“Professional sports leagues in the United States”的意思、由来-开放百科全书

Professional sports leagues in the United States include several major leagues as well as other professional and semi-professional leagues.

Major leagues

The major sports leagues tend to have the greatest fan interest, have national TV contracts, draw high fan attendance, and have teams located throughout the largest metropolitan areas in the United States.

Major League Baseball

Major League Baseball is the highest level of play of baseball in North America. It consists of the National League (founded in 1876) and the American League (founded in 1901). Cooperation between the two leagues began in 1903, and the two merged on an organizational level in 2000 with the elimination of separate league offices; they have shared a single Commissioner since 1920. There are currently 30 member teams, with 29 located in the U.S. and 1 in Canada. Traditionally called the "National Pastime", baseball was the first professional sport in the U.S.

National Basketball Association

The National Basketball Association is the premier basketball league in the world. It was founded as the Basketball Association of America in 1946, and adopted its current name in 1949, when the BAA partially absorbed the rival National Basketball League. Four teams from the rival American Basketball Association joined the NBA with the ABA–NBA merger in 1976. It has 30 teams, 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. The NBA is watched by audiences both domestically and internationally.

National Football League

The National Football League was founded in 1920 as a combination of various teams from regional leagues such as the Ohio League, the New York Pro Football League, and the Chicago circuit. The NFL partially absorbed the All-America Football Conference in 1949 and merged with the American Football League in 1970. It has 32 teams, all located in the United States.

NFL games are the most attended of domestic professional leagues in the world in terms of per-game attendance, and the most popular in the U.S. in terms of television ratings and merchandising.^[1] Its championship game, the Super Bowl, is the most watched annual event on U.S. television, with Super Bowl XLIX being the single most-watched program in U.S. television history.^[2]

The NFL is the only one of the major leagues not to have a presence in Canada, where the Canadian Football League is the premier professional league in the sport.

National Hockey League

The National Hockey League is the only one of the major leagues to have been founded in Canada. It was formed in 1917 as a successor to the Canadian National Hockey Association (founded 1909), taking all but one of the NHA's teams. The NHL partially absorbed the rival World Hockey Association in 1979. There are 31 teams, with 24 in the U.S. and 7 in Canada, with the Vegas Golden Knights beginning play in Las Vegas for the 2017–18 season. The league will grow to 32 in 2021 with the addition of a team in Seattle.

The most popular sports league in Canada, and widely followed across the northern U.S., the NHL has expanded southward in recent decades to attempt to gain a more national following in the United States, in cities such as Dallas, Miami, Nashville, Phoenix, Raleigh, and Tampa, with varying success. Hockey remains much more popular in the northern states of the U.S. closer to Canada, such as the Upper Midwest (8 NHL teams), New England and the New York to Washington area (5 NHL teams), than in the rest of the United States. The NHL has more Canadian teams (seven) than MLB, the NBA, the NFL, and Major League Soccer combined (five).

Major League Soccer

Other top-level professional leagues

In addition to the major sports leagues, there are several other top-level sports leagues in the United States. These leagues usually lack TV contracts for popular network TV or mainstream cable channels, draw more modest attendance, and generally pay significantly lower salaries than the major sports leagues.

Lacrosse: NLL and MLL

The National Lacrosse League (NLL) is a men's semi-professional box lacrosse league in North America. It currently has 9 teams: 5 in the United States and 4 in Canada. The NLL plays its games in the winter and spring. The league's American teams have historically been concentrated in the northeastern United States, and two of the league's longest-established and most commercially successful teams, the Buffalo Bandits and Rochester Knighthawks, still reside there. Each year, the playoff teams battle for the Champion's Cup. The NLL has averaged between 9,400 and 10,700 spectators per game each year since 2004.^[13]^[14]

Arena Football League

The Arena Football League is the highest level of play in the indoor/arena styles of gridiron football. The sport is played in an indoor arena on a much smaller field than American football. The league was founded in 1987. It operated continuously until 2009, but indefinitely suspended operations following the 2009 season when none of its franchise committed to playing the next year.^[19]

Some teams from the AFL and af2 purchased both predecessor leagues' assets, adopted the Arena Football League name, and organized a new league for the 2010 season. In 2010 the Arena Football League had an average attendance of 8,154 per game and a total attendance of 970,369.^[20]

Women's National Basketball Association

The Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) is the top competition in women's basketball. Currently the WNBA is one of two fully professional women's sports league operating in North America. Founded in 1996 and beginning play in the 1997 season, it is the longest-running American professional women's sport league in history.

The league's attendance has fluctuated over the last several seasons. It had an average per-game attendance of 8,039 in 2009 and 7,834 in 2010.^[21] Total attendance was 1,598,160 in 2010.^[21] In 2007, the league signed a television deal with ESPN that would run from 2009 to 2016. This deal is the first to ever pay rights fees to women's teams. In 2009 it had a total television viewership of 413,000 in combined cable and broadcast television.^[22]

National Women's Soccer League

The National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) is a professional women's soccer league run by the United States Soccer Federation. At the top of the United States league system, it is the country's primary competition for women's soccer. The NWSL was established in 2012 as a successor to Women's Professional Soccer (2007–2012). The league began play in 2013 with eight teams; four of which were former members of Women's Professional Soccer.^[23]^[24]^[25] With the addition of two expansion teams in Houston and Orlando since the league's founding, it reached a peak of 10 teams based throughout the United States.^[26] Following the 2017 season, the league dropped to 9 teams following the demise of two charter members, one of which was replaced by a new franchise.^[27]

Major League Rugby

Major League Rugby is the highest level of professional rugby in the United States. The competition is supported and sanctioned by USA Rugby. The first season of Major League Rugby began in May 2018 with seven teams ranging from the Pacific Northwest to the Southwest. The top four teams make the playoffs for a spot in the final, the winner receives the American Championship Shield. In 2019, the league expanded to nine clubs with one in the Northeast and another in Toronto; three more teams, two from the Northeast and one from the Southeast, are slated to join in 2020.

Women's hockey: CWHL and NWHL

As of 2019, there are two professional women's hockey leagues that operate in the United States: the Canadian Women's Hockey League (CWHL) and the National Women's Hockey League (NWHL).

The CWHL is primarily based out of Canada but also has had a team in the United States since 2010, now called the Worcester Blades after a relocation from Boston in 2018. As of the 2018–19 season, the CWHL consists of six teams in Canada, China, the United States that play for the Clarkson Cup, a trophy that was previously awarded to the best women's hockey team regardless of league before it became the de facto CHWL championship in 2011. The CWHL began paying its players a salary in 2017.

The NWHL launched in 2015 with four teams and as the first women's hockey league to pay its players. As of the 2018–19 season, it consists of five teams, four teams in the northeast and one in the midwest, that compete for the Isobel Cup.^[28]

Minor leagues

Several of the major sports leagues in the United States have other professional leagues in tiers below them. For example, Major League Baseball has an extensive "farm system" of minor league teams. Similarly, below Major League Soccer (as of 2019) are the Division II USL Championship and Division III USL League One.

Minor League Baseball

Minor League Baseball is a hierarchy of professional baseball leagues in the United States that compete at levels below Major League Baseball (MLB) and provide opportunities for player development and a way to prepare for the major leagues. All of the minor leagues are operated as independent businesses. Most are members of the umbrella organization known as Minor League Baseball (MiLB), which operates under the Commissioner of Baseball within the scope of organized baseball, a seven-tier league hierarchy (eight when Major League Baseball is included as the top tier) that classifies leagues by level of development. The highest level of minor league baseball, Triple-A, features high level major league prospects almost ready to join the majors playing in large cities without MLB franchises, while each successively lower class (Double-A, A-Advanced, Class A, Short Season A, Rookie-Advanced and Rookie)^[33] features players with correspondingly less experience and, generally, playing in smaller markets. Additionally, several independent baseball leagues, which do not have any official links to Major League Baseball, also operate, with varying quality of competition, some in suburban communities too close to affiliated baseball teams to avoid territorial exclusivity.

Soccer: USL and NASL

The USL Championship is a professional men's soccer league in the United States and Canada that began its inaugural season in 2011. The USL Championship is sanctioned as a Division II Professional League by the United States Soccer Federation (U.S. Soccer). The league is owned and operated by United Soccer League (USL; formerly United Soccer Leagues) and was formed as result of the organization's merger of the old USL First and Second Divisions. The merger is meant to consolidate USL's position within the American professional soccer landscape and focus on stability, commercial growth and the professional development of soccer in four main regions throughout the United States and Canada.^[34] In January 2013, USL and MLS reached an agreement to integrate USL Pro league competition with the MLS Reserve League, primarily to improve player development in North America, strengthen league competition and build ties between divisions in the American soccer pyramid. This multi-year deal encourages MLS and USL Pro team affiliations and player loans, and it will lead to more games for teams and developing players.^[35]^[36]

The USL Championship, rebranded from "United Soccer League" after the 2018 season, is scheduled to have 36 teams in the upcoming 2019 season. While four teams left the Championship after the 2018 season, seven are set to join for 2019, with two more scheduled to begin play in 2021. The USL corporation will launch a new third-division league, known as USL League One, for the 2019 season.^[37]

The North American Soccer League (NASL) is a professional men's soccer league whose future is currently uncertain, as it canceled its entire 2018 season while in the midst of a legal dispute with U.S. Soccer.^[38] At the time, it planned to play with six teams—five on the U.S. mainland and one in Puerto Rico. From its first season in 2011 through 2017, it had been sanctioned by U.S. Soccer as a Division II league, sharing this status with USL in the 2017 season,^[39] but due to increasing instability in the league, including several teams either folding or moving to the USL, U.S. Soccer denied the NASL Division II status for 2018.^[40] The league is headquartered in New York City.

The modern NASL began play in 2011 with eight teams.^[41] Through the 2017 season, the NASL used a split-season schedule running from April to early November, with a four-week break in July. The spring and fall champions, along with the two teams with the best combined spring/fall records, met in a four-team single elimination tournament known as The Championship.^[42] The winner of the final claimed the Soccer Bowl at the end of the season. While there is no promotion and relegation with other leagues, Commissioner Bill Peterson stated repeatedly that the league had an interest in introducing it to the pyramid.^[43] After financial trouble in the 2016 season, the league was forced to reduce the number of teams from 12 teams to 8 teams, along with receiving shared Division II status for 2017.^[44] After that season, the NASL saw two teams fold, including the league's champion, and two more teams move to the USL, leading U.S. Soccer to deny the NASL Division II sanctioning. While litigation surrounding the U.S. Soccer action was ongoing, the NASL announced that it would switch to a fall-to-spring schedule spanning two calendar years, meaning that the league's next season would have begun in August 2018.^[45] However, it decided not to play in 2018 at all after a federal court denied an injunction that would have restored its Division II status. In the meantime, of the six teams that had planned to play in that year, three moved to the lower-level National Premier Soccer League for the 2018 season, another tried unsuccessfully to join the USL, and the Puerto Rican team faced an uncertain future due to stadium damage from Hurricane Maria and subsequent economic upheaval.^[38]

Minor hockey leagues

The American Hockey League (AHL) is a 31-team professional ice hockey league based in the United States and Canada that serves as the primary developmental league for the National Hockey League (NHL).^[46] Since the 2010–11 season, every team in the league has an affiliation agreement with an NHL team. Twenty-seven AHL teams are located in the United States and the remaining four are in Canada. The annual playoff champion is awarded the Calder Cup, named for Frank Calder, the first President (1917–1943) of the NHL. The league's players are represented by the Professional Hockey Players' Association (PHPA).

The ECHL is a mid-level professional ice hockey league with teams across the United States and one franchise in Canada. It is a tier below the AHL. Like the AHL, the league's players are represented by the PHPA. All but six NHL teams have affiliations with an ECHL team^[47] with Anaheim, Columbus, Florida, Montreal, Nashville, and San Jose having no official affiliations as of 2018. However, these teams do sometimes lend contracted players to ECHL teams for development and increased playing time. The league's regular season begins in October and ends in April.

The AHL and the ECHL are the only minor leagues recognized by the collective bargaining agreement between the NHL and the National Hockey League Players' Association, meaning any player signed to an entry-level NHL contract and designated for assignment must report to a club in either the ECHL or the AHL.^[48]

Additionally, lower-level professional leagues include the Southern Professional Hockey League (SPHL), Federal Hockey League (FHL), and Ligue Nord-Américaine de Hockey (LNAH). These leagues operate largely independently, though some SPHL teams are used as affiliates by ECHL teams.

Basketball

The NBA G League, formerly the NBA Development League (D-League), is the National Basketball Association's official minor league basketball organization. The D-League started with eight teams in the fall of 2001. In March 2005, NBA commissioner David Stern announced a plan to expand the D-League to 15 teams and develop it into a true minor league farm system, with each D-League team affiliated with one or more NBA teams. At the conclusion of the 2013–14 NBA season, 33% of NBA players had spent time in the D-League, up from 23% in 2011. The league has 27 teams in its current 2018–19 season, with one more confirmed for the 2019–20 season. All G League teams are either owned by an NBA franchise or affiliated with a single NBA team; the last "independent" team, the Fort Wayne Mad Ants, was acquired by the Indiana Pacers in September 2015.

American football

In contrast with the other major sports, the National Football League does not maintain an official minor league system. The only league to have served as a minor league to the entire NFL was the NFL Europe League; NFL Europe teams were not assigned an individual NFL squad for an affiliation, but instead received prospects from all of the NFL's teams, who played in Europe during the offseason, then returned stateside in time for training camp. Individual NFL teams over the course of their history signed affiliation deals with the American Association in the 1930s, the Association of Professional Football Leagues in the 1940s, and the Atlantic Coast Football League in the 1960s. In addition to these leagues, NFL owners also operated franchises in the Arena Football League in the 2000s (decade); this arrangement differed in that the AFL teams were not directly used for player development. Arena football had its own minor league, arenafootball2, for most of the same decade.

The most recent independent minor professional football league to play outdoors was the Fall Experimental Football League, which lasted two seasons in 2014 and 2015 before running out of money; its founder later established The Spring League, which does not pay its players, in 2017.

A number of leagues have been de facto minor leagues without explicitly identifying as minor leagues themselves. The United Football League, which played from 2009 to 2012, had ambiguous goals in regard to its attempt to challenge the NFL as a major league and eventually settled into a position in pro football's second tier, below the NFL but above most other leagues. The Alliance of American Football began play in 2019, and the XFL, which shares the name and some ownership with a previous XFL that played one season in 2001, is scheduled to begin play in 2020. Both are at a similar level of uncertainty; the AAF so far has signed far fewer NFL players per capita than the UFL did and has stated that it would be content as a developmental minor league. The XFL, which has rejected the idea of being tethered as a minor league, has not yet signed any players. However, both leagues have signed several prominent coaches and football executives.

Indoor American football leagues outside the auspices of the Arena Football League have historically played at a level somewhere on the margins between minor-professional and semi-professional. Some surviving indoor leagues include the American Arena League, Champions Indoor Football, Indoor Football League, and National Arena League. Indoor leagues are notorious for their instability, with teams often folding midway through their seasons, teams jumping between leagues, and leagues often failing to launch or folding abruptly.

