Talk:Professional sports league organization

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[edit] If European teams are not "franchises," what are they?

I think we're starting to get there.

The article still raises some questions, though. Most importantly: If European teams are not "franchises," what are they? -- Mwalcoff 00:04, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

If a business is not a franchise, what is it? I don't think it matters. --ThirdEdition 05:49, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
Of course it matters. If we're comparing North America and Europe and we talk about the former having "franchises," we have to say what the latter has instead. -- Mwalcoff 23:32, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
As far as I know, most teams in Europe, with exceptions like Manchester United, are multi-purpose clubs. Barcelona has other pro teams for basketball and handball, and amateur teams for futsal, rugby and several others.--Macgreco 23:47, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Out of chronological sequence interjection

Is it appropriate to interject here? Is using one extra colon clear enough?
This article and franchise lays some groundwork for adopting 'franchise' in a special sporting sense, distinct from its business or legal meaning. (The franchise article makes clear that it is a technical term of business law in the United States, leaves open that it is merely popular business talk elsewhere.) The sporting sense is that clubs are called franchises by sports writers and fans in the US or North America; it is partly inspired and partly warranted by the business methods, but only partly.
This discussion makes clear that many would like to use 'franchise' in a business/legal sense.
(I have spent hours, days, weeks, or months --this is multiple choice-- reading the documentation. There is something about recovery from omitting to mark an edit 'm' that I don't understand or can't follow. Anyway, I merely deleted the stub message from the footer. It isn't much like zillions of other pages called stubs, so I decided to be bold.64.48.78.40 21:43, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
The assumption from Europe (to justify the "franchise" term) is that there must be a "league holding company" that owns the league and licenses owners who want to run a team in it - just like Subway might licence another outlet and decide where its territory should be. The clubs don't own the league like they do in Europe. So if someone wants to create a new NFL club in (say) Hicksville Tennessee, they'd have to buy a franchise licence from the league. Is this speculation correct? --Concrete Cowboy 16:39, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
You're half-right. If someone wanted to have an NFL team in Hicksville, he or she would need league approval. But the individual existing teams do own and control the league. -- Mwalcoff 23:01, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Return to original chronological posting order

Yes, but in saying that you assume that North American teams fall into the category of "franchises" and European teams fall into another well defined category. I think it is more a case of franchises being a subset of all teams, so the category European teams would be in is 'non-franchises'. In general business is there a name to describe all businesses that aren't franchises?
European football teams are generally called clubs (in English at least), although few a them are genuinely clubs anymore, but some American teams are called clubs as well. I'm not so sure there's an easy answer. --ThirdEdition 01:00, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
This page is interesting. It says the three defining characteristics of a franchise agreement are:
  1. "a unifying name or mark," such as "McDonald's;"
  2. the right or obligation of the franchisee to operate the business under the franchiser's business system (that is, some control by the franchiser over the franchisee); and
  3. a franchise fee
A business agreement that has (1) and (2) but not (3) is a distributorship. An agreement that has (1) and (3) but not (2) is a licensing agreement. An agreement that has (2) and (3) but not (1) is called a "business opportunity."
I think the question here is: What is the relationship of European "clubs" to the league and to each other? In North America, the rival teams are franchises of the league. It's like the McDonald's on Main Street and the McDonald's on Pine Street. Are European teams in the same league completely independent of each other -- like a McDonald's and a Burger King? -- Mwalcoff 23:17, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
Yes. Each team is entirely independent. It could be owened by one person - if I had enough money, I could buy the entirety of Man Utd, or it could be ownwed by shareholders. The fundamental difference - to my mind - is that clubs in the 'European syayem- operate independently of the leauge - they can be plcs, privtaely owened companies, corportations, or whatever. Robdurbar 00:02, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
So it is like a burger king competing with a wendy's, if you will. Robdurbar 00:03, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
OK. So in the U.S., different teams are franchises of a league, while in Europe, they have no relationship with each other, except as competitors and shared membership in a governing body, which allocates them to divisions based on their performance. Is that accurate?
Incidentally, by "independent" I am referring to teams' relationship with each other, not to a league. U.S. teams can be privately held, for-profit corporations (most of them), non-profit corporations (Green Bay Packers), publicly traded corporations (formerly the Boston Celtics) or subsidiaries of other companies (Atlanta Braves). -- Mwalcoff 00:20, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Why is this article called "Professional sports league organization"? Amateur and semi-professional sports leagues aren't organised much differently from professional ones. --ThirdEdition 06:12, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

It could be moved to Sports league organization, or Sport league organization, as these are just redirects with no edit history; however, I wrote it at as 'professional' to reflect the fact that these refer to the upper leagues which are organized differently - our local football (any flavour/flavor) team is not a franchise, after all, and it may be in a local league outside of the national pyramid of organization.

And I agree that there is still some expansion due from here, though I'm reluctant to do it myself as I wrote tha majority of this and don't want to mkae it (unintentially) biased. Teams in Europe are teams, though from a business point of view they tend to be plcs or privately owned companies. Robdurbar 18:19, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Classifications

How would the Football League have been classified in the early days when clubs had to be elected in and there was only one division? How do first class cricket competitions classify, for example the County Championship (albeit with two divisions) and Pura Cup? They are 'closed shops', but are they American/European/Other? --ThirdEdition 06:03, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Good questions. The Football League has possibly always been a European system - it set up lower leagues very quickly so that the it was one leauge for about 2/3 years, three leagues for another 20 or so and has been four leagues since then. I think that its key to emphasise that the difference is not just promotion/relegation - its a different concept as to the elegibility of teams in the league and a different relationship to the league. Hence the 'scare quotes' around the titles - these aren't boundered classifications. Robdurbar 18:19, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Out of sequence interjection

But the model needs to be clear or it isn't worth talking about NAmerican and WEuropean. And the article is somewhat historical, presenting the NA model as something that developed early, in base ball; some of the talk, at least, shows that people think of the European model developing early also, in football. But the NA leagues are not very close to McDonalds and other franchise businesses even today, much less in the 1870s --when the clubs were generally named "base ball club".
For what it's worth, I'm sure that different people even within USA and UK and Australia bring to the table different and not very useful notions of franchising, intellectual property, trusts and other business arrangements; as well as ball clubs and teams and squads. Business news must be diseducational everywhere in the Anglo world, focusing on prices and celebrities.
... so, do all of the thousand English FCs instruct children and field youth teams? --P64 06:48, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
"Franchise" is a very strange term for the North American clubs: this article has tried and I think failed to explain its usage in NA. The term is not used at all in Europe, other than in one case, as a term of abuse for a team that relocated.
Most English clubs have "academy" teams and do out-reach to local schools. --Concrete Cowboy 23:30, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Football Association

And how important is the Football League? it seems to be a competition (a very big tournament, a long-drawn out event) rather than a league. The Football Association says "All of England's professional football clubs must be members of the Football Association. The FA is responsible for the appointment of the management of the England men's and women's national teams, the organization of the FA Cup, the nation's most prestigious cup competition, and is the governing body of the FA Premier League."

  • all of England's professional football clubs must be members --must be, in order to employ football players legally?
  • the governing body of the FA Premier League --that seems awfully important from here --P64 06:48, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
You had better take that question to The Football League article. It is very much a league to us! Looks like another case of US/UK: two peoples divided by a common language. Clearly, the article must need to be improved if it doesn't make sense to a North American reader! --Concrete Cowboy 23:30, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rugby Union

I think it should be mentioned that although rugby union uses the 'European' league system now, at least in England and Wales, there were no rugby union leagues in England until 1987 (and I think the rest of the British Isles). Having said this, rugby union only turned professional in 1995.

Also, Super 14 (already pointed out) and the Celtic League operate a more 'American' style system. There's no promotion and relegation in the Australian domestic rugby union leagues either, as is normal in Australia, although these are not really professional as players get about A$100 a week. There is a sort of pyramid structure in NZ, but the NPC teams are all provincial, so it's effectively a closed-shop as each part of NZ is represented by one team. The South African Currie Cup is for provincial teams as well, but I'm not sure of the details. So, I don't think it's fair to say rugby union has a 'European' or 'American' system, it varies around the world. --ThirdEdition 01:43, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Yeah - I'm wondering whether labeling might be better as the 'Major League Baseball' and the 'Football League', rather than American and Britain. Also, in the above leagues, its important to note that relegation/promotion are not the be-all-and-end-all - just an important characteristic in the 'blueprints'. Robdurbar 08:19, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Changes

I have deleted the following sentences:

"The team's financial dealings are controlled by the league. For example, if a team wants to sell a large number of player contracts to make money, then such deals could be be nullified by the league. This gives the league a greater say in the teams that can compete in it."

