Talk:Professional sports league organization

message: I'd like to go over the history of this page for the benefit of those who have started to edit it more recently.
Four years ago, some British soccer fans started a page called "Sports franchising." It was intended to be about the North American system of organizing pro sports. Not being experts on the subject matter, they sought the assistance of North American sports fans to craft the article. (The original article title didn't last long.) The article was written with the aim of explaining to those unfamiliar with the North American system how it works, and quickly expanded to explaining to those unfamiliar with the European system how that system works. This is how Wikipedia articles should be written -- aimed at those unfamiliar with the subject matter. People who already know about the subject matter don't need the information.
When writing an article, we should think, "Who is likely to need this information? What are they likely to know ahead of time? What are they likely not to know?" -- Mwalcoff (talk) 05:30, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: It might help you to read the Wikipedia articles I added links to for you to understand the subject matter.  Rainjar (talk) 05:32, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: You're missing the point. The intention of the article is to explain to those completely unfamiliar with the North American or European systems how they work. Imagine someone who's only watched American sports and has no idea what promotion and relegation, a cup competition, a governing body, etc. are. That's the kind of person we have to keep in mind when writing the European section of the article. What you replaced the European section with, in addition to being a huge change without any attempt to seek consensus for it, was not written in that mindset. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 05:48, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  And you are missing my point - misinformation does not inform the uninformed, it misinforms them.  Rainjar (talk) 05:51, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  A bit about the history of this page 

message: Rainjar has not specifically pointed out what's wrong with each individual line, but he did give a very brief summary of some things he seems to be concerned about. While I don't have time to go compare his proposed changes to the existing article line by line at the moment, I think I can respond quickly to his list above:
# "who makes football's laws/rules" -- Rainjar seems to object to the lack of a mention of the IFAB. If the current wording, ("In conjunction with other countries' governing bodies, it also sets the playing rules and the rules under which teams can sell players' contracts to other clubs.") is misleading, we can try to reword it. However, we should not get too bogged down in specifics here. Remember, this is a basic introduction for people completely unfamiliar with the whole concept of European-style pro sports organization. The IFAB is a consortium of the four home nations' national soccer governing bodies and FIFA. Therefore, our sentence is technically correct. Again, if people really think the sentence is misleading, we should try to recast it, but in doing so, we must try to keep it as simple and as general as possible (that is, we can use soccer as an example but shouldn't get bogged down in things that are specific to soccer and might not be analogous to other European sports).
# "providing details of the Premier League in 2009-10 (in a section purporting to cover "European leagues") - an excessively narrow focus in my view - rather than how the Premier League came into being (as a breakaway from the Football League)" -- The detail of the Premier League in 2009-10 is simply an example to show how the European system works. It is not intended to focus on the Premier League. We could just as well use Serie A, La Liga or the Luxembourgish league. The Premier League/Football League split is extraneous for the purposes of this article. What's important is simply to explain what a "league" is in the European sense of the term.
# "the FA only organizes the FA Cup and the FA Trophy" -- This can be addressed by adding the word "some" before "tournaments that involve teams from different leagues."
# "there are professional clubs in the Football Conference" -- I don't know why this is important for the article, but the article already describes Wimbledon as the a pro team in the Conference, so I don't see what you're objecting to.
# "the role of UEFA and FIFA in organizing leading club competitions is completely ignored" -- I don't think this is necessarily something we need in the article, but we can add "organized by the Union of European Football Associations" at the end of the third-last paragraph under "Structure of European leagues." We don't have to get into the details. This is the kind of thing readers can follow wikilinks to if they want more-detailed information.
# "Ignoring the UEFA Europa League" -- Mentioning the Europa League is wholly unnecessary. This is not an article about UEFA or about European soccer; it's an article about the European system of pro sports organization. We mention the Champions League simply to give an example of how teams sometimes play games outside of their domestic league. We don't need to mention the Europa League any more than we have to mention the Intertoto Cup or, for that matter, the Copa Libertadores.
# "In Europe, particularly in England, league competition (all clubs in a division playing each other home and away over the course of a season) is distinguished from cup competition (knock-out). The use of "League" in the UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Europa League is regarded as anomalous, especially in England, but they do combine a mini-league at an early stage with a knock-out format in the later stages. The use of "League" may also reflect the possibility/likelihood that these competitions are a stepping to a future European league." -- I don't know what you want to change here. Going off onto a tangent about whether the UEFA Champions League is really a league or not will not serve the reader. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:39, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  Perhaps you should read my proposed changes, rather than just my response to the various reasons given for removing them.  You might understand the subject matter better then.  Rainjar (talk) 23:51, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Rainjar's objections

