Sports league

A sports league is a group of sports teams or individual athletes that compete against each other in a specific sport. At its simplest, it may be a local group of amateur athletes who form teams among themselves and compete on weekends; at its most complex, it can be an international professional league making large amounts of money and involving dozens of teams and thousands of players.

Terminology

Synonyms

In many cases, organizations that function as leagues are described using a different term, such as association, conference, leaderboard, or series. This is especially common in individual sports, although the term "league" is sometimes used in amateur individual sports such as golf.

The term "league" is also sometimes applied to competitions that would more traditionally be called tournaments, such as the UEFA Champions League, which is organized with multiple small round-robin competitions followed by a single elimination tournament to choose an overall winner.

Leagues and league systems

Premier League

The Premier League is an English professional league for men's association football clubs. At the top of the English football league system, it is the country's primary football competition. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the Football League. Welsh clubs that compete in the English football league system can also qualify.

The Premier League is a corporation in which the 20 member clubs act as shareholders. Seasons run from August to May. Teams play 38 matches each (playing each team in the league twice, home and away), totalling 380 matches in the season. Most games are played on Saturday and Sunday afternoons; others during weekday evenings. It is currently sponsored by Barclays Bank and thus officially known as the Barclays Premier League and is colloquially known as the Premiership. Outside the UK it is commonly referred to as the English Premier League (EPL).

The competition formed as the FA Premier League on 20 February 1992 following the decision of clubs in the Football League First Division to break away from the Football League, which was originally founded in 1888, and take advantage of a lucrative television rights deal. The deal was worth £1 billion a year domestically as of 2013–14, with BSkyB and BT Group securing the domestic rights to broadcast 116 and 38 games respectively. The league generates €2.2 billion per year in domestic and international television rights. In 2014/15, teams were apportioned revenues of £1.6 billion.

League

League may refer to:

See also

Sport

Sport (UK) or sports (US) are all forms of usually competitive physical activity or games which, through casual or organised participation, aim to use, maintain or improve physical ability and skills while providing entertainment to participants, and in some cases, spectators. Usually the contest or game is between two sides, each attempting to exceed the other. Some sports allow a tie game; others provide tie-breaking methods, to ensure one winner and one loser. A number of such two-sided contests may be arranged in a tournament producing a champion. Many sports leagues make an annual champion by arranging games in a regular sports season, followed in some cases by playoffs. Hundreds of sports exist, from those between single contestants, through to those with hundreds of simultaneous participants, either in teams or competing as individuals. In certain sports such as racing, many contestants may compete, each against all with one winner.

Sport is generally recognised as activities which are based in physical athleticism or physical dexterity, with the largest major competitions such as the Olympic Games admitting only sports meeting this definition, and other organisations such as the Council of Europe using definitions precluding activities without a physical element from classification as sports. However, a number of competitive, but non-physical, activities claim recognition as mind sports. The International Olympic Committee (through ARISF) recognises both chess and bridge as bona fide sports, and SportAccord, the international sports federation association, recognises five non-physical sports, although limits the number of mind games which can be admitted as sports.

Pro League

Pro League may refer to various association football leagues: