In
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 a ...
, a franchise player is an athlete who is both the best player on their team and one that the team can build their "
franchise" around for the foreseeable future.
Overview
In the United States, outstanding players were referred to as "franchises" at least as far back as the 1950s.
["franchise, n. I. 2. c. (b)" ]OED Online
The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP), a University of Oxford publishing house. The dictionary, which published its first editio ...
. June 2003. Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...
. June 2010. By the 1970s, the concept of a "franchise" player who single-handedly generates success was commonly understood in the sporting trade. The term ''franchise player'' was in widespread use by the early 1980s to describe both star rookies like
John Elway and
Kelvin Bryant and veterans like
George Brett
George Howard Brett (born May 15, 1953) is an American former professional baseball third baseman, designated hitter, and first baseman who played 21 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Kansas City Royals.
Brett's 3,154 career hit ( ...
. While the term is primarily associated with
North American sports,
it is sometimes used in reference to athletes in sports outside the United States, such as
rugby league
Rugby league football, commonly known as rugby league in English-speaking countries and rugby 13/XIII in non-Anglophone Europe, is a contact sport, full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular Rugby league playin ...
.
See also
*
Designated player (disambiguation)
*
Franchise tag
In the National Football League (NFL), the franchise tag is a designation a team may apply to a player scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent. The tag binds the player to the team for one year if certain conditions are met. Each team has on ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Franchise Player
Sports terminology