message: Before I started making changes to the article on 11 November 2010, there were just two sections, namely "Fixed number of franchise teams" and "Promotion - Relegation".  The "Promotion - Relegation" section (last previously edited on 8 November 2010) read as follows:
English football (soccer) developed a very different system from the North American one, and it has been adopted for football in most other countries, as well as to many other sports played in Europe. The system is marked by:
*The existence of an elected governing body to which clubs at all levels of the sport belong
*Games played both inside and outside of leagues
*The promotion of well-performing teams to higher-level leagues or divisions and the relegation of poorly performing teams to lower-level leagues or divisions.
European football clubs are members both of a league and of a governing body. In the case of England, all competitive football clubs are members of The Football Association, while the top 20 teams also are members of the Premier League, a separate organization. The FA operates the national football team and tournaments that involve teams from different leagues. In conjunction with other countries' governing bodies, it also sets the playing rules and the rules under which teams can sell players' contracts to other clubs. 
The Premier League negotiates television contracts for its games. However, although the league the dominating competition in which a club might participate, there are many non-league fixtures a club might play in a given year. A Premier League team might play a league game one week and an FA Cup game against a team from a lower-level league the next. The third game might be against a Danish team in the UEFA Champions League, operated by the Union of European Football Associations. On occasion all three such games may involve the same clubs. 
In any given year, a country could have several champions. In 2004-05, Chelsea won the Premier League championship, Arsenal won the FA Cup and Liverpool won the UEFA Champions League, a multi-country club championship. Usually the national league winners are considered the national champions, similar to the franchise-based leagues, and bragging rights may be settled by means of a Super Cup, although this is considered a special event and has not been mandatory in any league anywhere in the world. 
The promotion and relegation system is generally used to determine membership of leagues. Most commonly, a pre-determined number of teams that finish the bottom of a league or division are automatically dropped down, or relegated, to a lower level for the next season. They are replaced by teams who are promoted from that lower tier either by finishing with the best records or by winning a playoff. In England in 2010, Burnley, Hull City and Portsmouth were relegated from the Premier League to the Football League Championship, the second level of English soccer. They were replaced by the top two teams from the second level, Newcastle United and West Bromwich Albion, as well as Blackpool F.C., which won a playoff tournament of the teams that finished third through sixth.
Relegation often has devastating financial consequences for club owners who not only lose TV, sponsorship and gate income but also see the asset value of their shares in the club collapse. Some leagues offer a "parachute payment" to its relegated teams for the following years, (if a team is promoted again the next year then the parachute payment for the second season is distributed among the teams of the lower division)Article discussing the financial disparity between the Premier League and the Football League, sums which often are higher than the prize money received by some non-relegated teams, in order to protect them from bankruptcy. There is of course a corresponding bonanza for owners of promoted clubs. 
Clubs may be sold privately to new owners at any time, but this does not happen often where clubs are based on community membership and agreement. Such clubs require agreement from members who, unlike shareholders of corporations, have priorities other than money when it comes to their football club. For similar reasons, relocation of clubs to other cities is very rare. This is mostly because virtually all cities and towns in Europe have a football club of some sort, the size and strength of the club usually relative to the town's size and importance. Anyone wanting ownership of a high ranked club in his native city must buy the local club as it stands and work it up through the divisions, usually by hiring better talent. Buying an existing top-flight club and move it to the city is problematic, as the supporters of the town's original club are unlikely to switch allegiance to an interloper. There have been some cases where existing owners have chosen to relocate out of a difficult market, to better facilities, or simply to realize the market value of the land that the current stadium is built upon. As in the U.S., team relocations have been controversial as supporters of the club will protest at its loss. 
The league does not choose which cities are to have teams in the top division. For example, Leeds, the fourth-biggest city in England, saw their team relegated from the Premier League to the Championship in 2004, and then saw their team relegated to the third-tier League One in 2007. Leeds will remain without a Premiership team as long as it takes for Leeds United or in theory any other local club to do well enough in the second-tier division to win the right to play in the Premiership. Famously, the French Ligue 1 lacked a team from Paris for some years. 
Territorial rights are not recognized, and successful new teams in a geographical location can come to dominate the incumbents. In Munich, for example, TSV 1860 München were initially more successful than the city's current biggest team Bayern München. [Bundesliga history http://www.the-shot.com/bundesliga-faq/history-faq/] Major cities such as London may have many teams in the professional leagues: for example, in 2010–11 it has five teams in the Premier League alone, an additional eight teams in the three fully professional leagues within The Football League, and at least one fully professional team (AFC Wimbledon) in Conference National, the top level of Non-League football. 
This system originated in England in 1888 when twelve clubs decided to create a professional Football League. The "closed shop" aspect of baseball's National League was not deemed to be necessary to ensure stability in England because a national English football league did not require the sort of travel commitments that were necessary in the U.S. A secretariat was created to organize and run the Football League. Later lower tiers (divisions) were added. 
This system is widely used in football (soccer) around the world, notably in Africa and Latin America as well as Europe. The most notable variation has developed in Latin America where many countries have two league seasons per year, which scheduling allows because many Spanish-speaking Latin American nations lack a national cup competition. Promotion and relegation has historically been used in other team sports founded in the United Kingdom, such as rugby union, rugby league and cricket. 
The system is also used in Europe even when the sports were founded in America, showing that the league system is not related to the sport itself, but more on the tradition of sports organisation in that region. Sports such as basketball in Spain and Lithuania and ice hockey in Russia use promotion and relegation. Alternately, in Australia the A-League follows the tradition of Australian sports having a franchise model that better suits a country with great distances between the country's main population centres, similar to the situation in the U.S. and Canada.
East Asian countries (Japan, China, South Korea, Taiwan) have a particular differentiation among leagues: "European" sports such as soccer and rugby use promotion and relegation, while "American" sports such as baseball and basketball use franchising, with a few differences varying from country to country. A similar situation exists in countries in Central America and the Caribbean, where soccer and baseball share several close markets."
When I first added a European section, I moved most of the above to "Comparison between the North American system and the European system.  Intervening changes have also been made by others.
I leave it to the reader to decide which of the above, the current version, or the further changes I propose, is most relevant and accurate.  I have no interest in pursuing the matter any further.  As I have stated above, bias is inherent in the title of the article, and creates inherent inaccuracy when applied to European sport.  
PS.  I assume the reference to the formation of the Football League in 1888 is intended to be ironical, as the Football League was a 'closed shop' from its formation in 1888 until promotion and relegation was introduced when the Football Alliance became the Football League Second Division in 1892.  Rainjar (talk) 10:04, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm sorry, but I'm far too ignorant of European football to know what's wrong in the above, so while I can sit and look at the two possible versions, I don't know what's wrong about this one.... --Habap (talk) 15:25, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Rainjar, I'm going to take a look at your proposed version now and compare it with what we have. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 00:01, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  The European section 

message: The first difference between Rainjar's version and the existing version is the subhead "The English example." This is important because Rainjar then goes into a lot more detail about England than the existing version. However, the point of the article is not to inform the reader about English soccer but to explain to the reader how the European system of pro sports organization works. It uses England as an example because that's what the original writers were most familiar with. We need to keep the article focused.
The current version then says, "European football clubs are members both of a league and of a governing body. In the case of England, all competitive football clubs are members of The Football Association, while the top 20 teams also are members of the Premier League, a separate organization." Rainjar does away with the first paragraph and just says, "In the case of England, all competitive football clubs are members of The Football Association, while the top 20 teams also are members of the Premier League."
It's likely the reader will not know what the FA or the Premier League are. Therefore, we need something that makes clear the FA is a governing body, keeping in mind the theoretical uneducated reader does not yet know what a governing body is yet. So I think the first sentence should stay.
Rainjar's next sentence says, "Clubs below the top tier are members of other leagues, such as the Football League (the oldest football league in the world) and the Football Conference." This might be good to add.
Rainjar completes the paragraph as follows: "The Premier League was formed in 1992 when clubs of the old First Division broke away from the Football League[1]. The Football Conference is the lowest level at which there are professional clubs. A club from the Football Conference could, by way of several promotions over several seasons, get to play in the Premier League."
The first two sentences there are unnecessary for the article. The third is misplaced, because we haven't gotten into promotion and relegation yet.
Next comes the description of what the governing body does. The original article tries to do this in two sentences: "The FA operates the national football team and tournaments that involve teams from different leagues. In conjunction with other countries' governing bodies, it also sets the playing rules and the rules under which teams can sell players' contracts to other clubs."
Rainjar spends no fewer than five paragraphs on the FA and all of its tasks. This is way too much, since this is not an article on the FA or on English soccer. All we have to do is briefly explain what a governing body is and what it does, perhaps using the FA as an example.
We do not need to mention the FA Cup, FA Trophy, League Cup, League Trophy, Champions League, Europa League or Club World Cup. The current article does mention the FA Cup and Champions League as examples of non-league competitions a club might play in, and that's OK, but we don't need to mention them by themselves. All we need to say is that one of the governing body's tasks is to organize competitions between clubs in different leagues.
Furthermore, we don't need to get into the nitty-gritty about how the rules of soccer are formulated. What's important to explain is that this is a responsibility of the governing body or bodies rather than the leagues (as it is in the North American system). I'm concerned that if we mention the IFAB (which is just a consortium of the four Home Nation governing bodies and FIFA), we're making this too much a soccer article rather than a pro sports organization article that uses soccer as an example. If something about soccer isn't analogous to other sports that use the European system, we probably shouldn't mention it but rather should speak in general terms. Therefore, I think the current wording -- "it also sets the playing rules and the rules under which teams can sell players' contracts to other clubs" -- is preferable, as it could apply to other sports.
Rainjar then has the subhead "Miscellaneous," which is not a good choice of word, since we haven't gotten to promotion and relegation yet, which is not "miscellaneous" but a key part of the European system. 
The next sentence is, "In England, player salaries are a matter of contract between the club and the player. There have been no rules concerning player salaries since the Professional Footballers' Association successfully brought about the end of the maximum wage in 1961." This sentence is extraneous as this is not an article about salary caps.
Rainjar keeps the next sentence about promotion and relegation from the original article, but deletes the example from the Premier League, replacing it with, "For details of the winners of the various professional competitions and promotion/relegation in the 2009-10 season in England, see 2009–10 in English football." I don't see why he makes that change. The example is helpful for a reader who might not be familiar with the concept of P&R. Rainjar's replacement seems like a non sequitur.
Rainjar keeps the next paragraph but deletes the following two: 
"Unlike in North American pro sports, where the "league" is the only competition member teams play in, European teams play matches both inside and outside of their leagues. In English soccer, a team may follow a league game with a match in the FA Cup (a tournament involving hundreds of pro and semi-professional teams), and then a game in the UEFA Champions League (a competition involving the best European teams from the previous year.
In any given year, a country could have several trophy winners. In 2004-05, Chelsea won the Premier League championship, Arsenal won the FA Cup and Liverpool won the UEFA Champions League."
These paragraphs are very important as they explain to the reader (who may only be familiar with the North American system) the key difference between the European and North American system and provides examples of how it works. There is no reason to delete them.
Rainjar then adds the following:
"In the major European football leagues, there are usually 16 to 24 clubs in each division. Clubs play each other twice in the league over the course of a season, each club playing the other at home once and away once. In countries with a significant drop-off in quality outside the main centres or a smaller population, there may only be 10 to 14 clubs in a division and the clubs may play each other three or four times over the course of the league season. The league season usually runs for 8 or 9 months, with either a winter break or a summer break, or both. In England, the league season runs from August to May of the following year."
This, again, is completely extraneous and irrelevant to the topic at hand. The number of teams in a division, how many times they play each other and the months the season runs have nothing to do with what makes the European system and how it differs from the North American system. These things are likely to differ from sport to sport and, in soccer, from league to league and country to country. As stated above, this is an article on pro sports organization as a concept, not on English soccer.
Rainjar doesn't mention the final section of the article. I don't know if this is because he has no issues with it or because he wants to delete the whole thing.
I'm sorry if my comments seem harsh and I appreciate Rainjar's desire to work on the article, but we have to keep in mind the intention of the article and the needs of the likely reader. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 00:38, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: My reply is below Rainjar (talk) 03:37, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comparing Rainjar's proposed changes with the original 