See also

Footnotes

References

1. ^{{cite web|url=http://www.sportingintelligence.com/2010/01/04/nfl-maintains-massive-lead-in-attendance |title=NFL maintains massive lead in attendance " Sporting Intelligence |publisher=Sportingintelligence.com |date=2010-01-04 |accessdate=2010-05-03}}
2. ^{{cite web |last=Patra |first=Kevin |title=Super Bowl XLIX is most-watched show in U.S. history |url=http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000467823/article/super-bowl-xlix-is-mostwatched-show-in-us-history |publisher=National Football League |date=February 2, 2015 |accessdate=February 2, 2015}}
3. ^{{cite web|url=http://mlsattendance.blogspot.it/search?updated-min=2014-01-01T00:00:00-05:00&updated-max=2015-01-01T00:00:00-05:00&max-results=34|title=2014 Final Attendance Update|work=MLSAttendance.Blogspot.com}}
4. ^{{cite web|last=Hickey |first=Walt |url=http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/theres-a-big-five-in-north-american-pro-sports/ |title=The ‘Big Five’ in North American Pro Sports |publisher=FiveThirtyEight |date=2014-04-04 |accessdate=2015-05-14}}
5. ^{{cite web|author=Andrew Jeffrey |url=https://thegatewayonline.ca/2015/06/rushing-out-of-town-the-future-of-professional-lacrosse-in-edmonton/ |title=Rushing out of town – the future of professional lacrosse in Edmonton – The Gateway |website=Thegatewayonline.ca |date=2015-06-14 |accessdate=2017-02-28}}
6. ^{{cite web|url=https://www.thestar.com/sports/2013/10/22/salary_cap_national_lacrosse_league_signs_labour_deal_with_luxury_tax.html |title=Salary cap: National Lacrosse League signs labour deal with luxury tax | Toronto Star |website=Thestar.com |date=2013-10-22 |accessdate=2017-02-28}}
7. ^{{cite web|url=http://www.arenafan.com/history/?page=yearly&histleague=1&fpage=attendance&year=2015 |title=AFL Arena Football History - Year By Year - 2015 |website=ArenaFan.com |date= |accessdate=2017-02-28}}
8. ^[https://www.swishappeal.com/2017/9/6/16263600/2017-wnba-shatters-attendance-viewer-records WNBA attendance skyrockets to highest ever in 6 years]
9. ^{{cite web|last=McCann |first=Allison |url=http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/low-pay-limits-player-experience-in-national-womens-soccer-league/ |title=Low Pay Limits Player Experience in National Women's Soccer League |publisher=FiveThirtyEight |date=2014-03-24 |accessdate=2017-02-28}}
10. ^¹{{cite web|author= |url=http://mll.stats.pointstreak.com/attendance.html?leagueid=323&seasonid=16530 |title=LEAGUE ATTENDANCE |website=Mll.stats.pointstreak.com |date= |accessdate=2017-02-28}}
11. ^{{cite web|last=Garcia |first=Ahiza |url=http://money.cnn.com/2015/09/28/smallbusiness/major-league-lacrosse-salaries/ |title=The pro athletes with full-time day jobs - Sep. 28, 2015 |website=Money.cnn.com |date=2015-09-28 |accessdate=2017-02-28}}
12. ^https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2018/jul/08/major-league-rugby-seattle-glendale-season-two
13. ^{{cite web|author= |url=http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Daily/Issues/2012/05/10/Research-and-Ratings/NLL-attedance.aspx?hl=National%20Lacrosse%20League&sc=0 |title=NLL Sees Lowest Attendance Avg. Since '03 Season; Rochester Up Nearly 15% – SportsBusiness Daily | SportsBusiness Journal | SportsBusiness Daily Global |publisher=SportsBusiness Daily |date= |accessdate=2017-02-28}}
14. ^{{cite web |url=http://www.nll.com/article.php?id=4000 |title=Stealth Move North to Washington |work=NLL.com |date={{date|June 17, 2009}} |accessdate={{date|2009-06-17}}}}
15. ^{{cite news|work=The Wall Street Journal|title=Lacrosse Doesn't Pay the Rent|date=May 31, 2012|url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303640104577436811966763578|accessdate=May 5, 2013}}("The players, many recently out of college, generally practice once a week during the summer months . . . They make between $10,000 and $25,000 per season. This, of course, doesn't pay the bills for the year. MLL players are part-time professional athletes. Many of them have day jobs . . .")
16. ^"Exhausting travel and no pay: Major League Lacrosse players stick with it", Sporting News, August 16, 2014. ("You have to do something else, because you can’t live off the pay you get paid in Major League Lacrosse," Schmidt said. "It's not to a point yet where the teams are making enough money that you can play pro lacrosse year round.")
17. ^{{Cite news|title = The Sport of Scholarships|url = https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323716304578483290272596484|newspaper = Wall Street Journal|access-date = 2015-08-27|issn = 0099-9660|first = Ralph Gardner|last = Jr}}
18. ^"The pro athletes with full-time day jobs", CNN Money, Ahiza Garcia, September 28, 2015. ("The average for all players falls somewhere between $10,000 and $20,000 . . . It's not like we're negotiating for our annual salary as pros", Schmidt said. "It's more a summer part-time job.")
19. ^{{cite news|url=http://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/stories/2009/08/03/daily41.html|title=Arena Football League shuts down indefinitely|last=George|first=John|date=August 6, 2009|publisher=Philadelphia Business Journal|accessdate=2009-08-06}}
20. ^{{cite web |url= http://www.arenafan.com/history/?page=yearly&fpage=attendance&year=2010&histleague=3|title= 2010 Arena Football League Attendance Chart|author= |date= |work= arenafan.com|publisher= |accessdate=December 17, 2010}}
21. ^¹{{cite news |title= WNBA Attendance Down 2.5%, But Eight Clubs See Gains From '09|author= |url= http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=sbd.main&ArticleID=141674|newspaper= Sports Business Daily|date= August 24, 2010 |accessdate=December 17, 2010}}
22. ^{{cite web |url=http://www.wnba.com/2008numbers_080916.html |title=WNBA Closes Regular Season Up in Attendance, TV Ratings and Web Traffic |publisher=WNBA.com |date= |accessdate=2011-02-19 |deadurl=yes |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110525124432/http://www.wnba.com/2008numbers_080916.html |archivedate=2011-05-25 |df= }}
23. ^{{cite web|title=WILL NWSL BE A SUCCESS? WELL ...|url=http://espn.go.com/espnw/news-commentary/article/9161421/espnw-latest-women-professional-soccer-league-success|publisher=ESPN|accessdate=September 21, 2013}}
24. ^{{cite news|title=Women's pro soccer league to debut in U.S. next year|url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/soccer/2012/11/21/new-womens-soccer-league-to-debut-next-year/1720343/|work=USA Today|accessdate=September 21, 2013|first1=Kelly|last1=Whiteside|date=November 21, 2012}}
25. ^{{cite web|title=Seattle will have team in new women's professional league owned by Bill Predmore|url=http://seattletimes.com/html/soundersfcblog/2019731392_seattle_will_have_team_in_new.html|publisher=Seattle Times|accessdate=September 21, 2013}}
26. ^{{cite web|last1=Kassouf|first1=Jeff|title=Orlando Pride named 10th NWSL team for 2016|url=http://equalizersoccer.com/2015/10/20/orlando-pride-nwsl-expansion-team-announced/|publisher=The Equalizer|accessdate=20 October 2015|date=20 October 2015}}
27. ^{{cite web|url=https://www.fourfourtwo.com/us/features/boston-breakers-fold-unrecognizable-nwsl-future-analysis |title=The Boston Breakers' demise is another step toward an unrecognizable NWSL, but in which direction is the league headed? |first=Jeff |last=Kassouf |publisher=FourFourTwo |date=January 25, 2018 |accessdate=January 29, 2018}}
28. ^{{Cite web|url=http://www.espn.com/espnw/sports/article/25869131/how-minnesota-whitecaps-finding-success-nwhl|title=How the Minnesota Whitecaps are finding success in the NWHL|website=espnW|access-date=2019-01-30}}
29. ^{{cite web|url=https://www.baseball-reference.com/minors/league.cgi?id=3219ab1a |title=2013 Pacific Coast League |website=Baseball-Reference.com |date=1970-01-01 |accessdate=2017-02-28}}
30. ^{{cite web|url=http://theahl.com/stats/schedule.php?view=attendance&season_id=43 |title=Schedule | TheAHL.com | The American Hockey League |website=TheAHL.com |date=2014-06-20 |accessdate=2017-02-28}}
31. ^{{cite web|url=https://soccerstadiumdigest.com/2018-usl-attendance/ |title=2018 USL Attendance |work=Soccer Stadium Digest |date=October 14, 2018 |accessdate=February 11, 2019}}
32. ^{{cite web|author=Jackson Scofield |url=http://sportsfranchises.sportsblog.com/posts/285337/attendance_tracker_mls_nll_afl.html |title=Sports Franchise Tracker :: Attendance Tracker: MLS, NLL, AFL, D-League |website=Sportsfranchises.sportsblog.com |date= |accessdate=2017-02-28}}
33. ^While Rookie-Advanced and the spring training-complex based Rookie leagues are officially considered at the same level within affiliated baseball, Rookie-Advanced leagues operate much more like higher-level minor leagues, playing in their own ballparks, charging admission and recording attendance; 21 out of 30 MLB farm systems have either a Short Season A or a Rookie-Advanced affiliate, but not both.
34. ^{{cite news|url=http://usl1.uslsoccer.com/home/464019.html |title=USL Restructures Professional Division |publisher=www.uslsoccer.com |date=September 8, 2010 |accessdate=September 8, 2010 |deadurl=yes |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20101011101750/http://usl1.uslsoccer.com/home/464019.html |archivedate=October 11, 2010 }}
35. ^{{cite news| url=http://www.mlssoccer.com/news/article/2013/01/23/mls-usl-pro-reach-deal-restructured-reserve-league| title=MLS, USL Pro reach deal on restructured Reserve League| publisher=Mlssoccer.com| date=January 23, 2013| accessdate=January 27, 2013}}
36. ^{{cite news |url = http://uslpro.uslsoccer.com/home/690349.html |title = USL PRO & MLS Announce Partnership |publisher = www.uslpro.uslsoccer.com |date = January 23, 2013 |accessdate = February 7, 2013 |deadurl = yes |archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20130126070047/http://uslpro.uslsoccer.com/home/690349.html |archivedate = January 26, 2013 |df = }}
37. ^{{cite press release |date=April 2, 2017 |title=USL to Launch Third-Division League in 2019 |url=http://www.uslsoccer.com/news_article/show/775757-usl-to-launch-third-division-league-in-2019 |publisher=United Soccer League |accessdate=December 8, 2017}}
38. ^¹{{cite news|url=http://www.espn.com/soccer/north-american-soccer-league/story/3400079/nasl-cancels-complete-2018-season-after-court-ruling |title=NASL cancels complete 2018 season after court ruling |website=ESPN.com |date=February 27, 2018 |accessdate=March 2, 2018}}
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40. ^{{cite news|title=U.S. Soccer denies NASL Division 2 status for 2018|url=http://www.espnfc.com/north-american-soccer-league/story/3197245/us-soccer-denies-nasl-division-2-status-for-2018|accessdate=November 26, 2017|work=ESPNFC.com|agency=Associated Press|date=September 5, 2017}}
41. ^{{cite web |url=http://thesoccerroom.com/?p=25480 |title=FC Edmonton wins first-ever NASL game |publisher=The Soccer Room |date=April 10, 2011 |accessdate=October 7, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111113090308/http://thesoccerroom.com/?p=25480# |archive-date=2011-11-13 |dead-url=yes |df= }}
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