 | This article needs to be updated.(May 2024) |
 | This article relies largely or entirely on a single source .(November 2024) |
The following is a list of current and former professional sports teams in Illinois .
| This article needs to be updated.(May 2024) |
| | This article relies largely or entirely on a single source .(November 2024) |
The following is a list of current and former professional sports teams in Illinois .
| Major professional teams | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Club | Sport | League | Founded | Note |
| Chicago Cubs | Baseball | Major League Baseball | 1875 | |
| Chicago White Sox | Baseball | Major League Baseball | 1894 | Based in Chicago since 1900 |
| Chicago Bulls | Basketball | National Basketball Association | 1966 | [1] |
| Chicago Sky | Basketball | Women's National Basketball Association | 2005 | |
| Chicago Bears | Football | National Football League | 1919 | |
| Chicago Blackhawks | Ice hockey | National Hockey League | 1926 | |
| Chicago Hounds | Rugby union | Major League Rugby | 2022 | |
| Chicago Fire FC | Soccer | Major League Soccer | 1997 | |
| Chicago Red Stars | Soccer | National Women's Soccer League | 2007 | |
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada and the highest professional level of American football in the world. Each NFL season begins annually with a three-week preseason in August, followed by the 18-week regular season, which runs from early September to early January, with each team playing 17 games and having one bye week. Following the conclusion of the regular season, seven teams from each conference, including four division winners and three wild card teams, advance to the playoffs, a single-elimination tournament, which culminates in the Super Bowl, played in early February between the winners of the AFC and NFC championship games.
The National Hockey League (NHL); French: Ligue nationale de hockey (LNH), is a professional ice hockey league in North America consisting of 32 teams – 25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. The Stanley Cup, the oldest professional sports trophy in North America, is awarded annually to the league playoff champion at the end of each season. The NHL is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada and is considered to be the top-ranked professional ice hockey league in the world, with players from 17 countries as of the 2023–24 season. The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) also views the Stanley Cup as one of the "most important championships available to the sport". The NHL is headquartered in Midtown Manhattan.
The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America composed of 30 teams. It is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada and is considered the premier professional basketball league in the world.
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. In most sports played professionally there are many more amateur than professional players, though amateurs and professionals do not usually compete.
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/markets. This term is used in North America with regard to several organizations competing in various sports. They generally have lesser fan bases, much smaller revenues and salaries, and are used to develop players for bigger leagues.
A sports league is a group of individual athletes, sports teams or clubs who form a league to compete against each other and gain points in a specific sport. At its simplest, it may be a local group of amateur athletes who form teams among themselves and compete periodically, at its most complex, it can be an international professional league making large amounts of money and involving dozens of teams and thousands of players.
Professional baseball is organized baseball in which players are selected for their talents and are paid to play for a specific team or club system. It is played in leagues and associated farm teams throughout the world.
A soccer-specific stadium, mainly in the United States and Canada, is a sports stadium either purpose-built or fundamentally redesigned for soccer and whose primary function is to host soccer matches, as opposed to a multi-purpose stadium which is for a variety of sports. A soccer-specific stadium may host other sporting events and concerts, but the design and purpose of a soccer-specific stadium is primarily for soccer. Some facilities have a permanent stage at one end of the stadium used for staging concerts.
Sports in the United States are an important part of the nation's culture. Historically, the national sport has been baseball. However, in more recent decades, American football has been the most popular spectator sport based on broadcast viewership audience. Basketball has grown into the mainstream American sports scene since the 1980s, with ice hockey and soccer doing the same around the turn of the 21st century. These sports comprise the "Big Five".
Sport industry is an industry in which people, activities, business, and organizations are involved in producing, facilitating, promoting, or organizing any activity, experience, or business enterprise focused on sports. It is the market in which the businesses or products offered to its buyers are sports related and may be goods, services, people, places, or ideas.
This article is a list of teams that play in the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada: Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Basketball Association (NBA), the National Football League (NFL), the National Hockey League (NHL), Major League Soccer (MLS), and the Canadian Football League (CFL).
The 1976–77 IHL season was the 32nd season of the International Hockey League (IHL), a North American minor professional league. Nine teams participated in the regular season, and the Saginaw Gears won the Turner Cup.
The United Women’s Lacrosse League (UWLX) was a women's lacrosse league in the United States. It was co-founded in Boston, Massachusetts, by Digit Murphy and Aronda Kirby of the Play It Forward Sports Foundation, under the ownership of United Women's Sports LLC in a strategic partnership with STX. Penn State women's lacrosse alum and former United States national team player Michele DeJuliis was appointed as the league’s first commissioner. DeJuliis left after the 2016 season to found the Women's Professional Lacrosse League (WPLL); Kristan Ash served as the second and final league commissioner.
The North American continent is the birthplace of several organized sports, such as basketball, charrería/rodeo, gridiron football, ice hockey, jaripeo/bull riding, lacrosse, ollamaliztl, mixed martial arts (MMA), padel, pickleball, racquetball, ultimate, and volleyball. The modern versions of baseball and softball, skateboarding, snowboarding, stock car racing, and surfing also developed in North America.
The Women's Professional Lacrosse League (WPLL) was a women's lacrosse league in the United States. The league was formally composed of five teams: the Brave, Command, Fight, Fire, and Pride. The league announced on February 27, 2020, that it would restructure and downsize the league to four teams, which would ultimately be: the Brave, Command, Fight, and Pride. League play started on Saturday, June 2, 2018.
| Baseball |
|      |
|---|---|---|
| Basketball |
| |
| Esports | ||
| Football | ||
| Hockey | ||
| Lacrosse | ||
| Roller derby | ||
| Rugby | ||
| Soccer | ||
| Indoor soccer | ||
| Australian rules football | ||
| Ultimate | ||
| Team tennis | ||
| College athletics (NCAA Division I) | ||
| College athletics (NCAA Division II) | ||
| College athletics (NCAA Division III) | ||
| College athletics (NAIA) | ||