message: The above discussions highlights that the article still lacks a universal perspective.  
The use of the term sports league in North America, as contrasted with league competition, in Europe brings out the inherent unsuitability of the word "league" in the title.  
The continued reliance on the fact that European clubs play "cup competitions" outside of "league competitions" as a distinguishing feature is a false premise.  The comparison is with North America, not the North American system.  That Super League clubs continue to play in a separate cup competition even though the Super League has switched to a closed "franchise" system, brings this out.  Once you move beyond a strict distinction between a 'closed' system with territorial rights and a 'promotion-relegation' system without territorial rights, you're already moving into extraneous matters.  Who is to decide how much extraneous, descriptive content should be allowed?  I would accept all extraneous matter being deleted, including the reference to European clubs playing games outside of their "league".   
I have sought to address overview issues by amendments to the introduction and adding an "Overview" section at the end of the article  Rainjar (talk) 05:36, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Except you cant have an overview at the end of an article. And its not an overview, its a look at how some sports are changing their structures, so it should probably be renamed something like 'Changes in league structure.' The current examples would be valid, and you could add that there is pressure on the A-League to become like the rest of world soccer with a tiered competition. Its certainly true to say that the two systems have aspects that arent mutually exclusive, and the way the article is set up does make assumptions in that area which are false. Rugby League in Australia for instance also had a long running cup competition. You dont have to have no extra-league games in a franchise style setup. However, the North American leagues never do this, and fixtures never include extra-league matches, so that distinction should still be mentioned. This is not necessarily extraneous, but there is a restriction in the current setup of the article, split as it is into two parts which basically forces this issue to the sidelines. I think its OK to stick to the prevailing structures and mention the exceptions. The existance of these exceptions dont mean the standard description has no value at all. I dont think you're going to escape from the fact that the word 'league' is used to refer to different things by different people. Its just something that needs to be explained, and should be explained in the article. Saying the invention of promotion and relegation was an accident isnt correct, though. The system was designed to achieve a certain outcome by the FA and its success meant it was adapted and adopted more widely. You've also mucked up the sentence at the beginning of the 'Overview' when you say the franchise system is used for American sports (which isnt right) and then give an example of sports in Europe playing American sports with promotion and relegation. If you really want to pare down the article and just make it a comparison of league structures - franchise vs pyramid, maybe the article title should be 'Comparison of sports league structures?'  Mdw0 (talk) 07:29, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not that you can't have an overview at the end, it's just that it may not be the practice.  Anyway, I've re-titled the last section.  The error in the first sentence was from earlier on - I didn't write it, just moved it.  I'll correct it now.  I've also replaced the phrase "historical accident".  The Football League was looking to takeover a rival league, and promotion and relegation between the two was the way to make it acceptable to the latter.  There is no evidence of any greater principle being applied.  The use of the word "league" in the title will always create an issue, especially when the article tries to address "cup" competition as well.  Replacing the word "league" with "regular competition" might help.  The contents of William McGregor's letter of 2 March 1888 says a lot about what is a league, without actually using the word "league". Rainjar (talk) 09:10, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Overview issues 

