Professional Sports Leagues In The United States
Professional sports leagues in the United States includes major professional sports leagues, other highest-level professional leagues, and minor leagues. Based on revenue, the major professional sports leagues in the United States comprises the following: Major League Baseball (MLB), Major League Soccer (MLS), National Basketball Association (NBA), National Football League (NFL), and National Hockey League (NHL). The major sports leagues tend to have the greatest fan interest, have national television contracts, draw high fan attendance, and have teams located throughout the largest metropolitan areas in the United States. Major leagues Major League Baseball (MLB) Major League Baseball is the highest level of play of baseball in North America. It consists of the National League (founded in 1876) and the American League (founded in 1901). Cooperation between the two leagues began in 1903, and the two merged on an organizational level in 2000 with the elimination of sep ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Professional Sports
In professional sports, as opposed to amateur sports, participants receive payment for their performance. Professionalism in sport has come to the fore through a combination of developments. Mass media and increased leisure have brought larger audiences, so that sports organizations or teams can command large incomes. As a result, more sportspeople can afford to make sport their primary career, devoting the training time necessary to increase skills, physical condition, and experience to modern levels of achievement. This proficiency has also helped boost the popularity of sports.Andy Miah Sport & the Extreme Spectacle: Technological Dependence and Human Limits' (PDF) Unpublished manuscript, 1998 In most sports played professionally there are many more amateur than professional players, though amateurs and professionals do not usually compete. History American football American football (commonly known as football in the United States) was professionalized in the 1890s as a s ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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FIFA
The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (), more commonly known by its acronym FIFA ( ), is the international self-regulatory governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal. It was founded on 21 May 1904 to oversee international competition among the national associations of Royal Belgian Football Association, Belgium, Danish Football Union, Denmark, Union des Sociétés Françaises de Sports Athlétiques, France, German Football Association, Germany, the Royal Dutch Football Association, Netherlands, Royal Spanish Football Federation, Spain (represented by Real Madrid CF), Swedish Football Association, Sweden, and Swiss Football Association, Switzerland. Headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, its membership now comprises List of FIFA Member Associations, 211 national associations. These national associations must also be members of one of the six regional confederations: Confederation of African Football, CAF (Africa), Asian Football Confederat ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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ABA–NBA Merger
The ABA–NBA merger was a major pro sports business maneuver in 1976 when the American Basketball Association (ABA) combined with the National Basketball Association (NBA), after multiple attempts over several years. The NBA and ABA had entered merger talks as early as 1970, but an antitrust suit filed by the head of the NBA players union, ''Robertson v. National Basketball Ass'n'', blocked the merger until 1976. As part of the merger agreement, the NBA agreed to accept four of the remaining six ABA teams: the Denver Nuggets, Indiana Pacers, Brooklyn Nets, New York Nets, and San Antonio Spurs. The remaining two ABA teams, the Kentucky Colonels and the Spirits of St. Louis, folded, with their players entering a dispersal draft. A seventh ABA team, the Virginia Squires, had hoped to enter merger talks as well at the time, but ultimately folded operations a month before they could officially do so due to a failed assessment payment to the ABA during the 1976 ABA Playoffs despite th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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American Basketball Association
The American Basketball Association (ABA) was a major professional basketball league that operated for nine seasons from 1967 to 1976. The upstart ABA operated in direct competition with the more established National Basketball Association throughout its existence. The second of two leagues established in the 1960s after the American Basketball League (1961–1962), American Basketball League, the ABA was the more successful rival to the NBA. The league started with eleven teams; the Indiana Pacers, Kentucky Colonels, Minnesota Muskies, New Jersey Americans, and Pittsburgh Pipers were placed in the Eastern Division and the Anaheim Amigos, Dallas Chaparrals, Denver Rockets, Houston Mavericks, New Orleans Buccaneers, and Oakland Oaks (ABA), Oakland Oaks in the Western Division. George Mikan served as the first league commissioner and came up with the idea for the three-point shot to go along with a 30-second shot clock. Echoing the NHL, the league named a Most Valuable Player fo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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National Basketball League (United States)
The National Basketball League (NBL) was a professional basketball league in the United States. Established in 1935 as the Midwest Basketball Conference, it changed its name to the NBL in 1937. After the 1948–49 season, its twelfth, it merged with the Basketball Association of America (BAA) to form the National Basketball Association (NBA). Five current NBA teams trace their history back to the NBL: the Atlanta Hawks, the Detroit Pistons, the Los Angeles Lakers, the Philadelphia 76ers, and the Sacramento Kings. History The league was initially founded as the Midwest Basketball Conference (MBC) in 1935. It changed its name in 1937 in an attempt to attract a larger audience and avoid confusion with the Big Ten Conference, often referred to as the Midwest Conference. The league was created by three corporations: General Electric, Firestone and Goodyear. It was primarily made up of Great Lakes area small-market and corporate teams. The league began rather informally ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bleacher Report