This section was misleading. Leagues do not "control" teams' fincancial dealings. Teams operate independently of the league. They do have to follow league rules, such as salary caps, limits on the number of players that can be kept under contract, etc.

North American teams almost never "sell" player contracts. Players are traded to other treams for other players or draft picks, or are simply released or put on waivers. It may be possible for a league commissioner to nullify a trade, but I can't recall an instance of this happening.

  • It did. Oakland Athletics owner Charles O. Finley sold off many of his stars in the mid-1970s but after several such trades Commissioner Bowie Kuhn put his foot down and nullified a 1976 deal involving Joe Rudi and Rollie Fingers; he later tried to trade Vida Blue in 1977 at fire sale prices and Kuhn nullified that one as well, citing "best interests of baseball" in all three instances.24.174.145.108 03:56, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I have changed the word "roster" in the beginning, since in North America that word refers to the list of players on a team. The sentence was therefore confusing.

Finally, I have changed the wording of the subheads so we're not making neologisms. -- Mwalcoff 22:42, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The soccer part

I've taken out the potentially misleading information in the baseball part, but I'm concerned about some of the info in the last section. While I'm sure it is accurate, it may give the impression that American sports are different, which may not be the case. For example, it now says:

"Teams are voluntary members of the league and willingly submit to its rules — they are entirely independent institutions."

Of course, MLB and NFL teams are also "voluntary" members of their respective leagues.

"Territorial rights are not recognised."

Geographical exclusivity might have been part of baseball originally, but it cannot be considered to be part of it now, since LA, New York, Chicago and the San Francisco Bay area each have two teams. The teams. And the NFL certainly doesn't have territorial exclusivity; the Jets and Giants play in the same stadium. Al Davis' 1982 court victory over the NFL means that sports leagues (other than MLB, with its antitrust exemption) can't prevent teams from moving onto other teams' territories.

Before Davis, teams had to pay an indemnity to move onto another's territory. I'm not sure if the Jets had to pay one to the Giants (they may have gotten out of it as part of the 1966 AFL-NFL merger) but when the Nets joined the NBA, they had to pay the Knicks so much money ($3M) they had to sell off Julius Erving to pay for it, which hurt them for years.24.174.145.108 04:46, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
"Players' contracts can be freely traded for money during the transfer window (with a share to the player and his agent) and/or loaned out to clubs elsewhere in the league pyramid."