message: Rainjar, you have continued to operate in a way that makes it difficult to improve the article. You have come here not with the attitude of, "I have some concerns about the accuracy of the article; let's work together to address them." Instead, your attitude has been hostile and uncompromising. You can't just go onto an article that has existed for four years, make massive changes without seeking consensus, and then when people challenge you on them get all worked up and say, "Well if you just read what I wrote you'd understand!"
I'm going to revert to Mdw0's last version until you try to get consensus on whatever changes you want to make. If you want, we can do a WP:RFC to get more people involved. If you keep acting in the manner you have been, I'll put it on WP:WQA. 
Also, I'm going to suggest renaming the article "Organization of professional sports" to take "league" out of the title. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 00:43, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I dont think Rainjar's behviour is nearly so bad as to warrant this sort of censure. His failings are obvious, namely a deep affection for his own style, and there's a plethora of mistakes, but he is usually willing to make changes when prompted, and I believe his heart is in the right place. Prickly rather than hostile and uncompromising. Also, the name change of the article to Organization of professional sports isnt a good idea, because its a much more open-ended title, which would require examination of all sorts of payment regimes, demand management, salary caps, stadium management, junior development, which I think is way beyond the scope of what the article is about. Dont like 'Comparison of sports league structures'? Thats more specific. WP:RFCs arent usually a good idea in this type of article, because all it does is encourage pedants to rip up anything that's not vigorously referenced. Mdw0 (talk) 02:57, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think Rainjar needs to be censured so much as simply better told how to operate constructively on Wikipedia. The article can certainly use some improvement. It was written at a time when Wikipedia standards were much looser with less attention paid to backing up assertions with third-party sources. I think it can be significantly improved by basing it on the academic or specialist literature on the topic. Unfortunately, I don't have access to subscription scholarly journals, as I'm not a student or college staff member. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 03:05, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

