Major professional sports league

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In the United States (or the U.S. and Canada by some definitions), the major professional sports leagues are those three or four professional sports leagues with the largest fan bases and television audiences (and therefore, the largest revenues and player salaries).

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The "Big Four" (or "Big Three")

As of 2005, there is no universally accepted definition or list, but the following North American professional leagues are almost always defined as major leagues:

Those who define only the leagues listed above as major leagues often refer to them as the Big Three. However, it appears most Americans (and nearly all Canadians) also include one additional league to create a Big Four:

Compared to the other three leagues, the NHL has struggled to find support in the Southern United States, which has led some sports fans in this region to dispute the NHL's status as a major league. The term hockey country is often used to describe those parts of the U.S. where hockey's fanbase is strongest.

Since the four leagues listed above are those listed as the major leagues, the sports they play (baseball, basketball, American football and (usually) ice hockey) are often referred to as the four (or three) major professional sports or even just the major sports by North Americans. As of 2005, thirteen American metropolitan areas have at least one team in each of the four leagues; these cities are said to have the Grand Slam.

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Traits of the major leagues

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Franchise stability

All four major leagues exhibit the stability of most of their franchises. No team from any of the four leagues has collapsed outright in decades, although Major League Baseball considered shutting down two franchises after the 2001 season. Although all four major leagues have had at least one franchise re-locate to another city in the last decade, re-location of teams is generally uncommon compared to other leagues. It should be noted that all four major leagues have had frequent franchise collapses and relocations in their early histories, but these events ceased occurring with regularity by the time the leagues reached "major" status.

The last of the "big four" to fold outright were the original Baltimore Bullets in 1955, while the last team to cease operations were the Cleveland Barons, which were merged into the Minnesota North Stars organization in 1978. However, this merger was officially dissolved in 1991 and the Barons franchise resumed independent operations as the San Jose Sharks. The last NHL team to fold outright were the New York Americans in 1942, while the last NFL team to fold were the Dallas Texans in 1952 and no MLB team has folded since 1899, when five National League teams ceased to exist.

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Franchise locations

Major leagues tend to have franchises only in the largest cities and most heavily-populated market areas, with nearly all franchises in metropolitan areas of at least one million and with most in metro areas having populations over two million. This typically means at least one franchise (and often two) in each of the New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles areas. There are exceptions to this: The NFL has not had a franchise in L.A. since 1995 and the Green Bay Packers survive in their small market (less than 300,000) thanks to a unique community ownership, and their proximity to the much larger Milwaukee area, not to mention the loyalty of their fanbase.

Through the first half of the 20th century, an era without practical air travel, almost all major league teams were concentrated in the northeastern quarter of the United States. No MLB teams existed south or west of St. Louis, the NFL was confined to the Great Lakes and the Northeast, the NBA spanned from the Quad Cities to Boston while the NHL remained confined to six cities in the Northeast, Great Lakes and eastern Canada. As travel and settlement patterns changed, so did the geography of professional sports. The first west coast professional team was the Los Angeles Rams, which moved from Cleveland in 1946. The San Francisco 49ers began the same year, and joined the NFL in 1950. Baseball would not extend west until 1958 in the controversial move of both New York-based National League franchises. The NBA would follow in 1960 with the move of the Minneapolis Lakers to Los Angeles, while the NHL would not have a west coast presence until it doubled in size in 1967.

Since then, as newer, fast-growing Sunbelt areas such as Phoenix and Dallas became prominent, the major sports leagues expanded or franchises relocated (usually quite controversially) to service these communities. Most major areas are well-represented, with all but seven continental U.S. metropolitan agglomerations over one million people hosting at least one major sports franchise. As of 2002, the largest metropolitan area without a major professional sports franchise is the Hampton Roads area of Virginia. (While California's Inland Empire is a more populous independent metro area, it is relatively close to and served by the Los Angeles franchises)

When the WHA and NHL merged, the NHL inherited teams in Canadian metro areas that were under one million in population at the time, these being Edmonton, Winnipeg and Quebec City. The NHL later added teams in Calgary and Ottawa. The distinctive place hockey holds in Canadian culture allowed these franchises to compete with teams in larger cities for some time. However, the teams in Winnipeg and Quebec City were eventually moved to the U.S. The three remaining "small market" Canadian teams have survived largely because their markets are growing rapidly - all three metro areas in question are now over one million in population and are thus comparable in size to some of the smaller American metro areas with teams in other leagues such as Salt Lake City, Jacksonville and Memphis.

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Ownership restrictions

All four major leagues have strict rules regarding who may own a team, and also place some restrictions on what other sort of activities the owners may engage in. To prevent the perception of being in a conflict of interest, the major leagues generally do not allow anyone to own a stake in more than one franchise. There is one current exception to this rule - after being blocked in their bid to eliminate or "contract" two franchises in 2001, Major League Baseball purchased the Montreal Expos from its owners. Although MLB eventually re-located the team to Washington, D.C., the franchise (now known as the Nationals) remains owned by the other 29 MLB clubs. MLB is currently in the process of finding an independent owner for the Nationals.

