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), Major League Soccer (MLS), the National Basketball Association (NBA), the National Football League (NFL), the National Hockey League (NHL), and the Canadian Football League (CFL).
Est. represents the year the team was originally established. Future expansion teams whose inaugural seasons are confirmed are also included.
Established
Franchise notes
The American Football League (AFL) was a major professional American football league that operated for ten seasons from 1960 until 1970, when it merged with the older National Football League (NFL), and became the American Football Conference. The upstart AFL operated in direct competition with the more established NFL throughout its existence. It was more successful than earlier rivals to the NFL with the same name, the 1926, 1936 and 1940 leagues, and the later All-America Football Conference.
The Canadian Football League is a professional Canadian football league based in Canada. It comprises nine teams divided into two divisions, with four teams in the East Division and five in the West Division. The CFL is the highest professional level of Canadian football in the world. The league is headquartered in Toronto.
The World Football League (WFL) was an American football league that played one full season in 1974 and most of its second in 1975. Although the league's proclaimed ambition was to bring American football onto a worldwide stage, only one team – the Hawaiians in Honolulu, Hawaii - was headquartered outside of continental North America. The league folded in 1975 midway through its second season.
The Montreal Alouettes are a professional Canadian football team based in Montreal, Quebec. Founded in 1946, the team has folded and been revived twice. The Alouettes compete in the East Division of the Canadian Football League (CFL) and last won the Grey Cup in 2023, defeating the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in the 110th Grey Cup Game in 2023. Their home field is Percival Molson Memorial Stadium for the regular season and as of 2014 also home of their playoff games.
The Las Vegas Posse were a Canadian Football League (CFL) team, that played at the Sam Boyd Silver Bowl in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States, in the league's 1994 season as part of the CFL's failed American expansion. Lasting only one season, the Posse were one of the least successful teams in CFL history, both on the field and off.
The San Antonio Texans were a Canadian Football League (CFL) team that played in the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas, in the 1995 CFL season. They had relocated from Sacramento, California, where the team had been called the Sacramento Gold Miners. After relocating, the team still had the same ownership in Fred Anderson and the same staff, including President Tom Bass and Head Coach/General Manager Kay Stephenson. The Gold Miners/Texans franchise played three seasons before folding in 1995. They were the southernmost team in CFL history and the only team in CFL history to have ever officially relocated from another market.
There are 12 United States cities with teams competing in each of the four major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada: Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, the National Football League, and the National Hockey League. These four leagues are sometimes referred to as the "Big Four", in reference to their prominent position in North American sports.
An expansion team is a new team in a sports league, usually from a city that has not hosted a team in that league before, formed with the intention of satisfying the demand for a local team from a population in a new area. Sporting leagues also hope that the expansion of their competition will grow the popularity of the sport generally. The term is most commonly used in reference to the North American major professional sports leagues but is applied to sports leagues in other countries with a closed franchise system of league membership. The term refers to the expansion of the sport into new areas. The addition of an expansion team sometimes results in the payment of an expansion fee to the league by the new team and an expansion draft to populate the new roster.
A dispersal draft is a process in professional sports for assigning players to a new team when an existing team folds or is merged into another team. Like most other sports drafts, most dispersal drafts are conducted in closed leagues and are intended to prevent bidding wars and to maintain a league's competitive balance when a folded or merged team's roster of players is absorbed into the rest of a league's teams. As generally all or most of a team's players would become free agents following their team's disestablishment or merger.
Throughout the years, a number of teams in the National Football League (NFL) have either moved or merged.
The Canadian Football League (CFL), which features teams based in Canada, has made efforts to gain further audience in the United States, most directly through expansion into the country from the 1993 CFL season through the 1995 CFL season. The CFL plays Canadian football, a form of gridiron football which is somewhat different from the more common American football played in the United States and other parts of the world.
Major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada traditionally include four leagues: Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Basketball Association (NBA), the National Football League (NFL), and the National Hockey League (NHL). Other prominent leagues include Major League Soccer (MLS) and the Canadian Football League (CFL).
In sports, a revival is a new club or franchise is using a name or colours of a previously active team. The previously active team may be defunct, temporarily suspended or may have transferred its operations to another city. The new team may be a new team or franchise, or it may be a transferred team taking over a previous team's colours and/or name. Sports teams names or nicknames are copyrighted in North America and elsewhere. Therefore, permission often must be granted from the owner or family of the defunct team.
The Cleveland Browns relocation controversy—colloquially called "The Move" by fans—followed the announcement by Cleveland Browns owner Art Modell that his National Football League (NFL) team would move from its longtime home of Cleveland to Baltimore for the 1996 NFL season.
This timeline of the National Football League (NFL) tracks the history of each of the league's 32 current franchises from the early days of the league, through its merger with the American Football League (AFL). The history of franchises that began as independent teams, or as members of the Ohio League, New York Pro Football League, and other defunct leagues are shown as well.
The expansion of major sports leagues in the United States and Canada has occurred throughout the twentieth century for all of the major professional sports leagues in those two countries.
The National Basketball Association has undergone several rounds of expansion in the league's history, since it began play in 1946, to reach 30 teams. The most recent examples are the additions of the Charlotte Hornets and Miami Heat in 1988; the Minnesota Timberwolves and Orlando Magic in 1989; the Toronto Raptors and Vancouver Grizzlies in 1995 ; and the Charlotte Bobcats in 2004. In September 2024, Commissioner Adam Silver stated that the NBA would have discussions about a potential expansion of the league sometime during the 2024–25 season though not during the league's 2024 fall meetings, with an ESPN article stating that a number of factors including the potential sale of the Boston Celtics has led the league to go slower with the expansion process. In addition, the article stated that the potential expansion teams may begin play in the 2027–28 season should one occur.
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.
The NHL becomes the first of the four major North American professional sports leagues to put a team in Las Vegas.