''Bleacher Report'' (often abbreviated as B/R) is a website that focuses on sports and sports culture. Its headquarters are in San Francisco, with offices in New York City and London. ''Bleacher Report'' was acquired by Time Warner's Turner Broadcasting System in August 2012 for $175 million. In March 2018, ''Bleacher Report'' and Turner Sports launched B/R Live, a subscription video streaming service featuring live broadcasts of several major sports events, although the service was discontinued in 2021 and merged with the company's mobile app. ''Bleacher Report'' owns multi-media social network House of Highlights, and its branding was used for Max's sports coverage prior to 2025. History Founding: 2005–2011 ''Bleacher Report'' was formed in 2005 by Sam Erez, Harry Ryan, Bryan Goldberg, and Dave Nemetz—four friends and sports fans who were high school classmates at Menlo School in Atherton, California. Inspired by Ken Griffey Jr., they wanted to start writing ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's Basket (basketball), hoop (a basket in diameter mounted high to a Backboard (basketball), backboard at each end of the court), while preventing the opposing team from shooting through their own hoop. A Field goal (basketball), field goal is worth two points, unless made from behind the 3 point line, three-point line, when it is worth three. After a foul, timed play stops and the player fouled or designated to shoot a technical foul is given one, two or three one-point free throws. The team with the most points at the end of the game wins, but if regulation play expires with the score tied, an additional period of play (Overtime (sports), overtime) is mandated. Players advance the ball by boun ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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FiveThirtyEight
''FiveThirtyEight'', also rendered as ''538'', was an American website that focused on opinion poll analysis, politics, economics, and sports blogging in the United States. The website, which took its name from the number of electors in the United States electoral college, was founded on March 7, 2008, as a polling aggregation website with a blog created by analyst Nate Silver. In August 2010, the blog became a licensed feature of ''The New York Times'' online and was renamed ''FiveThirtyEight: Nate Silver's Political Calculus''. In July 2013, ESPN acquired ''FiveThirtyEight'', hiring Silver as editor-in-chief and a contributor for '' ESPN.com''; the new publication launched on March 17, 2014. Afterwards, the ''FiveThirtyEight'' blog covered a broad spectrum of subjects including politics, sports, science, economics, and popular culture. In 2018, operations were transferred from ESPN to sister property ABC News (also under parent The Walt Disney Company). During the presiden ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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ESPN
ESPN (an initialism of their original name, which was the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by the Walt Disney Company (80% and operational control) and Hearst Communications (20%) through the joint venture ESPN Inc. The company was founded in 1979 by Bill Rasmussen, Scott Rasmussen and Ed Eagan. ESPN broadcasts primarily from studio facilities located in Bristol, Connecticut. The network also operates offices and auxiliary studios in Miami, Orlando, New York City, Las Vegas, Seattle, Charlotte, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles. James Pitaro has been chairman since March 5, 2018, following the resignation of John Skipper on December 18, 2017. , ESPN is available to approximately 70 million pay television households in the United States—down from its 2011 peak of 100 million households. It operates regional channels in Africa, Australia, Latin America, and the Netherlands. In Ca ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Nate Silver
Nathaniel Read Silver (born January 13, 1978) is an American statistician, political analyst, author, sports gambler, and poker player who Sabermetrics, analyzes baseball, basketball and Psephology, elections. He is the founder of ''FiveThirtyEight'' and held the position of editor-in-chief there, along with being a special correspondent for ABC News (United States), ABC News until May 2023. Since departing ''FiveThirtyEight'', Silver has been publishing in his online newsletter ''Silver Bulletin'' and serves as an advisor to Polymarket. Silver was named one of Time 100, the world's 100 most influential people by ''Time (magazine), Time'' in 2009 after his election forecasting model correctly predicted the outcomes in 49 of 50 states in the 2008 United States presidential election, 2008 U.S. presidential election. His subsequent models predicted the outcome of the 2012 United States presidential election, 2012 and 2020 United States presidential election, 2020 presidential elec ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Thierry Henry
Thierry Daniel Henry (; born 17 August 1977) is a French professional football coach, pundit, sports broadcaster and former player. He is considered one of the greatest players of all time and widely regarded as the greatest player in Premier League history. Henry was runner-up for both the Ballon d'Or in 2003 and the FIFA World Player of the Year in 2003 and 2004. He was named the FWA Footballer of the Year a record three times, the PFA Players' Player of the Year a joint-record two times, and was named in the PFA Team of the Year six consecutive times. He was also included in the FIFA FIFPro World XI once and the UEFA Team of the Year five times. In 2004, Henry was named by Pelé in the FIFA 100 list of the world's greatest living players. Henry made his professional debut with Monaco in 1994 before signing for defending Serie A champions Juventus. However, limited playing time, coupled with disagreements with the club's hierarchy, led to him signing for Premier Lea ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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David Beckham
Sir David Robert Joseph Beckham ( ; born 2 May 1975) is an English former professional footballer, the president and co-owner of Inter Miami CF and co-owner of Salford City. Primarily a right winger and known for his range of passing, crossing ability and set-piece taking, Beckham is considered one of the best players of his generation and one of the greatest set-piece specialists of all time. He won 19 major trophies in his career, and is the first English player to win league titles in four different countries: England, Spain, the United States and France. Beckham's professional club career began with Manchester United, where he made his first-team debut in 1992 at age 17. With United, he won the Premier League title six times, the FA Cup twice, the FA Charity Shield twice, the Intercontinental Cup and the UEFA Champions League in 1999. He then played four seasons with Real Madrid, winning the La Liga title in his final season with the club. In July 2007, Beckham signed ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |