Sports in North America

North America

Popular Sports in North America

ICE HOCKEY

One of the subtypes of hockey, that

originated in Canada. It is Canada's

foremost winter sport.

Popular Sports in North America

LACROSSE

Is the national summer sport of Canada,

has Native American origins.

Popular Sports in North America

CURLING

originated in medieval Scotland. two

teams take turns moving eight granite

stones on the curling ice sheet.

called "chess on ice".

Popular Sports in North America

BASKETBALL

Very popular in North America. There

are professional basketball leagues in

both Canada and the United States.

Popular Sports in North America

BASEBALL

is another major league sport in Canada

and the US. The baseball field is a 90-

foot square or diamond.

Popular Sports in North America

SOCCER

world's most popular sport, has 250

million players worldwide.

Popular Sports in North America

Rugby

Two versions of Rugby Football are

particularly popular in North America.

• TENNIS • CRICKET• HOCKEY

Popular Sports in North America

Big Four Leagues

• Major League Baseball (P)Highest level of play in North America.

National League (founded in 1876)

American League (founded in 1901)

Cooperation two leagues in 1903

merged on an organizational level in 2000

Traditionally called the "National Pastime"

First professional Sport

Big Four Leagues

• National Basketball Association (P)It was founded in 1946,

adopted its current name in 1949.

ABA–NBA merger in 1976.

It has 30 teams, 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada.

Big Four Leagues

• National Football League (P)Founded in 1920

The NFL partially absorbed the All-America Football Conference in 1949 and merged with the American Football League in 1970

Big Four Leagues

• National Hockey League (P)Major leagues founded in Canada. formed in 1917 as a

successor to the Canadian National Hockey Association (founded 1909)

partially absorbed the rival World Hockey Association in 1979.

Widely followed across the northern U.S.

Big Four Leagues

• Canadian Football League (P) 18609 teams, all based in Canada.

Grey Cup is awarded to champion in November.

The CFL is the second most popular league in Canada.

Third highest average attendance behind NFL and MLB;

2010 average attendance was 26,781.

Big Four Leagues

• Major League Soccer (P) 2014 -16 teams from United States and 3 from Canada 20 teams in 2015 with the addition of two expansion

teams.

The league began play in 1996, a requirement by FIFA for awarding right to host the 1994 World Cup.

MLS has increased in popularity following the adoption of the Designated Player rule in 2007,

In 2012, average attendance of 18,807 per game.

Organizational Infrastructure

• In early 20th century the major sports set up volunteer national organizations to take authority; 1914 there were 20 governing bodies.

• 1919 the Amateur Athletic Union of Canada (AAU) provided international recognition.

• 1930s ice hockey, basketball and lacrosse walked out of the AAU. • 1939, the jurisdiction of the AAU was reduced to track and field and

the other individual Olympic sports. The Canadian Olympic Association broke away in 1948.

• From 1909 until 1967, the Canadian Track and Field Association (C.T.F.A.) controlled track and field sports. It operated under the umbrella of the A.A.U. of C. (Amateur Athletic Union of Canada).

• 1968, the C.T.F.A broke loose from the A.A.U. of C. The A.A.U. of C. dissolved in the early 1970s as all national the federations in the different sports went their own ways.

• 1991 the C.T.F.A. changed its name to Athletics Canada.

Sports Organizational Infrastructure

Structure of Leagues

Structure of Leagues

• Professional sports leagues in North America comprise a specified number of clubs, known as franchises, which field one team each.

• The franchises have regional 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.

• Introduced in baseball with the formation of the National League in 1876 and later adopted by the other North American leagues.

Structure of Leagues

• Although member clubs are corporate entities separate from their leagues.

• 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 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.

Structure of Leagues

• The teams are organized with a view to each major city having 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 organized 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 a handful of 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 teams or as charter members of the World Hockey Association, which merged with the NHL in 1979.

Structure of Leagues

• 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. American and Canadian sports leagues typically have such "playoff" systems. These have their roots in long travel distances common in US and Canadian sports; to cut down on travel, leagues are typically aligned in geographic divisions and feature unbalanced schedules with teams playing more matches against opponents in the same division. Due to the unbalanced schedule typical in US and Canadian leagues, not all teams face the same opponents, and some teams may not meet during a regular season at all. This results in teams with identical records that have faced different opponents differing numbers of times, making team records alone an imperfect measure of league supremacy. The playoffs allow for head-to-head elimination-style competition between teams to counterbalance this.

Structure of Leagues

• 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. In the U.S., the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup has had MLS participation from the league's inception; starting with the 2012 cup, each competition features all American-based MLS sides. Similarly, 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.

Structure of Leagues

• 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 operates 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.