while simultaneously owning assets in Denver, became a majority NFL owner in 2010. Additionally, media reports theorized that the cross-ownership ban materially reduced the sale price of the Carolina Panthers
The Carolina Panthers are a professional American football team based in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Panthers compete in the National Football League (NFL), as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) South division. T ...
earlier in 2018, with several NBA team owners reportedly interested in bidding but barred by then-current NFL rules. The cross-ownership restrictions originally covered soccer, but a 1982 federal court decision in a lawsuit filed against the NFL by the original NASL went in favor of the NASL, thereby exempting soccer from these restrictions.
MLS has adopted a different league structure and operates as a single-entity league, a structure that survived a lawsuit from the players in ''Fraser v. Major League Soccer
''Fraser v. Major League Soccer'', 284 F.3d 47 ( 1st Cir. 2002), was an antitrust suit filed by eight Major League Soccer players against MLS, the league's investors, and the United States Soccer Federation. The Court found that Major League Socc ...
''. During the first few years of the league, MLS for the sake of stability allowed individuals to operate multiple teams. MLS ownership arrangements have evolved, however, with operation of the league's 28 current and 2 future teams now spread among 30 ownership groups, with no member of any ownership group having a stake in more than one group.
Seven out of nine clubs in the CFL are held by some form of partnership or corporation; of those seven, two (Saskatchewan and Edmonton) are publicly held corporations in and of themselves, two (Toronto and Hamilton) are partially owned by public conglomerates, and three (Calgary, Ottawa and Montreal) are held by closely held partnerships. Only one, the BC Lions
The BC Lions are a professional Canadian football team based in Vancouver, British Columbia. The Lions compete in the West Division of the Canadian Football League (CFL), and play their home games at BC Place.
The Lions played their first season ...
, is held by an individual owner. The ninth team, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers
The Winnipeg Blue Bombers are a professional Canadian football team based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The Blue Bombers compete in the Canadian Football League (CFL) as a member club of the league's West division. They play their home games at IG Fiel ...
, operates under the shell of the Winnipeg Football Club, a nonprofit sports club
A sports club or sporting club, sometimes an athletics club or sports society or sports association, is a group of people formed for the purpose of playing sports.
Sports clubs range from organisations whose members play together, unpaid, and ...
with no clear ownership structure or share capital.
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 their failing rivals, or merged outright with them.
Baseball's National League
The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team ...
withstood three challenges in its first quarter century of existence. The American Association American Association may refer to:
Baseball
* American Association (1882–1891), a major league active from 1882 to 1891
* American Association (1902–1997), a minor league active from 1902 to 1962 and 1969 to 1997
* American Association of Profe ...
began in 1882 in several lucrative markets without an NL team. For several years, the AA was a viable competitor to the NL, and the NL and AA champions competed in an informal World Series. Four of the AA's teams defected to the NL in its later years, before the AA expired in 1891. Labor problems led to the formation of the Players' League
The Players' National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs, popularly known as the Players' League (PL), was a short-lived but star-studded professional American baseball league of the 19th century. The PL was formed by the Brotherhood of Prof ...
for the 1890 season; it attracted a significant percentage of the baseball talent and caused the NL and AA significant financial harm, but it lacked financial backing and folded after only one season. The minor Western League moved several franchises in NL cities and cities abandoned by the NL for the 1900 and 1901 seasons, and renamed itself the American League
The American League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the American League (AL), is one of two leagues that make up Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada. It developed from the Western League, a minor league ...
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 Baseball. MLB withstood the challenge of the Federal League
The Federal League of Base Ball Clubs, known simply as the Federal League, was an American professional baseball league that played its first season as a minor league in 1913 and operated as a "third major league", in competition with the e ...
in 1914. Various Negro leagues
The Negro leagues were United States professional baseball leagues comprising teams of African Americans and, to a lesser extent, Latin Americans. The term may be used broadly to include professional black teams outside the leagues and it may be ...
peaked from the 1920s to the 1940s, and on barnstorming
Barnstorming was a form of entertainment in which stunt pilots performed tricks individually or in groups that were called flying circuses. Devised to "impress people with the skill of pilots and the sturdiness of planes," it became popular in t ...
tours the Negro league players showed themselves to be MLB players' competitive equals, but after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier
Racial segregation is the systematic separation of people into racial or other ethnic groups in daily life. Racial segregation can amount to the international crime of apartheid and a crime against humanity under the Statute of the Internati ...
in 1947, the influx of black stars into the major leagues drained the Negro leagues of talent. MLB prevented the Continental League
The Continental League of Professional Baseball Clubs (known as the Continental League or CL) was a proposed third major league for baseball in the United States and Canada. The league was announced in 1959 and scheduled to begin play in the 19 ...
from getting off the ground in 1961–62 by placing teams in four of that league's proposed cities by either expansion or relocation.
The NFL has fought off the most rivals throughout the years, and to this day faces a competing start-up league every few years. One strong rival to the NFL was the All-America Football Conference of 1946–1949; three of their seven teams merged with the NFL for the 1950 season, and two of the three still exist in the NFL. Four (all unrelated) rivals were named ''American Football League;'' the last American Football League existed from 1960 to 1970, winning the last two of the four pre-merger Super Bowl games, before merging with the NFL in 1970. The NFL has beaten back other significant rival football leagues, often placing expansion or relocation teams in those cities following that league's demise: the World Football League
The World Football League (WFL) was an American football league that played one full season in 1974 and most of its second in 1975. Although the league's proclaimed ambition was to bring American football onto a worldwide stage, the farthest t ...
of 1974–1975 (the NFL added two teams in 1975), the United States Football League
The United States Football League (USFL) was a professional American football league that played for three seasons, 1983 through 1985. The league played a spring/summer schedule in each of its active seasons. The 1986 season was scheduled to be ...
of 1983–1985 (the NFL relocated one team to a USFL market in 1988), and the Canadian Football League
The Canadian Football League (CFL; french: Ligue canadienne de football—LCF) is a professional sports league in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football. The league consists of nine teams, each located in a ci ...
's American franchises of 1993–1995 (the NFL added three teams in the mid 1990s, including one in the CFL's most successful U.S. market). All told, 13 of the NFL's current 32 franchises were absorbed from a rival league—all 10 AFL franchises of the 1960s, two from the AAFC, and one from the 1936 AFL.
The NBA was formed in 1949 after three years of competition between the large-market Basketball Association of America (from which the NBA traces its existence) and the industrial-based National Basketball League. The NBA also had to fend off two incarnations of the American Basketball League, the first
First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1).
First or 1st may also refer to:
*World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement
Arts and media Music
* 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...
being an Eastern circuit that predated the NBA, and the second
The second (symbol: s) is the unit of time in the International System of Units (SI), historically defined as of a day – this factor derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes and finally to 60 seconds ...
existing from 1961 to 1963, after Abe Saperstein was repeatedly denied an NBA expansion team. The NBA later fought off the challenge of the American Basketball Association from 1967 to 1976, in part by expanding from nine to eighteen teams. The NBA then absorbed four of the ABA's most successful franchises in a 1976 merger, and adopted several of the ABA's rule variations, most notably the three-point shot
A three-point field goal (also 3-pointer, three, or trey) is a field goal in a basketball game made from beyond the three-point line, a designated arc surrounding the basket. A successful attempt is worth three points, in contrast to the two poi ...
.
The NHL began its existence competing with the Western Canada Hockey League
The Western Canada Hockey League (WCHL), founded in 1921, was a major professional ice hockey league originally based in the prairies of Canada. It was renamed the Western Hockey League (WHL) in 1925 and disbanded in 1926.
The WCHL's Victoria C ...
and its predecessor, the Pacific Coast Hockey Association
The Pacific Coast Hockey Association (PCHA) was a professional ice hockey league in western Canada and the western United States, which operated from 1911 to 1924 when it then merged with the Western Canada Hockey League (WCHL). The PCHA was cons ...
; both had folded by 1926, leaving the NHL as the sole major North American hockey league. The NHL fended off two challenges in the 1960s and 1970s. The NHL prevented the old Western Hockey League
The Western Hockey League (WHL) is a major junior ice hockey league based in Western Canada and the Northwestern United States. The WHL is one of three leagues that constitutes the Canadian Hockey League (CHL) as the highest level of junior h ...
from achieving parity in the quality of players, salaries and attendance by doubling in size from six to twelve teams in 1967, including into the WHL markets of Los Angeles and San Francisco, and added two more teams in 1970, including a former WHL team in Vancouver. During its existence from 1972 to 1979, the World Hockey Association challenged the dominance of the NHL. The WHA initially attracted stars by offering higher salaries than the NHL and successfully invalidating the NHL's reserve clause
The reserve clause, in North American professional sports, was part of a player contract which stated that the rights to players were retained by the team upon the contract's expiration. Players under these contracts were not free to enter into ano ...
, forcing NHL teams to keep up. The bidding war brought financial distress to both leagues. With the WHA and several NHL teams faced with collapse, the NHL negotiated a merger of the leagues whereby the four strongest WHA teams joined the NHL.
The CFL has been historically protected from the competing leagues that the NFL faced, in part because of threats of parliamentary legislation to stop any CFL competitor from being allowed to play in Canada. The Canadian Football Act
The ''Canadian Football Act'' (1974), also known in its long title as ''An Act respecting Canadian Professional Football'', was a proposed Act by the Parliament of Canada in April 1974 designed to give a government-protected monopoly over profe ...
, proposed in 1974 but never passed, would have given the CFL a government-endorsed monopoly on professional gridiron football in Canada by prohibiting any other league from playing its games in the country; the mere introduction of the bill in Parliament
In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...
prompted the WFL's Toronto Northmen
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...
to move to the United States before playing a single game and later the first USFL
The United States Football League (USFL) was a professional American football league that played for three seasons, 1983 through 1985. The league played a spring/summer schedule in each of its active seasons. The 1986 season was scheduled to be ...
was discouraged from establishing teams in Canada with the threat to reintroduce the Act in 1982. In the context of the modern North American sports market as a whole, however, CFL has faced and survived numerous challenges from upstart US-based leagues seeking to establish themselves as a second-tier gridiron football league relative to the NFL and thus competing with the CFL for player talent and consumer exposure. The vast majority of these leagues (such as the first USFL, UFL, XFL
XFL may refer to:
Sports
* XFL (2001), a defunct American football league that played its only season in 2001
* XFL (2020), a professional American football league
Vehicles
* Bell XFL Airabonita, a 1940 U.S. Navy experimental interceptor aircra ...
and its later reincarnation, and AAF
AAF may refer to:
Aviation
* Aigle Azur (ICAO code), a French airline
* Apalachicola Regional Airport (IATA code), in Apalachicola, Florida
Corporations
* American Air Filter, today a part of HVAC-equipment-maker Daikin
Military
* Albanian Arm ...
) have all been short-lived; all but the current XFL and the second USFL (which started play in 2022) have folded, with the current XFL currently (as of mid-2022) being reorganized. Similarly, the CFL itself played the role of a competitor to the NFL during its mid-1990s expansion out of Canada and into the US market, which was also short lived.
Fixed league membership
In general, sports leagues in the United States and Canada are closed leagues that never developed any system of promotion and relegation like those in Europe. A major professional sports team stays at the top level of the sport, regardless of their performance.
A major factor in this development was the greater distances between cities, with some teams separated by at least half the continent, which in turn resulted in higher traveling costs. When the National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs was established in 1876, its founders judged that in order to prosper, they must make baseball's highest level of competition a "closed shop", with a strict limit on the number of teams, and with each member having exclusive local rights. This guarantee of a place in the league year after year would permit each club owner to monopolize fan bases in their respective exclusive territories and give them the confidence to invest in infrastructure, such as improved ballparks. This in turn would guarantee the revenues needed to support traveling across the continent. With the introduction of TV exposure and other sources of increased revenue during the 20th century, team owners have no incentive to risk giving up this annual income in favor of establishing an "open shop system" where they could be relegated to a lower league that does not generate that kind of lucrative money. There has been discussion of Major League Soccer adopting promotion and relegation, but MLS is not pursuing the option. Eight current MLS teams—Seattle Sounders FC
Seattle Sounders Football Club is an American professional men's soccer club based in Seattle. The Sounders compete as a member of the Western Conference of Major League Soccer (MLS). The club was established on November 13, 2007, and began ...
, Portland Timbers, Vancouver Whitecaps FC
Vancouver Whitecaps Football Club is a Canadian professional soccer team based in Vancouver. They compete in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member club of the league's Western Conference. The MLS iteration of the club was established on Marc ...
, CF Montréal, Orlando City SC, Minnesota United FC, FC Cincinnati, and Nashville SC—were promoted from lower leagues through the traditional expansion process, without regard to on-pitch record; instead new teams are brought into MLS based on the financial strength of their ownership and market. Sacramento Republic FC
Sacramento Republic FC is an American professional soccer team based in Sacramento, California, that plays in the Western Conference of the USL Championship, the second level in US soccer. Co-founded by Warren Smith and Joe Wagoner in 2012, the ...
was scheduled to become the ninth such MLS team in 2023 until its lead investor pulled out of the expansion deal.
Player development
All of the major North American professional sports leagues use a draft
Draft, The Draft, or Draught may refer to:
Watercraft dimensions
* Draft (hull), the distance from waterline to keel of a vessel
* Draft (sail), degree of curvature in a sail
* Air draft, distance from waterline to the highest point on a vesse ...
system to assign prospective players to teams. The NFL, NHL and NBA all use their respective drafts to ensure a certain measure of parity between franchises, so that teams with losing records pick early in the draft, while the league champions pick last in each round. (In the NFL, the relationship is directly linear, so that the worst team always gets the first overall pick; the NHL and NBA, in efforts to thwart tanking, use a draft lottery to determine the early draft order.)
Three of the top four major leagues possess sophisticated player development systems.
The vast majority of MLB players are developed through the minor league baseball system. Prospective players generally are drafted, and are then assigned to the appropriate minor league level for development. With the growth of college baseball
College baseball is baseball that is played on the intercollegiate level at institutions of higher education. In comparison to football and basketball, college competition in the United States plays a smaller role in developing professional pl ...
, more players opt to play at the collegiate level and delay entry into the MLB draft; college baseball players with professional aspirations will usually also play collegiate summer baseball
Collegiate summer baseball leagues are amateur baseball leagues in the United States and Canada featuring players who have attended at least one year of college and have at least one year of athletic eligibility remaining. Generally, they operat ...
to gain experience and exposure while maintaining their college eligibility. 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 rare, and most of the few that have were quickly reassigned to the minors. MLB clubs also sign many players from Latin American
Latin Americans ( es, Latinoamericanos; pt, Latino-americanos; ) are the citizens of Latin American countries (or people with cultural, ancestral or national origins in Latin America). Latin American countries and their diasporas are multi-eth ...
countries, and have also recruited many players from the Japanese leagues.
Most of the NBA's talent comes from college
A college (Latin: ''collegium'') is an educational institution or a constituent part of one. A college may be a degree-awarding tertiary educational institution, a part of a collegiate or federal university, an institution offering ...
and high school basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...
, although minimum age rules have ended the NBA's practice of drafting players directly from high school beginning in 2006
File:2006 Events Collage V1.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2006 Winter Olympics open in Turin; Twitter is founded and launched by Jack Dorsey; The Nintendo Wii is released; Montenegro 2006 Montenegrin independence referendum, votes to declare ...
