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Relocation of major professional sports teams in the United States and Canada

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Relocation of major professional sports teams occurs when a team owner moves a team, generally from one metropolitan area to another, but occasionally between municipalities in the same conurbation. The practice is most common in North America, where a league franchise system is used and the teams are overwhelmingly privately owned. Owners who move a team generally do so seeking better profits, facilities, fan support, or a combination of these.

Unlike most professional sport systems worldwide, North America does not have comprehensive governing bodies whose authority extends from the amateur to the highest levels of a given sport. North American sports generally do not operate a system of promotion and relegation in which poorly performing teams are replaced with teams that do well in lower-level leagues, forming a franchise and minor league system instead.

Background

A city wishing to get a team in a major professional sports league can wait for the league to expand and award new franchises. However, such expansions are infrequent, and generally limited to a narrow window in time. Many current owners believe 32 is the optimal size for a major league due to playoff structure and ease of scheduling. As of 2024, each of the major leagues has between 30 and 33 franchises. The National Hockey League (NHL) has expanded to 33 teams in total, with the Vegas Golden Knights having become the league's 31st team in 2017, the Seattle Kraken having become the 32nd team in 2021, and the Utah Hockey Club having become the 33rd team in 2024.

In past decades, aspiring owners whose overtures had been rejected by the established leagues would respond by forming a rival league in hopes that the existing major league would eventually agree to a merger; the new league would attain major league status in its own right; or the established league was compelled to expand. The 1960s American Football League (AFL) is perhaps the most recent example of a successful rival league, having achieved each of the three goals listed above in reverse order. However, all major sports have had a rival league achieve at least some of these goals in the last half of the 20th century. Baseball's proposed Continental League did not play a game but only because Major League Baseball responded to the proposal by adding teams in some of the new league's proposed cities. The American Basketball Association (ABA) and World Hockey Association (WHA) each succeeded in getting some of their franchises accepted into the established leagues, which had both unsuccessfully attempted to cause their upstart rivals to fold outright by adding more teams.

However, the upstart leagues owed their success in large part to the reluctance of owners in the established leagues to devote the majority of their revenues to player salaries and also to sports leagues' former reliance primarily on gate receipts for revenue. Under those conditions, an ambitious rival could often afford to lure away the sport's top players with promises of better pay, in hopes of giving the new league immediate respect and credibility from fans. Today, however, established leagues derive a large portion of their revenue from lucrative television contracts that would not be offered to an untested rival. Also, the activism of players' unions has resulted in the established leagues paying a majority of their revenues to players, thus the average salary in each of the big four leagues is now well in excess of $1 million per season.

Under present market and financial conditions, any serious attempt to form a rival league in the early 21st century would likely require hundreds of millions (if not billions) of dollars in investment and initial losses, and even if such resources were made available the upstart league's success would be far from guaranteed, as evidenced by the failure of the WWF/NBC-backed XFL in 2001 and the UFL from 2009 to 2012. The current major leagues have established lucrative relationships with all of the major media outlets in the United States, who subsidize the league's operations because their established fame ensures strong ratings; the networks are far less willing to provide such coverage to an unproven upstart league, often requiring the upstart league to pay the network for those leagues to be covered.

Therefore, as long as leagues choose not to expand or reject a city's application, the only realistic recourse is to convince the owners of an existing team to move it (or convince a prospective owner to purchase a team with the intent of moving it). Owners usually move teams because of weak fan support or because the team organization is in debt and needs an adequate population for financial support or because another city offers a bigger local market or a more financially lucrative stadium/arena deal. Governments may offer lucrative deals to team owners to attract or retain a team. For example, to attract the NFL's Cleveland Browns in 1995, the state of Maryland agreed to build a new stadium in Baltimore and allow the team to use it rent-free and keep all parking, advertising and concession revenue. (This move proved so unpopular in Cleveland that the move was treated as the Baltimore Ravens being awarded an expansion franchise, and the Browns name and their official lineage would remain in Cleveland for a "reactivated" team that rejoined the NFL three years later.) A little more than a decade earlier, the Baltimore Colts left for Indianapolis (NFL owners voted to give Colts owner Robert Irsay permission to move his franchise to the city of his choosing after no satisfactory stadium would be built).