While the American system favors trades of players and draft picks over sales and loans of players, the essence is the same. Teams exchange players freely before the trade deadline, without the league being involved. (There might be some exceptions, but I'm not aware of them). -- Mwalcoff 23:38, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Does that leave much left? Would it be fair to say that although there may be many differences in organisation between Major League Baseball and The Football Association that there are no 'rules' we can point to and say this is 'American' and this is 'European'. Even the idea of promotion/relegation doesn't define one system or another. I think a way forward might be to describe the evolution of the MLB and FA systems and then treat current leagues on a case by case basis. That way we avoid having to make generalisations. --ThirdEdition 05:13, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
"Players' contracts can be freely traded for money during the transfer window (with a share to the player and his agent) and/or loaned out to clubs elsewhere in the league pyramid." - according to the main soruce (and without wanting to offend, you have rarely soruced your comments, making even the most accurate of them original research) the leauges can veto transfers in the USA (or trades etc.) on financial grounds. Thats not he case in the 'soccer' system. Robdurbar 09:40, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
I see that mention in the Cain article, but I've been unable to find an example of the nullification of a trade through Googling. I don't doubt that league commissioners have such power, but I don't know of a time in which it has happened. -- Mwalcoff 23:07, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Comments:
"Of course, MLB and NFL teams are also "voluntary" members of their respective leagues."
But the key difference is that teams in the FA are not licensees or franchisees. In theory at least, eleven people at random could form a team and play their way up to the Premier League. AFC Wimbledon is trying to do exactly that. Trouble is, it seems to take about a hundred years!
OK, then that's what we should say instead of using the word "voluntary." My concern is whether we'd be using the word "franchisees" right. That might just be an issue of semantics rather than an explanation for the existence or lack of P&R. -- Mwalcoff 23:07, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
"the American system favors [ ... ] draft picks"
The "college draft" doesn't exist in Europe. Teams (especially lower down the pyramid) run their "Academies" of "apprentices"; in addition, talent scouts attend amateur games and try to spot potential stars.
Right, but I think the original sentence makes it look like American sports leagues control the allocation of players. They do so only indirectly, through the draft and through rules regarding roster sizes, trade deadlines, etc. -- Mwalcoff 23:07, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
"you have rarely soruced your comments"
Not sure which system this refers to, but if it is for the European transfer system, we can get many news references at the next window.
I didn't say that; RobDurbar did. -- Mwalcoff 23:07, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
"I think a way forward might be to describe the evolution of the MLB and FA systems and then treat current leagues on a case by case basis. "
Agree - It looks like we are trying to generalise from very specific examples. And we've come a long way from "sports franchising"! --Concrete Cowboy 17:13, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
OK...but where would we stop? There are hundreds of pro sports leagues. -- Mwalcoff 23:07, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
I havent visited here for a while. I'm going to change part of the soccer bit. It talks of the governing body allocating teams to a level, etc, which has connotations of a strong centre with a real power to determine who is/isnt a member which is a bit misleading. Otherwise jolly good chaps. Jameswilson 23:06, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] League powers?

Question - in the English system, modifications to the rules of the game can only be passed by the overall governing body. Leagues do not have this power. Am I right in thinking the NFL, for example, can change the rules without reference to anyone else? (what constitutes a foul tackle, for example). Jameswilson 22:31, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Yes; there are no "governing bodies" for pro sports in the U.S., so the NFL can make any playing rules it wants. (Although there is no such thing as a "foul tackle" in American football :) ). -- Mwalcoff 23:01, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Sorry for my higgorance! How does that work in practice - do the teams vote on the proposed rule change? Has it resulted in much real divergence in the rules re other leagues/tiers? Jameswilson 23:29, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Well, there are tackles that are illegal, such as the "horse collar." But anyway, the NFL has a Rules Committee of several owners that proposes rule changes. Every year at the owners' meeting, they vote on the proposed changes. I believe a 3/4 majority is required, so major rule changes are rare. There are some differences between NFL and college football, some of which are described in the article on the latter. Sometimes, the NCAA will adopt an NFL rule or vice versa. For example, the NCAA had the two-point conversion for 40 years before the NFL agreed to it (the short-lived USFL pro league also had it). College basketball differs from the NBA because of its shorter games, closer three-point line and longer shot clock. There aren't that many differences in rules between MLB and the minor leagues, since the relationship between the two is quite close (minor-league players are actually employees of MLB teams). College baseball is distinct from the pro game (major and minor leagues) in part because it uses aluminum bats instead of wooden ones.
Interestingly, one major rule differs within MLB. The American League has the designated hitter rule; the National League doesn't. The rule dates to the 1970s, when the NL and AL were still separate organizations. When an AL team plays an NL team, they use the rules of the home team. This is somewhat of a disadvantage for the AL, since pitchers in the AL are not used to hitting. -- Mwalcoff 23:40, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Understood. Jameswilson 00:43, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The soccer part again

I'm learning new things about world sports from this article, but unfortunately the last section of it still misleadingly mentions a few things that are not different in North American sports.

Anyway, I think one way the article could be improved is by explaining that while North American sports teams are members only of a league, teams following the FA model are associated with both a league and a governing body. In the case of England, a team would be a member of both the FA and either the Premier League, the Football League or whatever. I'm not quite sure as to the nature of the relationship between the governing body and the leagues. Unfortunately, our article on The Football Association doesn't spell out what the FA actually is: who owns it, who runs it, etc. From what I gather, the FA includes all pro and most amateur leagues or teams. (I don't know if the leagues or the teams, or both, would be the members of the FA.) It is in charge of the national team, the FA Cup, refereeing and disciplinary matters. From the Premier League article, I understand that the league negotiates TV contracts for its games, but I don't know what the role of the leagues are otherwise. If the FA decides who plays in what division, why do the leagues exist as organizations separate from the FA? The article should discuss these things, both for English soccer and in general for other countries and sports that use the system.

It seems to me that the setup in English soccer is somewhat similar to that of college sports in the U.S., where you have both the National Collegiate Athletic Association and the individual athletic conferences of 8-16 teams. The NCAA sets the rules (sometimes allowing experimentation by conferences), defines player eligibility, organizes national championship tournaments and issues disciplinary actions, while the conferences handle TV contracts for games between their own teams and organize their own tournaments to determine conference champions. The major difference is that while the NCAA divides all of its teams into two to four divisions, depending on the sport, the conferences within those divisions decide their own memberships. The NCAA didn't tell the Big East Conference to "demote" Temple to the Mid-American Conference. The Big East, on its own, expelled Temple, which applied to join the MAC. -- Mwalcoff 06:20, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

What would really help the page is of course if we could epxand beyond soccer in the UK and the major leagues in the USA but we'd really need more editors for that! Yeah, your analysis of the FA is about correct - both leagues and clubs are members. Lord knows who owns it - it may even be the state perhaps?.

As for the leagues existing seperately; I think their main role is in administration and marketing (such as the TV rights that you mention). Robdurbar 09:11, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

The clubs own it, not the state! It is an association of football clubs. Of course it has an elected executive/secretariat. This can cause much confusion - usually when people say that "the FA did X", they really mean that the Executive did it, not all the clubs at once. Also, the Premier League clubs get exactly the same vote as a semi-professional Conference side, which they don't always like - especially when it means that they don't get 100% of the TV rights. UEFA works the same way, which is why the G-14 group are revolting. --Concrete Cowboy 20:05, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
The FA is an independent self-governing association which acts as the overall boss of English football, so I suppose it owns itself. County associations (who run amateur football) are also members of the FA with voting rights, which is important, because it means that amateurs can stop the professional game doing things they dont like.
  1. The FA runs the England national team (and gets the revenues from that). The clubs must release their best players for free to play for England games in the World Cup, etc. The players get paid.
  2. It runs the FA Cup, so the top clubs dont just compete in the competition run by the league, but also one by the FA directly. And thats a good example because the fact that the FA run the FA Cup means that 600+ clubs enter each year. The little clubs with crowds of a few hundred wont let the pro clubs exclude them.
  3. It enforces discipline. Pro clubs can fine their players as employees(up to two weeks wages) but bans/fines resulting from red cards, etc, are decided by the FA. The league has no power to do that, even though the offence happened in a league game.
As you can imagine there is constant friction between the league (representing the clubs) and the FA (representing the national team and the interests of the sport as a whole). This is thesame in all countries and the balance of power in each country between the national FA and the league makes a big difference to how the pro leagues are organised. How successful is the national FA at keeping the top clubs and their owners in line. In Germany, very, in Spain, not at all. Jameswilson 23:15, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
Is the FA a nonprofit organization? I assume the Premier League isn't. -- Mwalcoff 23:37, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
Neither are, legally-speaking, but for example in 2003, the FA's profit was only £55,000 on a turnover of £186,000,000. The rest was distributed back in the form of everything from FA Cup prize money to clubs to grants to promote the amateur game to free stuff for schools. Their mission statement is to develop the quantity and quality of football played at all levels in England. Jameswilson 00:59, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

OK, so why doesn't the Premier League just say, "That's it; no more promotion and relegation. We 20 teams are going to be here forever"? Wouldn't that make the most financial sense for the teams involved? Or would FIFA then blackball the league? -- Mwalcoff 01:35, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