. The NBA's developmental league, now known as the G League
The NBA G League, or simply the G League, is the National Basketball Association's (NBA) official minor league basketball organization. The league was known as the National Basketball Development League (NBDL) from 2001 to 2005, and the NBA Dev ...
, was implemented in 2001 by the NBA to perform the role of a farm system
In sports, a farm team, farm system, feeder team, feeder club, or nursery club is generally a team or club whose role is to provide experience and training for young players, with an agreement that any successful players can move on to a higher ...
in helping with player development and market reach, but NBA teams more frequently recruit talent from overseas professional leagues, mostly in Europe with a few players being recruited from leagues in Latin America, China, and Australia. Prior to the development of the G League, the Continental Basketball Association
The Continental Basketball Association (CBA) (originally known as the Eastern Pennsylvania Basketball League, and later as the Eastern Professional Basketball League and the Eastern Basketball Association) was a men's professional basketball m ...
had served as a minor league to the NBA.
The National Football League is the only one of the four major sports leagues that does not have a formalized farm system. The source for almost all NFL players is college football, but NFL also has International Player Pathway Program
The International Player Pathway Program (IPPP) is a program run by the National Football League (NFL) to increase the number of non-Americans, American and Canadians, Canadian players in the NFL. The program was formed as part of the NFL's strateg ...
for potential international prospects. Drafted players from college immediately join the main team; if they fail to make the regular season roster, a limited number of players may be assigned to the practice squad
In sports, the practice squad, also called the taxi squad or practice roster, is a group of players signed by a team but not part of their main roster. Frequently used in gridiron football, they serve as extra players during the team's practices, ...
. NFL teams rarely recruit players from other gridiron football leagues. American football also has the least global reach for prospects, with one exception being several players from other codes of football primarily as kickers and punters. The league's teams backed the World League (later known as NFL Europe
NFL Europe League (simply called NFL Europe and known in its final season as NFL Europa League) was a professional American football league that functioned as the developmental minor league of the National Football League (NFL). Originally f ...
) in the 1990s and 2000s, and purchased teams in the Arena Football League
The Arena Football League (AFL) was a professional arena football league in the United States. It was founded in 1986, but played its first official games in the 1987 season, making it the third longest-running professional football league in ...
for a period in the 2000s. As of 2019, the National Football League Players Association
The National Football League Players Association, or NFLPA, is a labor union representing National Football League (NFL) players. The NFLPA, which has headquarters in Washington, D.C., is led by president J. C. Tretter and executive director DeM ...
explicitly opposes having an official minor league in the same model as the other major sports, mainly because of the risk of injury.
Each NHL team has an affiliate in North America's top-tier minor hockey league
The Junior Hockey League (JHL) (russian: Молодежная Хоккейная Лига (МХЛ), Molodezhnaya Hokkeinaya Liga), sometimes translated as the ''Minor'' or ''Youth'' Hockey League, is a major junior ice hockey league in Eurasia ...
, the American Hockey League
The American Hockey League (AHL) is a professional ice hockey league based in the United States and Canada that serves as the primary Minor league#Ice hockey, developmental league for the National Hockey League (NHL). Since the 2010–11 AHL se ...
, and most have an affiliation with teams in the ECHL
The ECHL (formerly the East Coast Hockey League) is a mid-level professional ice hockey league based in Shrewsbury, New Jersey, with teams scattered across the United States and Canada. It is a tier below the American Hockey League (AHL).
The E ...
. For decades, the traditional route to the NHL has been through junior hockey
Junior hockey is a level of competitive ice hockey generally for players between 16 and 21 years of age. Junior hockey leagues in the United States and Canada are considered amateur (with some exceptions) and operate within regions of each cou ...
and the Canadian Hockey League (CHL). Beginning in the 1970s, NHL teams began drafting and signing prospects from Europe, and a growing number of NHL hopefuls are forgoing the CHL in favor of NCAA Division I college hockey. Additionally, USA Hockey
USA Hockey is the national ice hockey organization in the United States. It is recognized by the International Olympic Committee and the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee as the governing body for organized ice hockey in the United ...
also sanctions junior hockey leagues, such as the United States Hockey League
The United States Hockey League (USHL) is the top junior ice hockey league sanctioned by USA Hockey. The league consists of 16 active teams located in the midwestern United States, for players between the ages of 16 and 21. The USHL is strictly ...
and North American Hockey League, that allow players to develop while also retain NCAA eligibility in order to make the NHL. Almost all draft picks are initially assigned to an affiliate in their NHL team's minor league system for development.
MLS teams sign players from their youth academies, from the MLS college draft, and from overseas. MLS teams rely on their youth academies, which are now a requirement for all MLS clubs. MLS clubs can operate youth teams as young as 13–14 years old. Some youth academy teams participate in lower-tier leagues. MLS also holds an annual draft in which top college soccer
College soccer is played by teams composed of soccer players who are enrolled in colleges and universities. It is very prominent in United States, Japan, South Korea, Canada, and as well as in South Africa and the Philippines. The United Kingd ...
players are selected. MLS has in the recent past had a formal relationship with the United Soccer League
United Soccer League (USL), formerly known as United Soccer Leagues, is a Association football, soccer league in the United States and Canada. It organizes several men's and women's leagues, both professional and amateur. Men's leagues curren ...
