Real Salt Lake (Soccer Team)

Real Salt Lake Soccer Team in Utah

History of Sports franchise in general

Sports has always been a part of American culture and professionalism is sports had its early beginnings in baseball . In 1870 , when there the gap between professional and amateur ballplayers widened , the National Association of Base Ball Players (NABBP ) split into two groups (Penn 2006 . The National Association of Professional Base Ball Players operated from 1871 through 1875 , and is considered by some to have been the first major league . However , the amateur group soon disappeared within a

few years . Professional sports leagues in North America transformed to become `closed corporations ' limited to a fixed number of teams , known as franchises . The system came into being with the formation of the professional National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs , in 1876 after some changes were introduced in the basic structure of the National Association (MLB .com , 2007 . The sports franchise model had arrived . Now , more importance was given to "clubs " rather than to "players . Through a reserve clause introduced byW . Hulbert , a Chicago White Stockings Backer , in 1876 , it was ensured that teams had the ownership of a player 's services without bidding options (SIUE , 2007 However , the concept of Free Agency was introduced in the 1970s when players in all Pro leagues won restricted rights to sell their services to other teams (SIUE , 2007 . Clubs worked as a unit in handling player contracts , scheduling games , and reducing gambling . With the advent of sports franchises , control of major cities became a crucial factor . For example , New York City became the emotional center of baseball with several clubs . The populations generated huge revenues to hire the best players in the country (Rappaport and Wilkerson , 2001

The concept of sports franchises achieved three things : it helped to govern player contracts to ensured players would not migrate from one club to another based on higher pay . It also led to huge competition on the national scene . Lastly , it established a system of control and dominance for the major leagues over the independents . This system soon became the norm in other sports : NHL (National Hockey League was formed in 1917 , NFL (National foot ball league ) in 1920 , the NBA (National Basketball Association ) in the 1940s . Now we have NASCAR for Auto Racing , PGA for Golf , WBA for Boxing , WWF for Wrestling , WNBA for women 's basketball , MLS for men 's soccer and so on (December , 2007

The main drawback of the sports franchises is that these teams almost never play games outside of the league . Hence the matches are more like exhibition matches and are less competitive in nature . There is a closed structure with the league and new teams find it difficult to enter the system . Usually , at the end of the season , there is a playoff tournament and the best team wins the title champion of the league (SIUE , 2007 . The league has its own rules and stipulates the conditions under which players can join orchange teams . However , Major...