Professional sports league organization
Encyclopedia
Professional sports league
s are organized in numerous ways. The two most significant types are a Europe
an model, characterised by a tiered structure using promotion and relegation
to determine participation in a hierarchy of leagues or divisions and a North America
n model characterized by its use of franchises
and closed membership.
The franchises have territorial rights, usually exclusive territories large enough to cover major metropolitan areas, so that they have no local rivals. New teams may enter the competition only by a vote of current members; typically, a new place is put up for bid by would-be owners. This system is sometimes called a "franchise system" in the U.K. It was introduced in baseball with the formation of the National League
in 1876Before 1876, baseball clubs joined the professional class (1869–1870) or the professional association by announcing their intentions and paying any required fees, an open system. and later adopted by the other North American leagues.
Although member clubs are corporate entities separate from their leagues, they operate only under league auspices. Partly because that relationship is so close, partly because the four major team sports leagues represent the top level of play in the world, North American teams almost never play competitive games against outside opponents. National Hockey League
(NHL) and National Basketball Association
(NBA) teams have played against European hockey and basketball teams in preseason exhibitions. The North American league, rather than any sport governing body
, determines the playing rules and scoring rules of its game, and the rules under which players join and change teams.
The teams are organized so that each major city has a team to support. Only the largest cities have more than one team. As such the teams are often referred to as franchises. Even though they are not technically franchises in a business sense, the league is organised in a way that assures teams continued existence in the league from year to year, which fosters an ongoing connection with the team's supporters. On occasion a league may decide to grow the sport by admitting a new expansion team
into the league. Most of the teams in the four major North American pro sports leagues were created as part of a planned league expansion or through the merger of a rival league. Only the few oldest teams in the National Hockey League
, for example, existed before becoming part of the NHL. The rest of the teams were created ex novo as expansion team
s or as charter members of the World Hockey Association
, which merged with the NHL in 1979. The best teams in a given season reach a playoff
tournament, and the winner of the playoffs is crowned champion of the league, and, in some cases as world champions.
Teams are organised into groups called divisions, usually based on geography. This structure encourages local rivalries, as teams from the same division play each other more often than other teams, and it is the teams that top each division that are seeded higher in the playoffs at the end of the season that determine the eventual champion.
Major League Soccer
is a North American league that exhibits some aspects of the European structure because the sport it plays has a European rather than American origin. Major League Soccer is technically not an association of franchises but a single business entity, though each team has an owner-operator; the team owners are actually shareholders in the league. The league, not the individual teams, contracts with the players. Unlike teams in the four major sports, several Major League Soccer teams qualify to play competitive matches in the CONCACAF Champions League
against teams from outside the U.S. and Canada, and MLS uses playing rules set by the international governing body of its sport. MLS followed its own playing rules until 2004, when it adopted FIFA
rules. In another parallel with the European model, both the U.S. and Canada have separate knockout cup competitions during the MLS season that include teams from lower leagues. The six U.S.-based teams with the best records in each MLS season automatically qualify for the following season's Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup
, while the remaining U.S. teams play one another for two more places in that competition. All of Canada's MLS teams compete in the Canadian Championship
. However, the league structure of MLS follows the North American model, with a single premier league and no promotion or relegation.
Some other North American systems also have a hierarchical structure but without the promotion and relegation of clubs exhibited in the European model. Major League Baseball
uses a minor-league system
to develop young talent. Most minor league clubs are independently owned but each one contracts with a major-league club that hires and pays players and assigns them to its various minor clubs. The minor clubs do not move up or down in the hierarchy by on-field success or failure. Professional ice hockey
has a system somewhat similar to baseball's, while the National Basketball Association
operate a small developmental league. The National Football League
does not have a minor league system as of 2011 but it has operated or affiliated with minor leagues in the 1930s
, 1940s
, 1960s
, 1990s
, and the early 2000s
.
developed a very different system from the North American one, and it has been adopted for football in most other countries, as well as to many other sports founded in Europe and played across the world. The features of the system are:
European football clubs are members both of a league and of a governing body. In the case of England, all competitive football clubs are members of The Football Association
, while the top 20 teams also are members of the Premier League, a separate organization. The 72 teams in the three levels below the Premier League are members of still another body, The Football League
, which is itself divided into three competitive leagues. The FA operates the national football team and tournaments that involve teams from different leagues (except the Football League Cup
, operated by The Football League and open to its own teams and those in the Premier League). In conjunction with other countries' governing bodies, it also sets the playing rules and the rules under which teams can sell players' contracts to other clubs.
