Everything about Minor League totally explained
Minor leagues are professional
sports leagues which are not regarded as the premier leagues in those sports. Minor league teams tend to play in smaller, less elaborate venues, often competing in smaller cities. This term is used in
North America with regard to several organizations competing in various sports. They generally have lesser fan bases and smaller budgets.
The minor league concept is a manifestation of the
franchise system used in North American sports, whereby the group of
major league teams in each sport is fixed for long periods between expansions or other adjustments, which only take place with the consent of the major league owners. In England, the football leagues have many divisions below the
top-flight as part of the
football pyramid. In other parts of the world there's usually either a system of annual
promotion and relegation, meaning that clubs have no fixed status in the hierarchy, or there's only one professional league per country in each sport, rendering the major/minor distinction irrelevant.
The most famous minor league organization is in
baseball.
Minor league baseball is almost as old as the professional game itself, and at first consisted of attempts to play baseball in smaller cities and towns independent of the
National League, the first true major baseball league. Soon,
scouts for the National League were travelling to watch minor league teams play and attempting to sign the more talented ones away. Some sports historians cite the connection between the other major league, the
American League and its minor league forebear, the
Western Association. Soon
Major League Baseball began formal
developmental agreements with some minor league teams, while others remained
independent. The most prominent independent minor baseball league today is probably the
Northern League.
Baseball isn't the only sport with minor leagues. In fact all of the prominent team sports in North America have them. The sport with the next most extensive system of minor leagues other than baseball is
ice hockey. The
American Hockey League is the most prominent of these, with most
NHL teams having a
"farm" team in the
AHL where they develop young players and occasionally rehabilitate older players who are injured or whose quality of play has slumped. These teams in turn have lower-level minor leagues to draw players from and pass players down to.
Junior and Senior hockey leagues are similar, but not exactly equivalent, to minor leagues due to their age and experience restrictions.
The
National Basketball Association has an affiliated minor league, the
NBA Development League (also called the "D-League"). Additionally, the
Continental Basketball Association has served some of the purposes of a minor league for the NBA for many years. However, there are no direct developmental agreements between CBA and NBA teams the way that there are between Major League Baseball and National Hockey League teams and their minor league affiliates.
While there are various semi-professional
football leagues, none have any affiliation with the
National Football League. The NFL's only "official" developmental minor league was the now defunct
NFL Europa. Many consider the
Arena Football League to be a minor league, but this isn't exactly the case. Arena Football is played under very different conditions, and the AFL has survived for 20 years and has now established itself as a viable professional league. The AFL has its own minor league,
af2, and several independent
indoor football leagues that play a similar game exist.
Other sports organizations considered to be minor leagues are the golf
Nationwide Tour, affiliated with the
PGA Tour,
NASCAR's
Busch Series and
Craftsman Truck Series, and various other affiliated satellite tours of other individual sports, including the Challengers Tour of Professional Tennis.
Further Information
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