Sport franchising

In sport, a franchise is a club given permanent rights to play in a specific league. The corporation which owns a major league sports team is often called "the franchise" as a colloquial term. This concept is standard in the United States and Canada, but is foreign to sport structures in most of the rest of the world.

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Sports franchises routinely move cities (whilst keeping the same nickname), sometimes vast distances (for example, the Oakland Athletics started out as the Philadelphia Athletics, on the other coast of the United States). This sort of move is rare in the United Kingdom, where the move of Wimbledon F.C. to Milton Keynes (and their consequent renaming as the Milton Keynes Dons) was deeply unpopular outrage.

Related Topics:
Oakland Athletics - United Kingdom - Wimbledon F.C. - Milton Keynes - Milton Keynes Dons

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Also, all major sports teams franchise their name and logos to be used in all kinds of merchandise.

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