For one thing it would be highly unpopular. I think you would get AFC Wimbledon type clubs springing up all over the country, with a high possibility that fans would baisically ignore the Premier League. It wouldn't make them very popular with FIFA/UEFA, as you note, and might threaten their ability to qualify for European competitions such as the UEFA Champions League. --Robdurbar 07:40, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
They would dearly love to I'm sure but the TV companies wouldnt allow it. Matches towards the end of the season between mid-table teams who are no longer involved in the promotion or relegation battles are avoided by the TV companies and are dubbed "meaningless matches". TV demands drama, pictures of life-long fans crying their eyes out as their team gets relegated and so on. Jameswilson 22:43, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
Having said that, isn't a closed league (or at least closed for some clubs) what the G14 are constantly threatening? --ThirdEdition 01:01, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I was talking about the various national leagues which have promotion/relegation as part of their appeal. As regards Europe what the top clubs really want is to to run the Champions League themselves, rather than have it run by UEFA. As long as they get control of the TV contracts, etc, theyre not really that bothered about the format. The same threats were made before the Premier League breakaway but in the end the (closed) Superleague idea never happened. If you have a closed league you have to have all sorts of nasty things like league parity to keep the competition interesting. There is no way the prime movers like Manchester United and Real Madrid would ever vote for that. They may get their way one day and wrest control of the CL from UEFA but they wont want it to be a league of equals where they could finish mid-table some years. Not on the agenda. Relegation is very expensive for the clubs involved but thats irrelevant to Real Madrid because (without any measures to encourage parity) it never happens to them anyway. Jameswilson 01:44, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New version of soccer section

How about the following for the soccer section? By the way -- are there actual rules that prevent owners from moving teams, or is this just longstanding practice? -- Mwalcoff 00:38, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Yep, its generally much better than the current version. Changes I would make:

  • Typically the bottom three teams at the end of each season lose their league membership. The following season they must play in the next division down.
The first sentence here is a bit problematic. Firstly, 'three clubs' is the standard used between premiership-championship and championship-league one in England only. Its not really a general rule for football in England or anywhere else (four go up and down in Italy's top couple of leagues, for example). Secondly, the clubs would lose division, rather than league membership, unless they are relegated into a division run by a different league (for example from Leauge Two to the Football Conference in England).
So, I would change it to:
A pre-given number of teams at the bottom of a divsion are relegated down to a lower level, being replaced by the same number of teams gaining promotion from that lower tier. The following seasons these teams will compete at their new levels.
  • A source for the tv deals - [1]

--Robdurbar 09:28, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

As for team moving... I seem to recall a verbal agreement from the FA following the Milton Keynes Dons saga that it is policy to not allow teams to relocate more than a given distance (20 miles?) from their current home. I don't think that this has been codified though. --Robdurbar 09:30, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

From the MK Dons article "Only one of the Football League's six new rules would explicitly oppose similar relocation of another club." My reading of it is that the other five rules could have enough weight for it to happen again if the owners wanted it badly enough. --Concrete Cowboy 12:22, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I have some comments that are easier to make inline - my changes are in italic: --Concrete Cowboy 12:22, 24 May 2006 (UTC)


[edit] The system developed in Association Football (soccer)

English soccer developed a starkly very different system that to the North American one and it has been adopted for soccer in most other countries. The system is marked by:

  • The existence of an elected governing body to which teams clubs at all levels of the sport belong;
  • Games played both inside and outside of leagues; and
  • The promotion of well-performing teams to higher-level leagues and the relegation of poorly performing teams to lower-level leagues.

European soccer teams are members both of a league and of a governing body. [A pedantic point, but it is the club that is the member of FA and it could have more than one team in different leagues - mens' and womens' leagues, for example. Is this intro sentence needed?] In the case of England, all competitive soccer teams are members of the Football Association, while the top 20 teams are members of the Premier League, a separate organization. The FA operates the national soccer team and tournaments that involve teams from different leagues. 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 Premier League negotiates television contracts for its games. However, only some of the games a member team plays are league games. A Premier League team might play a league game one week, an FA Cup game against a team from a lower-level league the next. The third game might be against a Danish team in the UEFA Champions League (operated by the Union of European Football Associations).

In any given year, a country could have several champions. In 2004-05, Chelsea won the Premier League championship, Arsenal won the FA Cup and Liverpool won the UEFA Champions League.