The rules or Laws of The Game are determined by the International Football Association Board
The Premier League negotiates television contracts for its games. However, although the national league would be the dominating competition in which a club might participate, there are many non-league fixtures a club might play in a given year. In European football there are national cup competitions, which are single elimination knock-out tournaments, are played every year and all the clubs in the league participate. Also, the best performing clubs from the previous year may participate in pan-European tournaments such as the UEFA Champions League
, operated by the Union of European Football Associations
. A Premier League team might play a league game one week, and an FA Cup
game against a team from a lower-level league the next, followed by a League Cup game against a Football League team, and then a fourth game might be against a team from across Europe in the Champions League.
The promotion and relegation
system is generally used to determine membership of leagues. Most commonly, a pre-determined number of teams that finish the bottom of a league or division are automatically dropped down, or relegated, to a lower level for the next season. They are replaced by teams who are promoted from that lower tier either by finishing with the best records or by winning a playoff. In England in 2011
, Birmingham City
, Blackpool
and West Ham United
were relegated from the Premier League to the Football League Championship
, the second level of English football. They were replaced by the top two teams from the second level, Queens Park Rangers
and Norwich City
, as well as Swansea City
(a Welsh club that plays in the English system), which won a playoff tournament of the teams that finished third through sixth.
The system originated in England
in 1888 when twelve clubs decided to create a professional Football League
. It then expanded by merging with the Football Alliance
in 1892, with the majority of the Alliance teams occupying the lower Second Division
, due to the divergent strengths of the teams. As this differential was overcome over the next five years, the winners of the Second Division went into a playoff with the worst placed team in the First Division
, and if they won, were promoted into the top tier. The first club to achieve promotion was Sheffield United
, which replaced the relegated Accrington F.C.
Relegation often has devastating financial consequences for club owners who not only lose TV, sponsorship and gate income but may also see the asset value of their shares in the club collapse. Some leagues offer a "parachute payment" to its relegated teams for the following years in order to protect them from bankruptcy. If a team is promoted back to the higher tier the following year then the parachute payment for the second season is distributed among the teams of the lower division. There is of course a corresponding bonanza for promoted clubs.
The league does not choose which cities are to have teams in the top division. For example, Leeds
, the fourth-biggest city in England, saw their team, Leeds United
, relegated from the Premier League to the Championship in 2004, and then saw United relegated to the third-tier League One
in 2007 (United would return to the Championship in 2010). Leeds will remain without a Premiership team as long as it takes for United, or in theory any other local club, to do well enough in the second-tier division to win the right to play in the Premiership. Famously, the French Ligue 1
lacked a team from Paris
for some years.
As well as having no right to being in a certain tier, a club also has no territorial rights to its own area. A successful new team in a geographical location can come to dominate the incumbents. In Munich
, for example, TSV 1860 München
were initially more successful than the city's current biggest team Bayern München
. London has 14 professional teams
, including five Premier League teams.
Clubs may be sold privately to new owners at any time, but this does not happen often where clubs are based on community membership and agreement. Such clubs require agreement from members who, unlike shareholders of corporations, have priorities other than money when it comes to their football club. For similar reasons, relocation of clubs to other cities is very rare. This is mostly because virtually all cities and towns in Europe have a football club of some sort, the size and strength of the club usually relative to the town's size and importance. Anyone wanting ownership of a high ranked club in his native city must buy the local club as it stands and work it up through the divisions, usually by hiring better talent. Buying an existing top-flight club and move it to the city is problematic, as the supporters of the town's original club are unlikely to switch allegiance to an interloper. There have been some cases where existing owners have chosen to relocate out of a difficult market, to better facilities, or simply to realize the market value of the land that the current stadium is built upon. As in the U.S., team relocations have been controversial as supporters of the club will protest at its loss.
are based on the North American model, with the most notable examples being the Australian Football League
(Aussie rules
) and National Rugby League
(rugby league
). Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan uses this system due to American influence on the game. In cricket
, the Indian Premier League
, launched in 2008, also operates on this system. The Super League
, which is the top level of rugby league
in the United Kingdom
and France
, has been run on a franchise basis since 2009.
The promotion-relegation system is widely used in football around the world, notably in Africa and Latin America as well as Europe. The most notable variation has developed in Latin America where many countries have two league seasons per year
, which scheduling allows because many Latin American nations lack a national cup competition. Promotion and relegation has historically been used in other team sports founded in the United Kingdom
, such as rugby union
, rugby league
and cricket
.
The European model is also used in Europe even when the sports were founded in America, showing that the league system adopted is not determined by the sport itself, but more on the tradition of sports organisation in that region. Sports such as basketball
in Spain and Lithuania use promotion and relegation. In the same vein, the Australian A-League
does not use the pyramid structure normally found in football, but instead follows the tradition of Australian sports having a franchise model and a playoff system that better suits a country with a few important central locations where a sport needs to ensure there is a team playing with no risk of relegation. Likewise, another notable example of "European" sports using the American model is the Super Rugby competition of the southern hemisphere, featuring 15 franchises from across South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
East Asia
n countries such as Japan
, China
, South Korea
and Taiwan
have a particular differentiation among leagues: "European" sports such as football and rugby use promotion and relegation, while "American" sports such as baseball and basketball use franchising, with a few differences varying from country to country. A similar situation exists in countries in Central America
and the Caribbean
, where football and baseball share several close markets.
Sports league
League is a term commonly used to describe a group of sports teams or individual athletes that compete against each other in a specific sport. At its simplest, it may be a local group of amateur athletes who form teams among themselves and compete on weekends; at its most complex, it can be an...
s are organized in numerous ways. The two most significant types are a Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an model, characterised by a tiered structure using promotion and relegation
Promotion and relegation
In many sports leagues around the world, promotion and relegation is a process that takes place at the end of each season. Through it, teams are transferred between divisions based on their performance that season...
to determine participation in a hierarchy of leagues or divisions and a North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
n model characterized by its use of franchises
Franchising
Franchising is the practice of using another firm's successful business model. The word 'franchise' is of anglo-French derivation - from franc- meaning free, and is used both as a noun and as a verb....
and closed membership.
Etymology
The term league has many different meanings in different areas around the world, and its use for different concepts can make comparisons confusing. Usually a league is a group of teams that play each other during the season. It is also often used for the name of the governing body that oversees the league, as in Major League Baseball or England's Football League. Because most European soccer clubs participate in different competitions during a season, regular-season home-and-away games are often referred to as league games and the others as non-league games, even though the separate competitions may be organised by the same governing body. Also, there is a rugby football code called rugby league, as distinct from rugby union.Structure of North American leagues
Professional sports leagues in North America comprise a stipulated number of clubs, known as franchises, which field one team each.The franchises have territorial rights, usually exclusive territories large enough to cover major metropolitan areas, so that they have no local rivals. New teams may enter the competition only by a vote of current members; typically, a new place is put up for bid by would-be owners. This system is sometimes called a "franchise system" in the U.K. It was introduced in baseball with the formation of the National League
National League
The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League , is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball, and the world's oldest extant professional team sports league. Founded on February 2, 1876, to replace the National Association of Professional...
in 1876Before 1876, baseball clubs joined the professional class (1869–1870) or the professional association by announcing their intentions and paying any required fees, an open system. and later adopted by the other North American leagues.
Although member clubs are corporate entities separate from their leagues, they operate only under league auspices. Partly because that relationship is so close, partly because the four major team sports leagues represent the top level of play in the world, North American teams almost never play competitive games against outside opponents. National Hockey League
National Hockey League
The National Hockey League is an unincorporated not-for-profit association which operates a major professional ice hockey league of 30 franchised member clubs, of which 7 are currently located in Canada and 23 in the United States...
(NHL) and National Basketball Association
National Basketball Association
The National Basketball Association is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in North America. It consists of thirty franchised member clubs, of which twenty-nine are located in the United States and one in Canada...
(NBA) teams have played against European hockey and basketball teams in preseason exhibitions. The North American league, rather than any sport governing body
Sport governing body
A sport governing body is a sports organization that has a regulatory or sanctioning function. Sport governing bodies come in various forms, and have a variety of regulatory functions. Examples of this can include disciplinary action for rule infractions and deciding on rule changes in the sport...
, determines the playing rules and scoring rules of its game, and the rules under which players join and change teams.
The teams are organized so that each major city has a team to support. Only the largest cities have more than one team. As such the teams are often referred to as franchises. Even though they are not technically franchises in a business sense, the league is organised in a way that assures teams continued existence in the league from year to year, which fosters an ongoing connection with the team's supporters. On occasion a league may decide to grow the sport by admitting a new expansion team
Expansion team
An expansion team is a brand new team in a sports league. The term is most commonly used in reference to the North American major professional sports leagues, but is applied to sports leagues worldwide that use a closed franchise system of league membership. The term comes from the expansion of the...
into the league. Most of the teams in the four major North American pro sports leagues were created as part of a planned league expansion or through the merger of a rival league. Only the few oldest teams in the National Hockey League
National Hockey League
The National Hockey League is an unincorporated not-for-profit association which operates a major professional ice hockey league of 30 franchised member clubs, of which 7 are currently located in Canada and 23 in the United States...
, for example, existed before becoming part of the NHL. The rest of the teams were created ex novo as expansion team
Expansion team
An expansion team is a brand new team in a sports league. The term is most commonly used in reference to the North American major professional sports leagues, but is applied to sports leagues worldwide that use a closed franchise system of league membership. The term comes from the expansion of the...
s or as charter members of the World Hockey Association
World Hockey Association
The World Hockey Association was a professional ice hockey league that operated in North America from 1972 to 1979. It was the first major competition for the National Hockey League since the collapse of the Western Hockey League in 1926...
, which merged with the NHL in 1979. The best teams in a given season reach a playoff
Playoff
The playoffs, postseason, or finals of a sports league are a game or series of games played after the regular season by the top competitors, usually but not always with a single-elimination system, to determine the league champion or a similar accolade.In the U.S...
tournament, and the winner of the playoffs is crowned champion of the league, and, in some cases as world champions.
Teams are organised into groups called divisions, usually based on geography. This structure encourages local rivalries, as teams from the same division play each other more often than other teams, and it is the teams that top each division that are seeded higher in the playoffs at the end of the season that determine the eventual champion.
Major League Soccer
Major League Soccer
Major League Soccer is a professional soccer league based in the United States and sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation . The league is composed of 19 teams — 16 in the U.S. and 3 in Canada...
is a North American league that exhibits some aspects of the European structure because the sport it plays has a European rather than American origin. Major League Soccer is technically not an association of franchises but a single business entity, though each team has an owner-operator; the team owners are actually shareholders in the league. The league, not the individual teams, contracts with the players. Unlike teams in the four major sports, several Major League Soccer teams qualify to play competitive matches in the CONCACAF Champions League
CONCACAF Champions League
The CONCACAF Champions League is the annual international club football championship for teams from the CONCACAF region ....
against teams from outside the U.S. and Canada, and MLS uses playing rules set by the international governing body of its sport. MLS followed its own playing rules until 2004, when it adopted FIFA
FIFA
The Fédération Internationale de Football Association , commonly known by the acronym FIFA , is the international governing body of :association football, futsal and beach football. Its headquarters are located in Zurich, Switzerland, and its president is Sepp Blatter, who is in his fourth...
rules. In another parallel with the European model, both the U.S. and Canada have separate knockout cup competitions during the MLS season that include teams from lower leagues. The six U.S.-based teams with the best records in each MLS season automatically qualify for the following season's Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup
Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup
The Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup is a knockout tournament in American soccer. The tournament is the oldest ongoing American soccer competition and is presently open to all United States Soccer Federation affiliated teams, from amateur adult club teams to the professional clubs of Major League...
, while the remaining U.S. teams play one another for two more places in that competition. All of Canada's MLS teams compete in the Canadian Championship
Canadian Championship
The Canadian Championship—known as the Nutrilite Canadian Championship for sponsorship reasons—is an annual soccer tournament contested by premier Canadian professional teams...
. However, the league structure of MLS follows the North American model, with a single premier league and no promotion or relegation.
Some other North American systems also have a hierarchical structure but without the promotion and relegation of clubs exhibited in the European model. Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...
uses a minor-league system
Minor league baseball
Minor league baseball is a hierarchy of professional baseball leagues in the Americas that compete at levels below Major League Baseball and provide opportunities for player development. All of the minor leagues are operated as independent businesses...
to develop young talent. Most minor league clubs are independently owned but each one contracts with a major-league club that hires and pays players and assigns them to its various minor clubs. The minor clubs do not move up or down in the hierarchy by on-field success or failure. Professional ice hockey
Ice hockey
Ice hockey, often referred to as hockey, is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent's net. The game is played between two teams of six players each. Five members of each team skate up and down the ice trying to take...
has a system somewhat similar to baseball's, while the National Basketball Association
National Basketball Association
The National Basketball Association is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in North America. It consists of thirty franchised member clubs, of which twenty-nine are located in the United States and one in Canada...
operate a small developmental league. The National Football League
National Football League
The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...
does not have a minor league system as of 2011 but it has operated or affiliated with minor leagues in the 1930s
American Association (football)
The American Association was a professional American football league based in New York City. Founded in 1936 as a minor league with teams in New York and New Jersey, the AA extended its reach to Providence, Rhode Island prior to the onset of World War II...
, 1940s
Association of Professional Football Leagues
The Association of Professional Football Leagues was a compact formed in 1946 among the National Football League and three minor leagues of professional American football: the American Association , the Dixie League, and the Pacific Coast Professional Football League...
, 1960s
Atlantic Coast Football League
The Atlantic Coast Football League was a minor football league that operated from 1962 to 1973. Until 1969, many of its franchises had working agreements with NFL and AFL teams to serve as farm clubs. The league paid a base salary of $100 per game and had 36 players on each active roster.For the...
, 1990s
World League of American Football
The World League of American Football was founded in 1990 with support from the National Football League to play professional American football in North America, Europe and later possibly Asia...
, and the early 2000s
NFL Europe
NFL Europe was an American football league which operated in Europe from 1991 until 2007. Backed by the National Football League , the largest professional American football league in the United States, it was founded as the World League of American Football to serve as a type of spring league...
.
Structure of European leagues
Football in EnglandFootball in England
Association football is a national sport in England, where the first modern set of rules for the code were established in 1863, which were a major influence on the development of the modern Laws of the Game...
developed a very different system from the North American one, and it has been adopted for football in most other countries, as well as to many other sports founded in Europe and played across the world. The features of the system are:
- The existence of an elected governing body to which clubs at all levels of the sport belong
- The promotion of well-performing teams to higher-level leagues or divisions and the relegation of poorly performing teams to lower-level leagues or divisions.
- Matches played both inside and outside of leagues
European football clubs are members both of a league and of a governing body. In the case of England, all competitive football clubs are members of The Football Association
The Football Association
The Football Association, also known as simply The FA, is the governing body of football in England, and the Crown Dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. It was formed in 1863, and is the oldest national football association...
, while the top 20 teams also are members of the Premier League, a separate organization. The 72 teams in the three levels below the Premier League are members of still another body, The Football League
The Football League
The Football League, also known as the npower Football League for sponsorship reasons, is a league competition featuring professional association football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888, it is the oldest such competition in world football...
, which is itself divided into three competitive leagues. The FA operates the national football team and tournaments that involve teams from different leagues (except the Football League Cup
Football League Cup
The Football League Cup, commonly known as the League Cup or, from current sponsorship, the Carling Cup, is an English association football competition. Like the FA Cup, it is played on a knockout basis...
, operated by The Football League and open to its own teams and those in the Premier League). In conjunction with other countries' governing bodies, it also sets the playing rules and the rules under which teams can sell players' contracts to other clubs.
The rules or Laws of The Game are determined by the International Football Association Board
International Football Association Board
The International Football Association Board is the body that determines the Laws of the Game of association football.-Operations:...
The Premier League negotiates television contracts for its games. However, although the national league would be the dominating competition in which a club might participate, there are many non-league fixtures a club might play in a given year. In European football there are national cup competitions, which are single elimination knock-out tournaments, are played every year and all the clubs in the league participate. Also, the best performing clubs from the previous year may participate in pan-European tournaments such as the UEFA Champions League
UEFA Champions League
The UEFA Champions League, known simply the Champions League and originally known as the European Champion Clubs' Cup or European Cup, is an annual international club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations since 1955 for the top football clubs in Europe. It...
, operated by the Union of European Football Associations
UEFA
The Union of European Football Associations , almost always referred to by its acronym UEFA is the administrative and controlling body for European association football, futsal and beach soccer....
. A Premier League team might play a league game one week, and an FA Cup
FA Cup
The Football Association Challenge Cup, commonly known as the FA Cup, is a knockout cup competition in English football and is the oldest association football competition in the world. The "FA Cup" is run by and named after The Football Association and usually refers to the English men's...
game against a team from a lower-level league the next, followed by a League Cup game against a Football League team, and then a fourth game might be against a team from across Europe in the Champions League.
The promotion and relegation
Promotion and relegation
In many sports leagues around the world, promotion and relegation is a process that takes place at the end of each season. Through it, teams are transferred between divisions based on their performance that season...
system is generally used to determine membership of leagues. Most commonly, a pre-determined number of teams that finish the bottom of a league or division are automatically dropped down, or relegated, to a lower level for the next season. They are replaced by teams who are promoted from that lower tier either by finishing with the best records or by winning a playoff. In England in 2011
2010–11 Premier League
The 2010–11 Premier League was the 19th season of the Premier League since its establishment in 1992. The 2010–11 fixtures were released on 17 June 2010 at 09:00 BST. The season began on 14 August 2010, and ended on 22 May 2011...
, Birmingham City
Birmingham City F.C.
Birmingham City Football Club is a professional association football club based in the city of Birmingham, England. Formed in 1875 as Small Heath Alliance, they became Small Heath in 1888, then Birmingham in 1905, finally becoming Birmingham City in 1943.They were relegated at the end of the...
, Blackpool
Blackpool F.C.
Blackpool Football Club are an English football club founded in 1887 from the Lancashire seaside town of Blackpool. They are competing in the 2011–12 season of the The Championship, the second tier of professional football in England, having been relegated from the Premier League at the end of the...
and West Ham United
West Ham United F.C.
West Ham United Football Club is an English professional football club based in Upton Park, Newham, East London. They play in The Football League Championship. The club was founded in 1895 as Thames Ironworks FC and reformed in 1900 as West Ham United. In 1904 the club relocated to their current...
were relegated from the Premier League to the Football League Championship
Football League Championship
The Football League Championship is the highest division of The Football League and second-highest division overall in the English football league system after the Premier League...
, the second level of English football. They were replaced by the top two teams from the second level, Queens Park Rangers
Queens Park Rangers F.C.
Queens Park Rangers Football Club is an English professional football club, based in White City, Hammersmith and Fulham, west London. As the 2010-11 Football League Championship champions, they now play in the top tier of English football the Premier League, for the first time in 15 years...
and Norwich City
Norwich City F.C.
Norwich City Football Club is an English professional football club based in Norwich, Norfolk. As of the 2011–12 season, Norwich City are again playing in the Premier League after a six-year absence, having finished as runner up in the Championship in 2010–11 and winning automatic promotion.The...
, as well as Swansea City
Swansea City A.F.C.
Swansea City Association Football Club are a Welsh professional football club based in Swansea, Wales. One of the most successful clubs in Welsh football, it has won 10 Welsh Cups and led the English Football League First Division in December 1981, before finishing the season in 6th position...
(a Welsh club that plays in the English system), which won a playoff tournament of the teams that finished third through sixth.
The system originated in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
in 1888 when twelve clubs decided to create a professional Football League
The Football League
The Football League, also known as the npower Football League for sponsorship reasons, is a league competition featuring professional association football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888, it is the oldest such competition in world football...
. It then expanded by merging with the Football Alliance
Football Alliance
The Football Alliance was an association football league in England which ran for three seasons, from 1889–90 to 1891–92.It was formed by 12 clubs as a rival to the Football League, which had begun in the 1888–89 season, also with 12 member clubs...
in 1892, with the majority of the Alliance teams occupying the lower Second Division
Football League Second Division
From 1892 until 1992, the Football League Second Division was the second highest division overall in English football.This ended with the creation of the FA Premier League, prior to the start of the 1992–93 season, which caused an administrative split between The Football League and the teams...
, due to the divergent strengths of the teams. As this differential was overcome over the next five years, the winners of the Second Division went into a playoff with the worst placed team in the First Division
Football League First Division
The First Division was a division of The Football League between 1888 and 2004 and the highest division in English football until the creation of the Premier League in 1992. The secondary tier in English football has since become known as the Championship....
, and if they won, were promoted into the top tier. The first club to achieve promotion was Sheffield United
Sheffield United F.C.
Sheffield United Football Club is a professional English football club based in the city of Sheffield, South Yorkshire.They were the first sporting team to use the name 'United' and are nicknamed 'The Blades', thanks to Sheffield's worldwide reputation for steel production...
, which replaced the relegated Accrington F.C.
Accrington F.C.
Accrington Football Club were an English football club from Accrington, Lancashire, who were one of the founder members of The Football League. Accrington F.C. was formed following a meeting at a local public house in 1876...
Relegation often has devastating financial consequences for club owners who not only lose TV, sponsorship and gate income but may also see the asset value of their shares in the club collapse. Some leagues offer a "parachute payment" to its relegated teams for the following years in order to protect them from bankruptcy. If a team is promoted back to the higher tier the following year then the parachute payment for the second season is distributed among the teams of the lower division. There is of course a corresponding bonanza for promoted clubs.
The league does not choose which cities are to have teams in the top division. For example, Leeds
Leeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
, the fourth-biggest city in England, saw their team, Leeds United
Leeds United A.F.C.
Leeds United Association Football Club are an English professional association football club based in Beeston, Leeds, West Yorkshire, who play in the Football League Championship, the second tier of the English football league system...
, relegated from the Premier League to the Championship in 2004, and then saw United relegated to the third-tier League One
Football League One
Football League One is the second-highest division of The Football League and third-highest division overall in the English football league system....
in 2007 (United would return to the Championship in 2010). Leeds will remain without a Premiership team as long as it takes for United, or in theory any other local club, to do well enough in the second-tier division to win the right to play in the Premiership. Famously, the French Ligue 1
Ligue 1
Ligue 1 , is the French professional league for association football clubs. It is the country's primary football competition and serves as the top division of the French football league system. Ligue 1 is one of two divisions making up the Ligue de Football Professionnel, the other being Ligue 2....
lacked a team from Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
for some years.