, which operates (among other leagues) the Division II USL Championship
The USL Championship (USLC) is a professional men's soccer league in the United States that began its inaugural season in 2011. The USL is sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation (U.S. Soccer) as a Division II league since 2017, p ...
(USLC) and Division III USL League One (USL 1). For several years in the 2010s, MLS teams were nominally required to field a reserve team in a USL league, either by direct ownership or affiliation with a separately owned team, although this requirement was never strictly enforced. MLS relaunched its reserve league in 2022 as MLS Next Pro, a third-level league featuring 20 MLS reserve teams and one independently owned team (Rochester New York FC). Of the nine current and future MLS teams that did not field a side in Next Pro's first season, all but CF Montréal and D.C. United will field reserve sides in Next Pro in 2023. This setup allows developing MLS players to gain playing experience.
The CFL's draft is limited to Canadian citizens, plus non-citizens who were raised in Canada. In addition to university/college football, the CFL draft also draws players from the long-established Canadian Junior Football League and its component leagues. The league also draws from the same pool of free agents as the NFL, with players who do not make the NFL often going north to seek work in the CFL. The CFL requires free agents to sign contracts, and thus stay in the league, for a minimum of two years. Unique to the CFL is the concept of the ''negotiation list'', which allows CFL teams to unilaterally declare exclusive rights to any given player. Described as an "enduring mystery," the negotiation list forces players to accept the offer they are given, usually at league minimum, with no leverage to negotiate with other teams; there is no order or limits to the negotiation list, and teams can add or remove players to a 45-position negotiation list without their permission and at any time, regardless of age. Since 2018 CFL season, 2018, ten of the 45 players must be publicly announced.
High player salaries
The average annual salary for players in the four major leagues is about US$2.9 million in 2008, although player salaries can range from $500,000 for backup players to as much as $40 million (up to around $60 mil in the NFL and the NBA by 2021, not counting endorsements and sponsorship deals) for superstars.
NFL, MLB, and NBA, have the List of largest sports contracts, biggest and longest contracts in the history of professional sports.
NBA players have the highest average player salaries of the four leagues; however, their teams also have the smallest rosters.
The NFL has the highest average team payroll. However, NFL rosters are far larger (55 players) than the other three leagues (many players on NFL rosters see little actual game play), and teams play far fewer games, making their players on average the lowest paid of the Big Four major leagues. After a brief lockout during the 2011 off-season, the owners and union signed a new CBA that imposed a hard salary cap of $120 million in the 2011 season, but temporarily suspended the salary floor, which returned in the 2013 season at 89% of the cap.
MLB is now alone among the major leagues in that it lacks any form of a salary cap and has enacted only modest forms of revenue sharing and luxury tax (sports), luxury taxes. Compared to the other leagues, there is a far greater disparity between MLB payrolls. The New York Yankees 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 Marlins who spent about $15 million (significantly less than the mandatory minimum team payrolls in the NFL and NHL).
For the 2010–11 NHL season, 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, with the salary floor set at US$16 million under the cap. For the , the cap has been set as US$79.5 million, with the floor at US$58.8 million.
MLS has lower average salaries and smaller payrolls than the other leagues. MLS kept a strict rein on player salaries until 2007, when MLS introduced the Designated Player Rule
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 ...
, which allows MLS teams to pay higher wages for star players. David Beckham was the first player signed under this rule. The highest MLS payroll in 2019 was Toronto FC, with $24.5 million. The league's average salary is about $423,232 per year. MLS' minimum player salary will increase from $63,542 to $85,502 for most players.
The CFL has a relatively smaller annual player salary and salary cap compared to the other leagues. The average salary in 2018 is $113,000 and the salary cap in 2018 is CAD $5.2 million.[.] As recently as the 1990s, loopholes in the salary cap allowed CFL teams to pay select marquee players a salary comparable to their NFL counterparts, but financial problems forced the league to close those loopholes. Starting quarterbacks, typically the highest paid players on a CFL roster, can make as much as CAD $750,000.[
]
Dominance of the sport
Each of the top four major leagues are the premier competitions of their respective sport on the world stage. Major League Baseball is increasingly Posting system, luring away the stars 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, Australia and China.
All four leagues are 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 in parts of the world, and the NBA is unquestionably the top basketball league. Hockey (Europe) and baseball (East Asia, Latin America, Caribbean) 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.
The NHL is the top professional hockey league in the world, and the NHL attracts top players from European leagues. The NHL played exhibition games against European teams in the "NHL Premiere" series (2007–11), the NHL Challenge (2000-10), and the Victoria Cup (ice hockey), Victoria Cup (2008–09), and NHL teams have won 24 games to the European teams' four.
During the height of the Cold War the Soviet League had comparable talent to the NHL, but since the decline of Communism in Eastern Europe in Revolutions of 1989, the late 1980s, NHL teams have enticed away most of the elite players from Europe due to higher salaries.
