Sports in North America

1. Sports in North

2. North America

3. Popular Sports in North America
ICE HOCKEY
One of the subtypes of hockey, that
originated in Canada. It is Canada's
foremost winter sport.

4. Popular Sports in North America
LACROSSE
Is the national summer sport of Canada,
has Native American origins.

5. Popular Sports in North America
CURLING
originated in medieval Scotland. two
teams take turns moving eight granite
stones on the curling ice sheet.
called "chess on ice".

6. Popular Sports in North America
BASKETBALL
Very popular in North America. There
are professional basketball leagues in
both Canada and the United States.

7. Popular Sports in North America
BASEBALL
is another major league sport in Canada
and the US. The baseball field is a 90-
foot square or diamond.

8. Popular Sports in North America
SOCCER
world's most popular sport, has 250
million players worldwide.

9. Popular Sports in North America
Rugby
Two versions of Rugby Football are
particularly popular in North America.

10. • TENNIS
• CRICKET
• HOCKEY
Popular Sports in North America

11. Big Four Leagues
• Major League Baseball (P)
Highest level of play in North America.
National League (founded in 1876)
American League (founded in 1901)
Cooperation two leagues in 1903
merged on an organizational level in 2000
Traditionally called the "National Pastime"
First professional Sport

12. Big Four Leagues
• National Basketball Association (P)
It was founded in 1946,
adopted its current name in 1949.
ABA–NBA merger in 1976.
It has 30 teams, 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada.

13. Big Four Leagues
• National Football League (P)
Founded in 1920
The NFL partially absorbed the
All-America Football Conference in 1949 and merged
with the American Football League in 1970

14. Big Four Leagues
• National Hockey League (P)
Major leagues founded in Canada. formed in 1917 as a
successor to the Canadian National Hockey Association
(founded 1909)
partially absorbed the rival World Hockey Association in 1979.
Widely followed across the northern U.S.

15. Big Four Leagues
• Canadian Football League (P) 1860
9 teams, all based in Canada.
Grey Cup is awarded to champion in November.
The CFL is the second most popular league in Canada.
Third highest average attendance behind NFL and MLB;
2010 average attendance was 26,781.

16. Big Four Leagues
• Major League Soccer (P)
 2014 -16 teams from United States and 3 from Canada
 20 teams in 2015 with the addition of two expansion
teams.
The league began play in 1996, a requirement by FIFA for
awarding right to host the 1994 World Cup.
MLS has increased in popularity following the adoption of
the Designated Player rule in 2007,
In 2012, average attendance of 18,807 per game.

17. Organizational Infrastructure
• In early 20th century the major sports set up volunteer national
organizations to take authority; 1914 there were 20 governing
bodies.
• 1919 the Amateur Athletic Union of Canada (AAU) provided
international recognition.
• 1930s ice hockey, basketball and lacrosse walked out of the AAU.
• 1939, the jurisdiction of the AAU was reduced to track and field and
the other individual Olympic sports. The Canadian Olympic
Association broke away in 1948.
• From 1909 until 1967, the Canadian Track and Field Association
(C.T.F.A.) controlled track and field sports. It operated under the
umbrella of the A.A.U. of C. (Amateur Athletic Union of Canada).
• 1968, the C.T.F.A broke loose from the A.A.U. of C. The A.A.U. of
C. dissolved in the early 1970s as all national the federations in the
different sports went their own ways.
• 1991 the C.T.F.A. changed its name to Athletics Canada.

18. Sports Organizational Infrastructure

19. Structure of Leagues

20. Structure of Leagues
• Professional sports leagues in North America comprise a
specified number of clubs, known as franchises, which field
one team each.
• The franchises have regional rights, usually exclusive
territories large enough to cover major metropolitan areas, so
that they have no local rivals. New teams may enter the
competition only by a vote of current members; typically, a
new place is put up for bid by would-be owners.
• Introduced in baseball with the formation of the
National League in 1876 and later adopted by the other
North American leagues.

21. Structure of Leagues
• Although member clubs are corporate entities separate from
their leagues.
• North American teams almost never play competitive games
against outside opponents. National Hockey League (NHL)
and National Basketball Association (NBA) teams have
played against European teams in preseason exhibitions.
• The North American league, rather than any
sport governing body, determines the playing rules and
scoring rules of its game, and the rules under which players
join and change teams.

22. Structure of Leagues
• The teams are organized with a view to each major city having a
team to support. Only the largest cities have more than one team.
As such the teams are often referred to as franchises. Even though
they are not technically franchises in a business sense, the league
is organized in a way that assures teams continued existence in the
league from year to year, which fosters an ongoing connection with
the team's supporters. On occasion a league may decide to grow
the sport by admitting a new expansion team into the league. Most
of the teams in the four major North American pro sports leagues
were created as part of a planned league expansion or through the
merger of a rival league. Only a handful of teams in the
National Hockey League, for example, existed before becoming part
of the NHL. The rest of the teams were created ex novo as
expansion teams or as charter members of the
World Hockey Association, which merged with the NHL in 1979.

23. Structure of Leagues
• The best teams in a given season reach a playoff tournament, and
the winner of the playoffs is crowned champion of the league, and,
in some cases as world champions. American and Canadian sports
leagues typically have such "playoff" systems. These have their
roots in long travel distances common in US and Canadian sports;
to cut down on travel, leagues are typically aligned in geographic
divisions and feature unbalanced schedules with teams playing
more matches against opponents in the same division. Due to the
unbalanced schedule typical in US and Canadian leagues, not all
teams face the same opponents, and some teams may not meet
during a regular season at all. This results in teams with identical
records that have faced different opponents differing numbers of
times, making team records alone an imperfect measure of league
supremacy. The playoffs allow for head-to-head elimination-style
competition between teams to counterbalance this.

24. Structure of Leagues
• Major League Soccer is a North American league that exhibits some
aspects of the European structure because the sport it plays has a
European rather than American origin. Major League Soccer is technically
not an association of franchises but a single business entity, though each
team has an owner-operator; the team owners are actually shareholders in
the league. The league, not the individual teams, contracts with the players.
Unlike teams in the four major sports, several Major League Soccer teams
qualify to play competitive matches in the CONCACAF Champions League
against teams from outside the U.S. and Canada, and MLS uses playing
rules set by the international governing body of its sport. MLS followed its
own playing rules until 2004, when it adopted FIFA rules. In another parallel
with the European model, both the U.S. and Canada have separate
knockout cup competitions during the MLS season that include teams from
lower leagues. In the U.S., the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup has had MLS
participation from the league's inception; starting with the 2012 cup, each
competition features all American-based MLS sides. Similarly, all of
Canada's MLS teams compete in the Canadian Championship. However,
the league structure of MLS follows the North American model, with a single
premier league and no promotion or relegation.

25. Structure of Leagues
• Some other North American systems also have a hierarchical
structure but without the promotion and relegation of clubs
exhibited in the European model. Major League Baseball uses
a minor-league system to develop young talent. Most minor
league clubs are independently owned, but each one
contracts with a major-league club that hires and pays players
and assigns them to its various minor clubs. The minor clubs
do not move up or down in the hierarchy by on-field success
or failure. Professional ice hockey has a system somewhat
similar to baseball's, while the National Basketball Association
operates a small developmental league. The National Football
League does not have a minor league system as of 2011 but
it has operated or affiliated with minor leagues in the 1930s,
1940s, 1960s, 1990s, and the early 2000s.