As well as having no right to being in a certain tier, a club also has no territorial rights to its own area. A successful new team in a geographical location can come to dominate the incumbents. In Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
, for example, TSV 1860 München
TSV 1860 München
Turn- und Sportverein München von 1860, commonly known as TSV 1860 München or 1860 Munich, is a German sports club based in Munich, Bavaria. The club's football team plays in the Second Bundesliga, after relegation from the Bundesliga following the 2003–04 season...
were initially more successful than the city's current biggest team Bayern München
FC Bayern Munich
FC Bayern Munich , is a German sports club based in Munich, Bavaria. It is best known for its professional football team, which is the most successful football club in Germany, having won 22 national titles and 15 cups....
. London has 14 professional teams
Football in London
Football is the most popular sport, in terms of both participants and spectators in London. London has several of England's leading football clubs, and the city is home to fourteen professional teams and more than 80 amateur leagues regulated by the London Football Association...
, including five Premier League teams.
Clubs may be sold privately to new owners at any time, but this does not happen often where clubs are based on community membership and agreement. Such clubs require agreement from members who, unlike shareholders of corporations, have priorities other than money when it comes to their football club. For similar reasons, relocation of clubs to other cities is very rare. This is mostly because virtually all cities and towns in Europe have a football club of some sort, the size and strength of the club usually relative to the town's size and importance. Anyone wanting ownership of a high ranked club in his native city must buy the local club as it stands and work it up through the divisions, usually by hiring better talent. Buying an existing top-flight club and move it to the city is problematic, as the supporters of the town's original club are unlikely to switch allegiance to an interloper. There have been some cases where existing owners have chosen to relocate out of a difficult market, to better facilities, or simply to realize the market value of the land that the current stadium is built upon. As in the U.S., team relocations have been controversial as supporters of the club will protest at its loss.
Systems around the world
Leagues around the world generally follow one or other of these systems. Most sport leagues in AustraliaAustralia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
are based on the North American model, with the most notable examples being the Australian Football League
Australian Football League
The Australian Football League is both the governing body and the major professional competition in the sport of Australian rules football...
(Aussie rules
Australian rules football
Australian rules football, officially known as Australian football, also called football, Aussie rules or footy is a sport played between two teams of 22 players on either...
) and National Rugby League
National Rugby League
The National Rugby League is the top league of professional rugby league football clubs in Australasia. The NRL's main competition, called the Telstra Premiership , is contested by sixteen teams, fifteen of which are based in Australia with one based in New Zealand...
(rugby league
Rugby league
Rugby league football, usually called rugby league, is a full contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular grass field. One of the two codes of rugby football, it originated in England in 1895 by a split from Rugby Football Union over paying players...
). Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan uses this system due to American influence on the game. In cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
, the Indian Premier League
Indian Premier League
The Indian Premier League is a professional league for Twenty20 cricket competition in India. It was initiated by the Board of Control for Cricket in India , headquartered in Mumbai, and is supervised by BCCI Vice President Rajeev Shukla, who serves as the league's Chairman and Commissioner...
, launched in 2008, also operates on this system. The Super League
Super League
Super League is the top-level professional rugby league football club competition in Europe. As a result of sponsorship from engage Mutual Assurance the competition is currently officially known as the engage Super League. The League features fourteen teams: thirteen from England and one from...
, which is the top level of rugby league
Rugby league
Rugby league football, usually called rugby league, is a full contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular grass field. One of the two codes of rugby football, it originated in England in 1895 by a split from Rugby Football Union over paying players...
in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, has been run on a franchise basis since 2009.
The promotion-relegation system is widely used in football around the world, notably in Africa and Latin America as well as Europe. The most notable variation has developed in Latin America where many countries have two league seasons per year
Apertura and Clausura
The Apertura and Clausura tournaments are a relatively recent innovation for many Latin American football leagues in which the traditional European football season from August to May is divided in two sections per season, each with its own champion. Apertura and Clausura are the Spanish words for...
, which scheduling allows because many Latin American nations lack a national cup competition. Promotion and relegation has historically been used in other team sports founded in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, such as rugby union
Rugby union
Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...
, rugby league
Rugby league
Rugby league football, usually called rugby league, is a full contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular grass field. One of the two codes of rugby football, it originated in England in 1895 by a split from Rugby Football Union over paying players...
and cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
.