The promotion and relegation system is generally used to determine membership. Typically the bottom three teams at the end of each season lose their league membership. The following season they must play in the next division down. In England in 2005, Crystal Palace, Norwich City and Southampton were relegated from the Premier League to the Football League Championship, the second level of English soccer. Relegation has devastating financial consequences for club owners who not only lose TV, sponsorship and gate income but also see the asset value of their shares in the club collapse. There is of course a corresponding bonanza for owners of promoted clubs.

Clubs may be sold privately to new owners at any time but must remain in the same division and the same city - i.e., if a millionaire wishes to have a top club in his native city, he must buy the local club as it stands and work it up through the divisions. He cannot buy an existing top-flight club and move it to his city. (There are a number of cases where existing owners have chosen to relocate out of a crowded market, and/or to better facilities, and/or even just to realise the market value of the land that the stadium is built upon - such moves have been controversial). Nor can the league choose which cities are to have teams in the top division - for example, Leeds, the fourth-biggest city in England, saw their team relegated in 2004. Leeds will remain without a Premiership team as long as it takes for Leeds 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.

Territorial rights are not recognised and new teams in a geographical location can overtake older ones; in Munich, for example, TSV 1860 München were initially more succesful than the city's current biggest team Bayern München [1]. Major cities such as London may have many teams in the professional leagues: for example, it has six teams in the 2006-07 FA Premier League alone.

This system originated in England in 1888 when twelve clubs decided to create a professional Football League. A secretariat was created to organise and run the competition. Later lower tiers (divisions) were added.

This system is widely used in football (soccer) around the world, notabably 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. It is generally used in other team sports to have expanded out of the United Kingdom, such as rugby union and cricket. (Well it used to be, but today's paper reports the English Rugby Union as planning to move to a franchise system, as has already happened in Ireland and Wales.)

[edit] Football vs. soccer

Thanks to Zzyzx for reverting the changes of "soccer" to "football." To me, this is not an issue of the article being in American English. It's simply that with American football and Association football being discussed on the page, it makes the most sense to use terms that are unambiguous. -- Mwalcoff 02:45, 3 July 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Error

Youd said that "Famously, the French Ligue 1 lacked a team from Paris for some years." This is wrong. Paris always had almost one team en Ligue 1. Four was the maximum, and one was the minimum (still the case today since 1990). 1932-33 : 4. 1933-38 : 2. 1938-39 : 1. 1945-46 : 2. 1946-48 : 3. 1948-51 : 2. 1951-52 : 1. 1952-53 : 2. 1953-59 : 1. 1959-64 : 2. 1964-65 : 1. 1965-66 : 2. 1966-71 : 1. 1971-73 : 2. 1973-1974 : 1. 1974-75 : 2. 1975-78 : 1. 1978-79 : 2. 1979-84 : 1. 1984-85 : 2. 1985-86 : 1. 1986-1990 : 2. 1990-2007 : 1. In 1967, there should have been no teams from Paris in Ligue 1, but Red Star merged with Toulouse (700 km from Paris!) and Red Star played in Ligue 1. This case was so debatted in France, that the French federation put a rule : no merge for two clubs far from more that 50 km from each other. Excuse my very poor English.


[edit] Why NA teams rarely play outside of league

"Because North American pro teams are so closely tied to their leagues, they almost never play games outside of the league."

Not necessarily true....this is more accurate:

"Because North American pro teams are so closely tied to their leagues, generally are clearly the top level in the world as in the case of "the Big 4", in some cases are involved in a sport that lacks much international competition and/or organization, and due to travel and geographic conerns, they almost never play games outside of the league."

Well, when the USFL was around, they never played NFL teams. Same with the old AFL before the merger. The American Basketball Association did play exhibition games vs. NBA teams in the 70s. -- Mwalcoff 05:14, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
I'd say that the lack of intercontinental ice hockey games is a clear indication that the "lacks international competition" argument isn't valid. There's been plenty of high class Russian/Swedish/Finnish/Czech etc. ice hockey clubs that could have been challenging opponents for NHL franchises, if league politics had allowed matchups. The level of basketball in the mediterranean area and the balkans isn't far beyond the NBA either. It's a matter of contracts and league affiliation, not of quality! /Kriko 16:46, 6 April 2007 (UTC)