Major League Soccer is not the premier soccer competition in the world, or even in the Americas, in terms of competition success, revenues, and players. MLS teams compete with top teams from North America, Central America and the Caribbean in the CONCACAF Champions League; before Seattle Sounders FC
Seattle Sounders Football Club is an American professional men's soccer club based in Seattle. The Sounders compete as a member of the Western Conference of Major League Soccer (MLS). The club was established on November 13, 2007, and began ...
won in 2022 CONCACAF Champions League, 2022, every edition since the current format was introduced in the 2008–09 season was won by a Mexican club. MLS has annual revenues of 1.2 billion, the Big five European soccer leagues (Premier League, England, Bundesliga, Germany, La Liga, Spain, Serie A, Italy, and Ligue 1, France) have annual revenues in excess of $1 billion as well. The top players from MLS often move to Europe in search of tougher competition and higher salaries. However, MLS has steadily improved in international stature in recent years. The league implemented the Designated Player Rule
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 ...
in 2007, allowing MLS to attract and retain international stars such as David Beckham. MLS attendance has increased to the point where MLS average attendance is among the top ten soccer leagues worldwide. The introduction of soccer-specific stadiums had improved revenue growth.
In the late 1940s and 1950s, the Canadian Football League
The Canadian Football League (CFL; french: Ligue canadienne de football—LCF) is a professional sports league in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football. The league consists of nine teams, each located in a ci ...
(CFL) and the U.S. National Football League
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...
(NFL) operated on roughly equal footing financially, with even some U.S.-born star Football player, players joining CFL teams. The situation changed along with the rise of the American Football League (AFL) founded in 1959. By the end of the 1960s, revenue from the U.S. television market and AFL–NFL merger, absorption of the AFL helped the NFL become much more successful than its Canadian counterpart. By the 1980s, the CFL became virtually unknown outside of Canada. Attempts to promote the CFL included the failed CFL USA experiment in the 1990s. In 2009, a record number of 6.1 million viewers watched the CFL's annual Grey Cup championship game, while 151.6 million viewers watched the NFL's annual Super Bowl championship game that same year.
Use of the phrase "world champions"
The perceived lack of competition from the rest of the world has contributed to the long-standing but controversial practice of the North American media referring to the major sports league champions as ''Champion, world champions''. Today, the phrase is more popular in the United States but it retains some acceptance in Canada. However, this practice is usually mocked by non-Americans.
Usage of the phrase in baseball started with organization of championship series between the National League and the earlier American Association in the 1880s, later to be known as the World Series. Major League Baseball later set up the World Baseball Classic, a quadrennial international competition, in an effort to crown a true world champion. By the 1950s, the phrase ''World Champions'' was also being used by the newly formed NBA. The Super Bowl, the interleague championship between the NFL and American Football League, was explicitly named a "World Championship Game" for its Super Bowl I, first iteration.
In hockey, the Stanley Cup was initially open only to Canadian teams, but in 1914, the Cup's trustees allowed American teams to compete, with the provision that the Stanley Cup winners were to be recognized as ''World's Champions''. The phrase was repeatedly Chronology of Stanley Cup engravings, engraved on the Cup, and continued to be used, when the NHL began admitting American franchises. When the NHL assumed formal control of the Cup in 1947, the resulting agreement required "that the winners of this trophy shall be the acknowledged World's Professional Hockey Champions" (in contrast to the International Ice Hockey Federation, IIHF's Ice Hockey World Championships, at the time nominally contested by amateurs, although Eastern Bloc nations violated the rules and used ''de facto'' professionals). When the World Hockey Association commenced play in the 1970s, they sought to challenge for the Stanley Cup, referring to the 1947 agreement. Both the NHL and the Cup trustees rejected the WHA's challenges; nevertheless, the NHL stopped calling its champions the ''World Champions'', as by this time, the Soviet Championship League was regularly beating the NHL in interleague competitions and the IIHF World Championship was officially opened up to professionals in 1976. Since then, the NHL has called their champions the ''Stanley Cup Champions''.
Holiday showcases
Several major sports leagues are showcased on a major holiday. The NFL has always played on NFL on Thanksgiving Day, Thanksgiving Day since its inception in 1920. The NBA has played on National Basketball Association Christmas games, Christmas Day since 1947. And since 2008, the NHL has had the NHL Winter Classic, Winter Classic on New Year's Day. Furthermore, the CFL has two longstanding holiday events: the Labour Day Classic and Thanksgiving Day Classic.
Baseball and soccer are not particularly associated with any holidays; however, in baseball's case, teams generally play on the major summer holidays since MLB teams play almost every day during their season, and currently themes special uniforms and ceremonies for Memorial Day, Canada Day (for the Toronto Blue Jays
The Toronto Blue Jays are a Canadian professional baseball team based in Toronto. The Blue Jays compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. Since 1989, the team has played its home games ...
), American Independence Day (United States), Independence Day, and the American/Canadian Labor Day (United States), Labor Day.
History and expansion of major leagues
United States
Professional sports leagues as known today evolved during the decades between the American Civil War, 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, within the Great Lakes and the Northeastern United States, Northeast regions. Early professional soccer activity was concentrated almost entirely on an East Coast corridor from Baltimore to Boston, Soccer in St. Louis, except for the Greater St. Louis, St. Louis metropolitan area.