The European model is also used in Europe even when the sports were founded in America, showing that the league system adopted is not determined by the sport itself, but more on the tradition of sports organisation in that region. Sports such as basketball
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...
in Spain and Lithuania use promotion and relegation. In the same vein, the Australian A-League
A-League
The A-League is the top Australasian professional football league. Run by Australian governing body Football Federation Australia , it was founded in 2004 following the folding of the National Soccer League and staged its inaugural season in 2005–06. It is sponsored by Hyundai Motor Company...
does not use the pyramid structure normally found in football, but instead follows the tradition of Australian sports having a franchise model and a playoff system that better suits a country with a few important central locations where a sport needs to ensure there is a team playing with no risk of relegation. Likewise, another notable example of "European" sports using the American model is the Super Rugby competition of the southern hemisphere, featuring 15 franchises from across South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
East Asia
East Asia
East Asia or Eastern Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms...
n countries such as Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
and Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
have a particular differentiation among leagues: "European" sports such as football and rugby use promotion and relegation, while "American" sports such as baseball and basketball use franchising, with a few differences varying from country to country. A similar situation exists in countries in Central America
Central America
Central America is the central geographic region of the Americas. It is the southernmost, isthmian portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast. When considered part of the unified continental model, it is considered a subcontinent...
and the Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
, where football and baseball share several close markets.
See also
- Gate receiptsGate receiptsGate receipts is the sum of money taken at a sporting venue for the sale of tickets.Traditionally, gate receipts were largely or entirely taken in cash. Today, many sporting venues will operate a season ticket scheme, which will mean they allocate a proportion of season ticket moneys when...
- History of Baseball
- Football in EnglandFootball in EnglandAssociation football is a national sport in England, where the first modern set of rules for the code were established in 1863, which were a major influence on the development of the modern Laws of the Game...
- Football in ItalyFootball in ItalyFootball is the most popular sport in Italy. The Italian national football team has won the FIFA World Cup 4 times , trailing only Brazil . Italy's club sides have won 27 major European trophies, making them the most successful European nation in the subject of football...
- Football in GermanyFootball in GermanyAssociation football is the most popular sport in Germany. The German Football Association is the sport's national governing body, with 6.6 million members organized in over 26,000 football clubs. There is a league system, with the 1. and 2. Bundesliga on top, and the winner of the first...
- Football in AustraliaFootball in AustraliaFootball in Australia can refer to several different variations of football as there are regional variations of the use of the word "Football" in Australia....
- European FootballEuropean footballEuropean football is a colloquial term referring to any international football club competition that is organised by UEFA. Any club that wishes to participate in European football must qualify through their respective domestic league or domestic cup competitions...
- Football in SpainFootball in SpainFootball is the most popular sport in Spain. The Royal Spanish Football Federation is the national governing body and it organizes La Liga, the Copa del Rey and the Spain national football team, current champion of the FIFA World Cup...
- Football in FranceFootball in FranceFootball is the most popular sport in France. The Fédération Française de Football is the national governing bodyand is responsible for overseeing all aspects of the game of association football in the country, both professional and amateur...
- Football in the NetherlandsFootball in the NetherlandsFootball is the most popular Sport in the Netherlands. Football was introduced to the Netherlands by Pim Mulier in the 19th century when in 1879, at the age of 14, he founded Haarlemsche Football Club...
- Football in PortugalFootball in Portugal- History :Football started to gain popularity in Portugal in the late 19th century, brought by Portuguese students who returned from England.right|250px|thumb...
- Football in ScotlandFootball in ScotlandAssociation football is the national sport in Scotland and highly popular throughout the country. There is a long tradition of "football" games in Orkney, Lewis and southern Scotland, especially the Scottish Borders, although many of these include carrying the ball and passing by hand, and despite...
- Rugby Football LeagueRugby Football LeagueThe Rugby Football League is the governing body for professional rugby league football in England. Based at Red Hall in Leeds, it administers the England national rugby league team, the Challenge Cup, Super League and the Rugby League Championships...
- English Hockey LeagueEnglish Hockey LeagueThe English Hockey League is a national hockey league run by England Hockey. It is currently sponsored by Slazenger and known as the Slazenger England Hockey League or EHL...
- EuroHockey Club Champions CupEuroHockey Club Champions CupThe EuroHockey Club Champions Cup, previously known as the European Club Championship, is the leading woman's field hockey competition for clubs in Europe. It is held annually. Prior to the creation of the Euro Hockey League in 2007, the woman's competition also had a men's counterpart of the same...
- Handball-Bundesliga
- Liga ASOBAL
- EHF CupEHF CupThe EHF Cup is an official competition for men's handball clubs of Europe and takes place every year. From 2012/13 it will be merged with EHF Cup Winners' Cup to EHF European Cup....
Further reading
- Cain, Louis P. and Haddock, David D.; 2005; 'Similar Economic Histories, Different Industrial Structures: Transatlantic Contrasts in the Evolution of Professional Sports Leagues'; Journal of Economic History 65 (4); pp1116–1147