Sports in Memphis, Tennessee are supported in the city by Memphis Park Services, which offers a wide range of public facilities, including 17 swimming pools, 8 public golf courses, 48 athletic fields hosting a range of 510 youth and 269 adult teams, 130 basketball courts (101 outdoor and 29 indoor), 7 tennis centers and a soccer complex. Memphis is also home to professional sports teams in basketball, baseball and other sports. Golf, basketball, baseball and tennis are popular recreational sports in Memphis.

Overview of professional teams

Major league teams

Minor league teams

Basketball

The Memphis Grizzlies of the

National Basketball Association The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball sports league, 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 i ...

is the only one of the " big four" major sports leagues in the city. The team played at the Pyramid Arena from 2001–2004 and then moved to the

FedExForum FedExForum is a multi-purpose arena located in Downtown Memphis, Tennessee. It is the home of the Memphis Grizzlies of the NBA and the NCAA Division I men's basketball program of the University of Memphis, both of whom previously played home ...

in downtown Memphis. The Grizzlies'

NBA 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 D ...

affiliate, the

Memphis Hustle The Memphis Hustle are an American professional basketball team of the NBA G League based in the Greater Memphis suburb of Southaven, Mississippi, and are affiliated with the Memphis Grizzlies. The team plays their home games at the Landers Ce ...

, plays its home games at the

Landers Center The Landers Center is an 8,400-seat multi-purpose arena in Southaven, Mississippi. It is home to the Memphis Hustle of the NBA G League, a minor league basketball team affiliated with the Memphis Grizzlies. History The center was built in 2000 ...

in the suburb of Southaven, Mississippi. The Memphis Tigers men's and

women's A woman is an adult female human. Prior to adulthood, a female human is referred to as a girl (a female child or adolescent). The plural ''women'' is sometimes used in certain phrases such as "women's rights" to denote female humans regardle ...

teams represent the

University of Memphis } The University of Memphis (UofM) is a public research university in Memphis, Tennessee. Founded in 1912, the university has an enrollment of more than 22,000 students. The university maintains the Herff College of Engineering, the Center for Ea ...

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges ...

Division I

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 ...

. The Tigers compete in the

American Athletic Conference The American Athletic Conference (The American or AAC) is an American collegiate athletic conference, featuring 11 member universities and five affiliate member universities that compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) ...

; the men share FedExForum with the Grizzlies and the women play home games on campus at Elma Roane Fieldhouse. The Memphis Houn'Dawgs was an American Basketball Association (ABA) team based in Memphis, Tennessee. The team began play in the fall of 2000. The team played in the DeSoto Civic Center in Southaven, Mississippi, and only played the 2000-2001 ABA season before disbanding. The name was an apparent nod to the proposed NFL franchise team, the Memphis Hound Dogs (in turn, a nod to the song of the same name by

Elvis Presley Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), or simply Elvis, was an American singer and actor. Dubbed the " King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. His ener ...

) which never got off the ground.

Baseball

Memphis has been home to several

professional baseball Professional baseball is organized baseball in which players are selected for their talents and are paid to play for a specific team or club system. It is played in leagues and associated farm teams throughout the world. Modern professiona ...

teams since as early as 1877. The city's first Minor League Baseball team was the Memphis Reds of the League Alliance. In 1885, another team nicknamed the Reds joined the original Southern League. They were followed by the Southern League's Grays (1886), Browns (1887), Grays (1888), and an unnamed team in 1889. Later entries in the league were the Giants (1892), Fever Germs (1893), and Giants/Lambs (1894–95). Memphis fielded teams in the Southern Association from 1901 to 1960. They were known as the

Memphis Egyptians The Memphis Chicks were a Minor League Baseball team that played in the Southern Association from 1901 to 1960. They were located in Memphis, Tennessee, and played their home games at Russwood Park. Known originally as the Memphis Egyptians and M ...

(1901–1908),

Turtles Turtles are an order of reptiles known as Testudines, characterized by a special shell developed mainly from their ribs. Modern turtles are divided into two major groups, the Pleurodira (side necked turtles) and Cryptodira (hidden necked tu ...

(1909–1911), and Chicks (1912–1960). The Memphis Eclipses and

Memphis Eurekas The Memphis Eurekas were a Negro league baseball team that played in the Southern League of Colored Base Ballists The Southern League of Colored Base Ballists was the first organized Negro baseball league. The league's only year of operation wa ...

played in the

Negro league 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 ...