There were very few major league teams in the far west until after World War II. As travel and settlement patterns changed, so did the geography of professional sports. The NFL attempted to establish traveling teams representing the west and other far-flung regions in 1926 NFL season, 1926 and barnstorm (sports), barnstormed in Los Angeles that season; the experiment did not last beyond that year. The first West Coast of the United States, 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 Dons, Los Angeles and San Francisco 49ers, San Francisco, and the Miami Seahawks. Baseball extended west in 1958 in the move of the History of the Brooklyn Dodgers, Brooklyn Dodgers and History of the New York Giants (NL), New York Giants. The NBA followed in 1960 with the move of the Minneapolis Lakers to Los Angeles, while the NHL would not have a west coast presence until it 1967 NHL expansion, expanded in 1967. Almost all of the NHL's initial franchises in the Southern and Western United States were unsuccessful and relocated. From 1982 until 1991, the Kings were the only U.S.-based NHL franchise south of St. Louis and/or west of Minneapolis–Saint Paul, the Twin Cities. Since then, as newer, fast-growing Sunbelt areas such as Phoenix metropolitan area, Phoenix, Tampa Bay Area, Tampa, and Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, Dallas became prominent, the major sports leagues have expanded or franchises have relocated to service these communities.
Canada
The National Hockey League
The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...
was established in 1917 in Canada. When the WHA and NHL merged, the NHL inherited teams in three Canadian cities, Edmonton
Edmonton ( ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. Edmonton is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Alberta's central region. The city ancho ...
, Winnipeg
Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749,6 ...
and Quebec City
Quebec City ( or ; french: Ville de Québec), officially Québec (), is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Quebec. As of July 2021, the city had a population of 549,459, and the Communauté métrop ...
. MLB's first Canadian team was the Montreal Expos
The Montreal Expos (french: link=no, Les Expos de Montréal) were a Canadian professional baseball team based in Montreal, Quebec. The Expos were the first Major League Baseball (MLB) franchise located outside the United States. They played in t ...
, a team that was added in 1969; MLB added the Toronto Blue Jays
The Toronto Blue Jays are a Canadian professional baseball team based in Toronto. The Blue Jays compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. Since 1989, the team has played its home games ...
in 1977. MLS's first was Toronto FC, which was added in 2005; it was soon followed by the Montreal Impact (2012–2020), Montreal Impact and Vancouver Whitecaps FC, Vancouver Whitecaps. The Toronto Huskies were a charter member of the Basketball Association of America in 1946, but that team only lasted one season; the NBA would then make a permanent expansion into Canada in 1995 when the Toronto Raptors and now-Vancouver Grizzlies relocation to Memphis, departed Vancouver Grizzlies
The Vancouver Grizzlies were a Canadian professional basketball team based in Vancouver. They were part of the Midwest Division of the Western Conference of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The team was established in 1995, along w ...
were established.
International expansion
Some of the Big Four sports leagues have looked to expand their revenues by playing overseas games in attempt to develop a wider international fan base. There has been increasing cooperation between the NBA and the Euroleague Basketball, Euroleague. 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. The NBA has also played teams from Australia's National Basketball League (Australia), National Basketball League, and since 2015, the league has played NBA Africa Game (disambiguation), all-star games in the Johannesburg, South Africa, area against squads composed of NBA players who were either born on or whose parents were born on the African continent.
The NFL has attempted to promote its game worldwide by scheduling selected pre-season games abroad since 1976. The NFL had promoted the game abroad through NFL Europe
NFL Europe League (simply called NFL Europe and known in its final season as NFL Europa League) was a professional American football league that functioned as the developmental minor league of the National Football League (NFL). Originally f ...
, but the latter was unprofitable and ceased operations in 2007.
The NFL began its NFL International Series, International Series, holding at least one regular-season game at Wembley Stadium in London every year since 2007. The NFL held three games at Wembley in the 2014 season. Since then, Twickenham Stadium, the home of England national rugby union team, English rugby union, has been added as a second London venue. The primary venue for London NFL games is set to switch to Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, opened in 2019 by the Tottenham Hotspur F.C., soccer club of that name. The new stadium hosted two of the four London games in the 2019 season. The current contract between the NFL and The Football Association, owners of Wembley Stadium, will expire after the 2020 season, while the NFL has a contract with Tottenham Hotspur (aka Spurs) for games through 2027. The Spurs stadium, in which the NFL made a modest investment, is designed to be capable of hosting both forms of football on a single weekend if necessary.
The CFL, under commissioner Randy Ambrosie, began actively recruiting gridiron football, gridiron players from Mexico and Europe as part of its "CFL 2.0" initiative in 2019.
Relations between leagues
Although they are competitors, at times the "Big Four" leagues also cooperate. Some owners have teams in multiple leagues. In the early years of professional basketball, the American Basketball League (1925–1955), American Basketball League, the ''de facto'' major league of the 1920s, was backed primarily by NFL owners.
There are common business and legal interests; the leagues will often support one another in legal matters since the United States antitrust law#Scope of antitrust law, courts' decisions might establish precedents that affect them all. One recent example was the Supreme Court of the United States, Supreme Court 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.