Some leagues, such as the NFL have even stronger ownership restrictions. The NFL currently forbids large ownership groups or publicly-traded corporations from purchasing NFL teams. This policy allows the league office to deal with individual owners instead of boards of directors, although the Packers' ownership group was grandfathered into the current policy. The NFL also forbids its majority owners from owning any sports teams in other NFL cities, and prohibits owners from investing in casinos or being otherwise involved in gambling operations.

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Weathering challenges from rival leagues

All of the majors have bested at least one rival league formed with the intention of being just as "big" as the established league, often by signing away star players and by locating franchises in cities that were already part of the existing league. In many cases, the major leagues have absorbed the most successful franchises from its failing rival, or merged outright with it.

  • Major League Baseball withstood the challenge of the Federal League in 1914 and prevented the Continental League from getting off the ground in the early 1960s by awarding franchises to some of the proposed CL cities.
  • The NBA withstood the challenge of the American Basketball Association in the 1960s and 70s, and absorbed four of its most successful franchises and adopted several of the ABA's rule variations.
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A minor league system

All the major leagues are distinguished from the minor league systems they utilize to develop and train personnel.

  • Although MLB clubs have recruited a few players from the Japanese leagues, the vast majority of MLB players are developed through the minor league baseball system. Prospective players traditionally entered the minors directly from high school; recently more and more players enter the minors out of college. Entering the majors directly from high school or college is almost unknown; most of the few that have were quickly reassigned to the minors.
  • College, and increasingly high school basketball produce most of the NBA's talent. The NBA's Developmental League supplies the NBA to an extent, though NBA teams more frequently recruit talent from European and Latin American professional leagues.
  • Semi-pro football and minor leagues such as the Continental Football League once flourished up to the 1960s, but today college football programs produce such an abundance of talent that no minor league is needed. However, the NFL does maintain its own six-team minor league, NFL Europe, which also serves the dual purpose of introducing the game of American football in European markets. NFL teams also recruit a number of players from indoor leagues, and occasionally signs players from the Canadian Football League.
  • The NHL has its own minor league, the AHL where the teams are affiliated with NHL clubs. Other leagues such as the ECHL also have teams with NHL affiliates. The NHL also drafts and signs players from Junior Leagues such as the CHL, from the European professional leagues and from major hockey playing colleges, though most of these players are first assigned to their NHL team's minor league affiliate for development.
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Television exposure

All four of the major sports have had television contracts with at least one of the original "big three" U.S. broadcast television networks (CBS, NBC, and ABC) since those networks' early years, indicative of the sports' widespread appeal since their inception. Regular season games, as well as important contests such as championship and all-star games are often televised in prime time. In the last generation, fast-growing cable and satellite networks have taken a larger chunk of the major sports' pie. The four major sports now have entire sports networks dedicated just to each of them (such as the NFL Network).

Comparing the sizes of television contracts, the NFL is by far the largest (reportedly $2.2 billion US for the 2001 season), with the NBA and MLB second and third ($500 million and $479 million respectively). The NHL is in a distant fourth place ($120 million), a disparity those who wish exclude the NHL from the major leagues often point to. However, the NHL will air games on NBC starting in January 2006.

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High Player Salaries

The average annual salary for players in the four major leagues is about $2.9 million in 2004, although player salaries can range from $300,000 for backup players to $20 million for superstars. NBA players have the highest average player salaries of the four leagues at 4.9 million dollars; however, their teams also have the smallest rosters. The NFL has the highest average team payroll, but these are distributed among rosters that are far larger than the other three leagues, making their players among the lowest paid on the average at 1.3 million dollars. Following the settlement of the 2004-05 NHL lockout, NHL players are also due to be paid about $1.3 million, on average. MLB is in the middle at about 2.5 million dollars.

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Dominance of the respective sports

One other trait that each of the four leagues share is that they are the premier competitions of their respective sport on the world stage. The league in the most dominating position with respect to its sport is the National Football League. In fact, one could say it is the only independent professional American football league in the world although the Canadian Football League, which uses the reasonably similar Canadian code, is a professional league albeit with much lower average revenues and player salaries.

There are thriving professional leagues around the world in each of the other three major sports, but none are in a position to challenge their North American counterparts for dominance on or off the playing surface. Major League Baseball is increasingly luring away the stars from the Japanese leagues, the National Basketball Association frequently recruits talent from professional leagues in Europe and Latin America and the European hockey leagues have become a major source of star talent for National Hockey League clubs.

The perceived lack of competition from the rest of the world has contributed to the long-standing but controversial practice of the American media dubbing the champions of MLB, the NBA and the NFL the world champions. The early Stanley Cup champions from both the NHL and the early leagues the NHL eventually displaced were also called world champions in the early decades of professional hockey by Americans and Canadians alike. However, that practice fell out of favor in the latter half of the 20th century.

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Major sports outside North America

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Australia

The term major sports is commonly used in Australia to denote the most popular sports of that country. Australian rules football, cricket, rugby league and rugby union are team sports that are considered "major" by most Australians. Whether or not football (soccer) is a major sport is frequently debated, although the qualification of the men's national team for the 2006 World Cup will probably provide a significant boost for that sport.

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