text: I note you say "I'm going to revert to Mdw0's last version".  Mdw0 has added a section entitled "Entymology".  "Entymology" appears to be an alternative spelling for "Entomology", the scientific study of insects.  I suppose this article that you and Mdw0 have taken over as your own is suitable for insects.  Your faith in Mdw0 appears to be well founded. :) Rainjar (talk) 07:19, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Hahaa! That was obviously a misspelling of Etymology - the study of the use of words. See, I'm not perfect, but not so bad as to talk about insects in a sports article. Again, an appropriate response to that would have been to just correct it. Actually I was hoping for a bit of credit in trying to overcome the 'meaning of league' issue. Other than mucking up the section title - something of a disease on this article - is there any problem with the actual text?  Mdw0 (talk) 07:27, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I would have changed "non-league" to "cup competition", since non-league has a peculiar meaning in England which is irrelevant for present purposes.  "Cup competition" is the common European term for knock-out tournaments or elimination tournaments, in particular, single elimination tournaments.  I decided not to make any changes instead - you never know how Mwalcoff might react.  Rainjar (talk) 08:13, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rainjar's edits 

message: I think there would be less argument about this page if we based it on academic sources instead of our own experience. Undoubtedly, much has been written about the organization of pro sports, as sports business is a subject of much study nowadays. In 5 seconds on Google Scholar for instance, I found a paper titled "European and North American Sports Differences (?)" from the Scottish Journal of Political Economy. No doubt there are dozens more like it. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 00:53, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: You should try reading other Wikipedia pages.  Everything I changed or added was referenced to other content on Wikipedia.  I'm sorry to say that you appear to have decided this article is yours (perhaps shared with one other, who shares a lot of your perspective), and behave in that way.  The "Developments and Analysis" section I added brings out the fallacies perpetuated by this article.  I can see why you would want to delete it. I won't dignify your personal attack in the preceding section with a reply there.  The article with most of the changes I have tried to make is set out here.  Read the "Analysis" section re-produced below.  You will see that some of what you and Mdw0 have decided is relevant is not, and a lot of what you and Mdw0 have decided is not relevant is no less relevant than stuff already in the article. Rainjar (talk) 06:26, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Anyway... The following article is also said to have a list of differences between the U.S. and European systems: HOEHN, T., AND S. SZYMANSKI [1999], “The Americanization of European Football,” Economic Policy, 28, 205–233. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 17:04, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sources 

message: As the above discussion with Mwalcoff and Mdw0 has degenerated and become unnecessarily personal, I will leave them to their misconceptions and tendency to treat this article as their own.  I will revert the European section to the version that existed before I started making changes on 11 November 2010.  I would be grateful if none of the changes that I made are re-introduced.  Rainjar (talk) 14:05, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: You've also reverted quite a few subsequent edits which I will endeavour to replace, but out of respect to your request here I will use as little of your syntax and phraseology as possible. Mdw0 (talk) 05:20, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reversion 

message: League, association, conference, division — and maybe others. Reference to the following articles may be useful. (I expect to add some listings before deliberating much.)
*Sports league; League system
*[Sports association]] redirects => Sports club; see also Franchising
*Sport governing body
*[Conferences (sports)]] redirects => Athletic conference
*Division (sport)
*Exhibition game — related to non-league/association/conference/division game
These aren't well explained at wikipedia. I think this article is right to imply or to establish that league is one preferred general term (lowercase). The articles on associations, conferences, divisions, etc, should note that some Yadda Yadda Leagues (proper nouns) aren't leagues; some Yadda Yadda Associations aren't associations; etc. --P64 (talk) 22:55, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  League by any other name 

message: The article notes that NHL, NBA, and MLS teams have faced outside hockey, basketball, and soccer teams. What is the purported distinction between systems? Is that all matches with non-league opponents are exhibition games, in the American system? --P64 (talk) 23:45, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Typically, yes. With the exception of the CONCACAF Champions League, such games are treated as exhibitions, as there's no championship on the line. oknazevad (talk) 04:33, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Non-league games

message: With few exceptions, clubs in the American system have exclusive territories. I have changed that to say that all American system clubs have territorial rights, which are usually exclusive territories.
That is true on the American side. Is it true that European system clubs have no territorial rights at all? --P64 (talk) 23:45, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Territories 

message: This has been deleted as a small part of the latest edit.
"(the league has, however, promoted teams from lower level leagues to MLS, but not through automatic means)"
This is material for a footnote or a link to the section of Major League Soccer where it is explained. Offhand it seems important enough that it should be explained there. --P64 (talk) 15:42, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  MLS promotion 

message: The link in the opening paragraph to Franchising is troublesome, as that article explicitly excludes the North American sports concept. It has a note stating: "For the concept of "franchising" in sports, see Major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada." However, that article does not actually go over the concept in a particular section. Facts about franchises and the franchise model are spread throughout the article. Is there a more focused article to direct this to? If not, shouldn't there be? Does anyone have any idea about how to structure such an article? --Khajidha (talk) 17:44, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Franchise 

message: * "the four major team sports leagues represent the top level of play in the world" - I don't think this phrase can stand. The paragraph explicitly states that American teams hardly ever play outsiders, and in that case any comparison would be an assumption or conjecture. Sure, they get paid more, and may be more famous, but that's not the same thing. You can't know without head to head results.
* "the winner of the playoffs is crowned champion of the league, and, in some cases referred to as world champions" - again, we need to acknowledge that this is just a phrase thrown around by lazy/closed-minded journalists, or by the champions themselves. At the very most, they could be claimed continental champions, but otherwise it's just hype with no foundation. It would help if we inserted the word incorrectly referred to as...  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.191.160.108 (talk) 19:31, 10 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Neutrality of implied "American supremacy" 

message: The title of this article is confusing. A league is an organization, so adding organization at the end makes it seem "professional sports league" is a modifier to "organization". So the topic of this article could be about organizations in professional sports leagues, otherwise known as teams or clubs, rather than the leagues they play in. I would just move the article to "professional sports league", but there are lots of redirects from the sports meaning of franchise, including Franchise (sports), which should be an article, not a redirect to professional sports league, even if the articles themselves will have overlapping content. But they aren't the same thing. A short article that wikilinks to this article would be sufficient to start to untangle this issue, including significant confusion on Wikidata, which is already named professional sports league. Any discussion? - Mnnlaxer | talk | stalk 16:18, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed renaming to "Professional sports league" and creating "Franchise (sports)" article for the North American sports usage