Moving sports teams is often controversial. Opponents criticize owners for leaving behind faithful fans and governments for spending millions of dollars of tax money on attracting teams. However, since sports teams in the United States are generally treated like any other business under antitrust law, there is little sports leagues can do to prevent teams from flocking to the highest bidders (for instance, the Los Angeles Rams filed suit when the other NFL owners initially blocked their move to St. Louis, which caused the NFL to back down and allow the move to proceed). Major League Baseball, unique among the major professional sports leagues, has an exemption from antitrust laws won by a Supreme Court decision but nonetheless has allowed several teams to change cities. Also recently, courts denied the attempted move of the team then known as the Phoenix Coyotes by siding with the NHL, which claimed that it had final authority over franchise moves.

Newer sports leagues tend to have more transient franchises than more established, "major" leagues, but in the mid-1990s, several NFL and NHL teams moved to other cities, and the threat of a move pushed cities with major-league teams in any sport to build new stadiums and arenas using taxpayer money. The trend continued in the 2000s, when three National Basketball Association (NBA) teams moved in a seven-year span after there were no moves at all in the 16 years before it. Critics referred to the movement of teams to the highest-bidding city as "franchise free agency."

List

The following charts list movements of franchises in the modern eras of the major North American sports leagues. It does not include:

  • Moves within a city, which have occurred many times in all major leagues.
  • Short distance moves from one city in a metro area to another city in the same metro area. (For example, San Francisco to Oakland or vice versa.)
  • Short-distance city-suburb moves. (For example, Los Angeles to Anaheim, both of which are in the same urban agglomeration.)
  • Team moves that happened before the organization joined its current league.
    • Note, however, that the NFL considers the American Football League of the 1960s as an integral part of its own history. Therefore, moves of AFL teams during the existence of that league are included.
  • Moves of teams that, as of 2023, no longer exist. There were many such moves in the early years of the NFL in particular.
  • Teams that have threatened to move as leverage for a new stadium or arena in their current market without actually moving, as well as teams that nearly moved for other reasons, not related to team dissatisfaction in a given market. (For example, the Pittsburgh Pirates nearly moving to Denver following the Pittsburgh drug trials in 1985, the Minnesota Timberwolves almost moving to New Orleans in 1994, or the Sacramento Kings almost moving to Anaheim, Seattle, and Virginia Beach from 2011 to 2013.)

Major League Baseball

See also: Major League Baseball relocation of 1950s–60s and List of defunct and relocated Major League Baseball teams Further information: 2020 Toronto Blue Jays season
  • 2021: Toronto Blue Jays temporarily moved to Dunedin, Florida, from April 8 to May 24, then moved back to Buffalo, New York, from June 1 to July 21. On July 30, the team moved back to Toronto and returned to the Rogers Centre full-time.
Further information: 2021 Toronto Blue Jays season

National Basketball Association

Main article: List of relocated National Basketball Association teams Further information: 2020–21 Toronto Raptors season Further information: 2021–22 Toronto Raptors season

National Football League

Main article: National Football League franchise moves and mergers

The history of the NFL fully incorporates that of the fourth American Football League, which began operation in 1960 with eight teams and became by far the most successful rival to the NFL. In 1966, the two leagues agreed to a merger that took full effect in 1970. All teams from the 1960–1969 AFL were brought intact to the NFL, and the current NFL recognizes all AFL records and statistics as its own.

National Hockey League

Main article: List of defunct and relocated National Hockey League teams

Unlike in MLB and the NBA, the NHL did not temporarily move teams due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead, the league temporarily abolished conferences and re-aligned divisions for the 2020–21 season, consolidating all seven Canadian teams to the North Division due to travel restrictions at the Canada–United States Border.

Only one NHL team that moved has kept its name: the Calgary Flames.

The Edmonton Oilers nearly moved to Houston in 1998, but the team remained in the city after a limited partnership raised enough money to purchase the franchise before the deadline. The then-Phoenix Coyotes were placed into bankruptcy with the intent to circumvent the league's relocation rules, but this was blocked by a judge. Other threats to leave came from two of the 1967 expansion teams, the Pittsburgh Penguins (on multiple occasions) and St. Louis Blues (in 1983), but ultimately stayed in their existing markets.

Major League Soccer

  • 2006: San Jose Earthquakes moved to Houston and became the Houston Dynamo; however, the team records, logo, colors, championships and history were left in San Jose. An option for an MLS franchise was awarded to Oakland Athletics owner Lew Wolff in 2006 and the option was exercised in 2007. The Earthquakes resumed play in MLS in 2008 as a continuation of the previous Earthquakes franchise under new ownership.

Women's National Basketball Association

Canadian Football League

While none of the CFL's core Canadian franchises have moved from one market to another, the league's short-lived expansion into the United States did include one team move.

The league also attempted to move the Las Vegas Posse after their single season of 1994. Prior to the 1995 season, multiple ownership groups unsuccessfully tried to buy the team for a move to Jackson, Mississippi. Following that, plans were made to move the team to Miami, Florida as the Manatees, but plans fell through when the league chose to end the U.S. expansion before the Manatees' scheduled launch in 1996.

The CFL's expansion into the U.S. both began and ended with events that were not technically team moves, but were also not truly new teams being formed. The staff of the Ottawa Rough Riders moved from Ottawa to Shreveport, Louisiana, to become the Shreveport Pirates in 1993, but the CFL forced the team itself to be left in Ottawa, where a new owner kept the franchise alive. In 1996, the owners of the Baltimore Stallions folded the team upon the announcement that the Cleveland Browns would be moving to Baltimore (but see Cleveland Browns relocation controversy). Despite high attendance and success on the field, management felt that they would be unable to directly compete with an NFL team in the same city. The Stallions' ownership group took over the then-dormant Montreal Alouettes franchise. While the players were released from their contracts with the Stallions, many were subsequently signed to the Alouettes. The CFL and the Alouettes do not consider the Stallions' records, including the 1995 Grey Cup victory, as part of the team's legacy. The Alouettes are instead considered a continuation of the previous teams of that name.

References

  1. Rosen, Dan (June 24, 2015). "Board of Governors OKs start of expansion process". NHL.com. NHL Enterprises, L.P. Retrieved September 7, 2015.
  2. Muir, Allan (July 21, 2015). "NHL expansion bid results disappoint league, leave Seattle out in cold". Sports Illustrated. Retrieved September 7, 2015.
  3. Bloom, Barry M. (September 29, 2004). "MLB selects D.C. for Expos". MLB.com. MLB Advanced Media. Retrieved February 16, 2019.
  4. "Charlotte Hornets Name Returns to Carolinas". Hornets.com. NBA Media Ventures, LLC. May 20, 2014. Retrieved May 20, 2014.
  5. "Hornets all the buzz in Charlotte". ESPN.com. ESPN Internet Ventures, LLC. Associated Press. May 20, 2014. Retrieved May 23, 2014. Whitfield also announced that, in collaboration with the NBA and the Pelicans, all the statistical information, records and history of Charlotte NBA basketball will be restored to the franchise. That means the Hornets will now own and have access to all the historical elements from the recent Bobcats era (2004–14) as well as the original Hornets teams that played in Charlotte....
  6. Rosenthal, Gregg (March 27, 2017). "NFL owners approve Raiders' move to Las Vegas". NFL.com. NFL Enterprises, LLC. Retrieved March 27, 2017.
  7. "Oakland sues NFL, Raiders over move to Las Vegas". NFL.com. NFL Enterprises, LLC. Associated Press. December 11, 2018. Retrieved February 16, 2019.
  8. Beaton, Andrew (December 11, 2018). "Oakland Files Lawsuit Against Raiders, NFL". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved December 11, 2018.
  9. "A New Oilers Team Could Hit Houston". The New York Times. February 12, 1998. Retrieved January 5, 2016.
  10. Flores, Lucien (October 30, 2012). "NHL Relocation: 7 Scares That Almost Happened". Bleacher Report. Retrieved January 5, 2016.
  11. "Leaving Arizona: Everything you need to know about the Coyotes moving to Salt Lake City". ESPN.com. April 15, 2024. Retrieved May 23, 2024.
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