Southern League of Colored Base Ballists The Southern League of Colored Base Ballists was the first organized Negro baseball league. The league's only year of operation was . Ten teams competed in the league which stretched from Jacksonville, Florida to Memphis, Tennessee with several o ...

in 1886. The

Memphis Red Sox The Memphis Red Sox were an American Negro league baseball team that was active from 1920 to 1959. Originally named the Barber College Baseball Club, the team was initially owned and operated by Arthur P. Martin, a local Memphis barber. In the la ...

played in various Negro leagues in 1920 and from 1923 to 1950. The Memphis Blues competed in the Negro Southern League in 1947. From 1968 to 1976, the Memphis Blues played in the Double-A

Texas League The Texas League is a Minor League Baseball league which has operated in the South Central United States since 1902. It is classified as a Double-A league. Despite the league's name, only its five South Division teams are actually based in the ...

(1968–1973) and the Triple-A

International League The International League (IL) is a Minor League Baseball league that operates in the United States. Along with the Pacific Coast League, it is one of two leagues playing at the Triple-A level, which is one grade below Major League Baseball ( ...

(1974–1976). The Memphis Chicks played in the Double-A Southern League from 1978 to 1997. The city has been home to the Triple-A

Memphis Redbirds The Memphis Redbirds are a Minor League Baseball team of the International League and the Triple-A affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals. They are located in Memphis, Tennessee, and are named for their Major League Baseball affiliate. The Red ...

, the top farm club of the St. Louis Cardinals, since 1998. They were members of the

Pacific Coast League The Pacific Coast League (PCL) is a Minor League Baseball league that operates in the Western United States. Along with the International League, it is one of two leagues playing at the Triple-A level, which is one grade below Major League Ba ...

from 1998 to 2020. In conjunction with

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (A ...

's reorganization of Minor League Baseball in 2021, the Redbirds were placed in the Triple-A East, which became the International League in 2022. The Redbirds play their home games at

AutoZone Park AutoZone Park is a Minor League Baseball stadium located in downtown Memphis, Tennessee, and is home to the Memphis Redbirds of the International League and Memphis 901 FC of the USL Championship. The Redbirds are the Triple-A affiliate of Ma ...

in downtown Memphis.

Football

The

Tigers football team plays their home games in Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium. The Memphis Kings is an amateur

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly ...

team that plays in the

North American Football League The North American Football League (NAFL) was a proposed american spring football minor league. In 2014, the league announced it was to begin play for the 2016 season; however, there have been no further announcements that the league has met an ...

. The Panthers play at Robert Halle Stadium. Memphis has hosted several professional football teams for brief periods over the years. The Memphis Tigers played there in the late 1920s and early 1930s,. In more recent years the city has been host to teams from five different professional leagues. Memphis held a franchise, the Memphis Southmen, in the short-lived professional

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 the ...

(1974–1975). The Memphis Showboats played in 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 ...

(1984–1985). The Memphis Mad Dogs were an expansion franchise of 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 c ...

in 1995. The NFL's

Tennessee Titans The Tennessee Titans are a professional American football team based in Nashville, Tennessee. The Titans compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference (AFC) South division, and play their hom ...

, formerly known as the Houston Oilers, relocated to Memphis for one season (as the Tennessee Oilers) in 1997 before moving to Nashville. Most recently the Memphis Maniax represented the city in the XFL (2001). Each of these teams called the Liberty Bowl their home field. Memphis also saw indoor football in the forms of the Memphis Pharaohs 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 ...

(1995-1996) who played home games at Pyramid Arena, and the Memphis Xplorers in AF2 (2000-2006) who played their home games at

DeSoto Civic Center The Landers Center is an 8,400-seat multi-purpose arena in Southaven, Mississippi. It is home to the Memphis Hustle of the NBA G League, a minor league basketball team affiliated with the Memphis Grizzlies. History The center was built in 2000 ...

in the nearby suburb city of Southaven, Mississippi. In 2018, the

Alliance of American Football The Alliance of American Football (AAF) was a professional American football minor league. The AAF consisted of eight centrally owned and operated teams in the southern and western United States, seven of which were located in metropolitan area ...

announced the city's franchise team, the Memphis Express, would begin play in 2019 at Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium.

Golf

Golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...

is a very popular form of recreation in Memphis, which has eight municipal courses. The City's first public facility, Galloway Golf Course, was created in 1923. There are now over 30 public and private golf courses in the Memphis Metropolitan Area. Memphis is home to the annual FedEx St. Jude Classic, a regular part of the

PGA TOUR The PGA Tour (stylized in all capital letters as PGA TOUR by its officials) is the organizer of professional golf tours in the United States and North America. It organizes most of the events on the flagship annual series of tournaments also ...

Ice hockey

The Mississippi RiverKings were a 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 ...

team in the

Central Hockey League The Central Hockey League (CHL) was a North American mid-level minor professional ice hockey league which operated from 1992 until 2014. It was founded by Ray Miron and Bill Levins and later sold to Global Entertainment Corporation, which oper ...

and

Southern Professional Hockey League The Southern Professional Hockey League (SPHL) is a professional ice hockey independent minor league based in Huntersville, North Carolina, with teams located primarily in the southeastern United States as well as Illinois and Indiana in the midw ...

from 1992 to 2018. The RiverKings played at the

in nearby Southaven, Mississippi.

Motorsports

Memphis is also home to Memphis International Raceway, just north of the city on the outskirts of Memphis and Millington, TN. The venue has a 3/4-mile (1207 m) paved oval track. It also has a 1/4-mile (402 m) drag strip, and road course. The complex is home to NASCAR, IHRA, and SCCA sanctioned events as well as locally sanctioned events that run from February to November. Another racetrack in the Memphis metro area is Riverside International Speedway in

West Memphis, Arkansas West Memphis is the largest city in Crittenden County, Arkansas, United States. The population was 26,245 at the 2010 census, ranking it as the state's 18th largest city, behind Bella Vista. It is part of the Memphis metropolitan area, and is ...

. It is a 1/4 mile dirt track that runs 305 winged sprints, late models, modifieds, 600cc mini sprints, and stock-cars. The Track opened June 10th, 1950 making it one of the longest continuously operated tracks in the nation. It is the home track to 6 National Sprint Car Hall of Fame Members. Clarence "Hooker" Hood, Rick Hood, Sammy Swindell. Jeff Swindell. Bobby Davis Jr and Greg Hodnett. Memphis area also has a very active Kart racing organization with Kart racing at Atoka Raceway Park and Coyote Run Arena in Mason

Rugby

Memphis is also home to the Memphis Blues, a

Rugby Union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In it ...

team, which plays at Tobey Field in Midtown, Memphis. Memphis Women's Rugby is a women's senior club team (

) which also plays at Tobey Field in Midtown, Memphis. The team is a member of

USA Rugby South USA Rugby South is an organization that combines a number of unions in the south-east of the USA for competition and representative honours. Their representative team is known as the Panthers. Originally formed as Southern Eastern Rugby Union in 1 ...

, Division II.

Roller derby

Memphis has an active presence in the derby world courtesy of Memphis Roller Derby. The team is a sanctioned member of the Women's Flat Track Derby Association and competes in the South Central Region. The Memphis league has four home teams that compete in intra-league bouts, plus one travel team that competes in other cities.

Tennis

Memphis Park Services maintains seven public tennis centers. Memphis is home to the

Regions Morgan Keegan Championships and the Cellular South Cup The U.S. National Indoor Championships was a tennis tournament that was last held at the Racquet Club of Memphis in Memphis, Tennessee, United States. The event was played on indoor hard courts and usually took place in February. For much of ...

. The Regions Morgan Keegan Championships is an ATP event, and the Cellular South Cup is a WTA event. The senior event, the Stanford Championships started in Memphis, but it has since relocated to

Dallas, Texas Dallas () is the third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 million people. It is the largest city in and seat of Dallas County ...

Wrestling

Memphis also has a fertile history when it comes to

pro wrestling Professional wrestling is a form of theater that revolves around staged wrestling matches. The mock combat is performed in a ring similar to the kind used in boxing, and the dramatic aspects of pro wrestling may be performed both in the ring o ...

. The sport's greatest name to come out of the city is Jerry "The King" Lawler. Other greats who started out in Memphis include

Hulk Hogan Terry Eugene Bollea (; born August 11, 1953), better known by his ring name Hulk Hogan, is an American retired professional wrestler. He is widely regarded as the most recognized wrestling star worldwide and the most popular wrestler of the 19 ...

The Undertaker Mark William Calaway (born March 24, 1965), better known by the ring name The Undertaker, is an American retired professional wrestler. Widely regarded as one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time, Calaway spent the vast majorit ...

, Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, Mick Foley, "Macho Man" Randy Savage", and

Ric Flair Richard Morgan Fliehr (born February 25, 1949), known professionally as Ric Flair, is an American professional wrestler. Regarded by multiple peers and journalists as the greatest professional wrestler of all time, Flair has had a career spanni ...

. Memphis has two pro-wrestling organizations, "Power-Pro Wrestling" which is filmed in the Cook Convention Center in downtown Memphis, and Memphis Wrestling which is filmed in the

in Desoto County, Mississippi.

Overview of collegiate teams

Overview of defunct professional teams

Memphis has been represented by several now-defunct professional sports franchises, including the Memphis Pharaohs of Arena Football, the Memphis Maniax of the XFL, the Memphis Xplorers of the AF2, the Memphis Showboats of the USFL, the Memphis Southmen of the WFL, the Memphis Houn'Dawgs of the ABA, the

Memphis Sounds The Memphis Sounds were an American professional sports franchise that played in Memphis, Tennessee from 1970 until 1975 as a member of the American Basketball Association. The team was founded as the New Orleans Buccaneers in 1967. Known durin ...

of the original ABA in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and the Memphis Mad Dogs of the

CFL 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 ...

References

{{Memphis, Tennessee sports venues