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. Multi-purpose stadiums were built to accommodate multiple sports in the later half of the 20th century; the last multi-purpose stadium in the NFL, what is now RingCentral Coliseum, Rickey Henderson Field at RingCentral Coliseum, hosted its last NFL game in 2019 Oakland Raiders season, 2019. Even in situations where separate stadiums have been constructed for each team (as is generally the norm in the 21st century), the individual stadiums may be constructed adjacent to each other and share parking space and other infrastructure. More recently, MLS teams have used NFL and CFL stadiums as either full-time home fields (much less so now, due to the league's insistence on soccer-specific stadiums) or for special event games; in reverse, in at least one case, an NFL team (the Los Angeles Chargers) used a soccer-specific MLS stadium on a temporary basis from 2017 to 2019 while a larger stadium was built for them. In recent years, two MLS teams have shared stadiums permanently with NFL teams that were explicitly built to host both sports. The Seattle Sounders FC, Seattle Sounders share Lumen Field with the Seattle Seahawks; the Seahawks were owned by Paul Allen, also a member of the Sounders ownership group, until his death in 2018. Atlanta United FC
Atlanta United FC, commonly known as Atlanta United, is an American professional soccer club based in Atlanta that competes in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference.
Founded in 2014, Atlanta United began pl ...
shares Mercedes-Benz Stadium with the Atlanta Falcons, with both teams under the ownership of Arthur Blank. Charlotte FC shares Bank of America Stadium with the Carolina Panthers
The Carolina Panthers are a professional American football team based in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Panthers compete in the National Football League (NFL), as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) South division. T ...
; both teams are owned by David Tepper. In Canada, Vancouver Whitecaps FC
Vancouver Whitecaps Football Club is a Canadian professional soccer team based in Vancouver. They compete in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member club of the league's Western Conference. The MLS iteration of the club was established on Marc ...
share BC Place with the CFL's BC Lions
The BC Lions are a professional Canadian football team based in Vancouver, British Columbia. The Lions compete in the West Division of the Canadian Football League (CFL), and play their home games at BC Place.
The Lions played their first season ...
. The Seattle, Atlanta, and Vancouver stadiums are designed to have reduced seating capacity for most MLS games. Charlotte's stadium was renovated to allow for lower capacity soccer crowds before the MLS team debuted in 2022. Additionally, the New England Revolution shares Gillette Stadium with the New England Patriots, New York City FC shares Yankee Stadium with the New York Yankees MLB team, which also owns part of NYCFC, and Toronto FC shares BMO Field with the CFL's Toronto Argonauts, with both teams now owned by Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, the company that also owns Toronto's Toronto Raptors, NBA and Toronto Maple Leafs, NHL teams.
Also notable in recent years have been the NHL Winter Classic, NHL's Winter Classic and NHL Heritage Classic, Heritage Classic, which have been held in NFL, CFL, and MLB, as well as college football, stadiums. A unique situation is the Lansdowne Park, TD Place Complex in Ottawa; the same structure serves as the indoor Ottawa Civic Centre (which hosted the NHL's Ottawa Senators, Senators in the 1990s), while on the roof of that arena was seating for Frank Clair Stadium (at that time home of the CFL's Ottawa Rough Riders; by 2014 the stadium was renovated into TD Place Stadium and is now home to the CFL's Ottawa Redblacks
The Ottawa Redblacks (officially stylized as REDBLACKS) ( French: Le Rouge et Noir d'Ottawa) are a professional Canadian football team based in Ottawa, Ontario. The team plays in the East Division of the Canadian Football League (CFL).
Startin ...
).
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, Major League Baseball relocation of 1950s-1960s, until 1957 New York City played host to History of the New York Giants (baseball), baseball and New York Giants, football Giants. MLB's Pittsburgh Pirates shared its nickname with an NFL team (which ultimately became the Pittsburgh Steelers) as well as a Pittsburgh Pirates (NHL), now-defunct early NHL team, while the Canadian football team Hamilton Tiger-Cats, Hamilton Tigers shared a team name with an Hamilton Tigers (NHL), NHL team. The most recent example of two major teams sharing a franchise name was between 1960 and 1987; when the NFL's History of the Chicago Cardinals, Chicago Cardinals relocated to St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri, it was allowed to History of the St. Louis Cardinals (NFL), keep the Cardinals name despite the established existence of a St. Louis Cardinals, baseball team of the same name.
In 1997, the NFL loaned $3 million to the CFL after the latter's failed expansion into the United States market in the early 1990s left it in financial danger.
In 2015, the NHL partnered with MLB's digital arm Major League Baseball Advanced Media (MLBAM) to assume the operations of its digital properties; the league's television network NHL Network (American TV channel), NHL Network was also taken over by the staff of MLB Network
The MLB Network is an American television sports channel dedicated to baseball. It is primarily owned by Major League Baseball, with Warner Bros. Discovery through its sports unit, Comcast's NBC Sports Group, Charter Communications, and Cox C ...
and re-located to its facilities.
The NBA Finals of the NBA and the Stanley Cup Finals of the NHL are the championship series of their respective leagues, which occur in June. Oftentimes, there is partial overlap between the two series and in such cases their game days are staggered so as not to interfere with each other.
See also
* Professional sports leagues in the United States
* Prominent women's sports leagues in the United States and Canada
* Major professional sports teams of the United States and Canada
* List of shared franchise names in North American professional sports
* Sports in the United States
* Sports in Canada
* Sports in Mexico
* List of American and Canadian cities by number of major professional sports franchises
* 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.
* List of professional sports leagues by revenue
Footnotes
References
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, National Football League, NFL, National Basketball Association, NBA, NHL
The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...
, and Major League Soccer.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Major Professional Sports Leagues In The United States And Canada
Professional sports leagues in Canada, ^
Professional sports leagues in the United States, ^