Relocation of professional sports teams


Relocation of professional sports teams occurs when a team owner moves a team, generally from one metropolitan area to another, but occasionally between municipalities in the same conurbation. The practice is most common in North America, where a league franchise system is used and the teams are overwhelmingly privately owned. Owners who move a team generally do so seeking better profits, facilities, fan support, or a combination of these.

North America

Unlike most professional sport systems worldwide, North America does not have comprehensive governing bodies whose authority extends from the amateur to the highest levels of a given sport. North American sports generally do not operate a system of promotion and relegation in which poorly performing teams are replaced with teams that do well in lower-level leagues.
A city wishing to get a team in a major professional sports league can wait for the league to expand and award new franchises. However, such expansions are infrequent, and generally limited to a narrow window in time. Many current owners believe 32 is the optimal size for a major league due to playoff structure and ease of scheduling. As of 2018, each of the major leagues has between 30 and 32 franchises. The National Hockey League has expanded to 32 teams, with the Vegas Golden Knights having become the league's 31st team in 2017 and the Seattle Kraken due to become the 32nd team in 2021. while MLB commissioner Rob Manfred has expressed interest in expanding to 32 teams, which would match the size of the NFL.
In past decades, aspiring owners whose overtures had been rejected by the established leagues would respond by forming a rival league in hopes that the existing major league would eventually agree to a merger; the new league would attain major league status in its own right; and/or the established league was compelled to expand. The 1960s American Football League is perhaps the most recent example of a successful rival league, having achieved each of the three goals listed above in reverse order. However, all major sports have had a rival league achieve at least some of these goals in the last half of the 20th century. Baseball's proposed Continental League did not play a game but only because Major League Baseball responded to the proposal by adding teams in some of the new league's proposed cities. The American Basketball Association and World Hockey Association each succeeded in getting some of their franchises accepted into the established leagues, which had both unsuccessfully attempted to cause their upstart rivals to fold outright by adding more teams.
However, the upstart leagues owed their success in large part to the reluctance of owners in the established leagues to devote the majority of their revenues to player salaries and also to sports leagues' former reliance primarily on gate receipts for revenue. Under those conditions, an ambitious rival could often afford to lure away the sport's top players with promises of better pay, in hopes of giving the new league immediate respect and credibility from fans. Today, however, established leagues derive a large portion of their revenue from lucrative television contracts that would not be offered to an untested rival. Also, the activism of players' unions has resulted in the established leagues paying a majority of their revenues to players, thus the average salary in each of the big four leagues is now well in excess of $1 million per season.
Under present market and financial conditions, any serious attempt to form a rival league in the early 21st century would likely require hundreds of millions of dollars in investment and initial losses, and even if such resources were made available the upstart league's success would be far from guaranteed, as evidenced by the failure of the WWF/NBC-backed XFL in 2001 and the UFL from 2009 to 2012. The current major leagues have established lucrative relationships with all of the major media outlets in the United States, who subsidize the league's operations because their established fame ensures strong ratings; the networks are far less willing to provide such coverage to an unproven upstart league, often requiring the upstart league to pay the network in order for those leagues to be covered.
Therefore, as long as leagues choose not to expand and/or reject a city's application, the only realistic recourse is to convince the owner of an existing team to move it. Owners usually move teams because of weak fan support or because the team organization is in debt and needs an adequate population for financial support or because another city offers a bigger local market or a more financially lucrative stadium/arena deal. Governments may offer lucrative deals to team owners to attract or retain a team. For example, to attract the NFL's Cleveland Browns in 1995, the state of Maryland agreed to build a new stadium in Baltimore and allow the team to use it rent-free and keep all parking, advertising and concession revenue. A little more than a decade earlier, the Baltimore Colts left for Indianapolis.
Moving sports teams is often controversial. Opponents criticize owners for leaving behind faithful fans and governments for spending millions of dollars of tax money on attracting teams. However, since sports teams in the United States are generally treated like any other business under antitrust law, there is little sports leagues can do to prevent teams from flocking to the highest bidders. Major League Baseball, unique among the major professional sports leagues, has an exemption from antitrust laws won by a Supreme Court decision but nonetheless has allowed several teams to change cities. Also recently, courts denied the attempted move of the team then known as the Phoenix Coyotes by siding with the NHL, which claimed that it had final authority over franchise moves.
Newer sports leagues tend to have more transient franchises than more established, "major" leagues, but in the mid-1990s, several NFL and NHL teams moved to other cities, and the threat of a move pushed cities with major-league teams in any sport to build new stadiums and arenas using taxpayer money. The trend continued in the 2000s, when three National Basketball Association teams moved in a seven-year span after there were no moves at all in the 16 years before it. Critics referred to the movement of teams to the highest-bidding city as "franchise free agency."

United States and Canada

The following charts list movements of franchises in the modern eras of the major North American sports leagues. It does not include:
The history of the NFL fully incorporates that of the fourth American Football League, which began operation in 1960 with eight teams and became by far the most successful rival to the NFL. In 1966, the two leagues agreed to a merger that took full effect in 1970. All teams from the 1960–1969 AFL were brought intact to the NFL, and the current NFL recognizes all AFL records and statistics as its own.
Only one NHL team that moved has kept its name: the Calgary Flames.
The Edmonton Oilers nearly moved to Houston in 1998, but the team remained in the city after a limited partnership raised enough money to purchase the franchise before the deadline. The then-Phoenix Coyotes were placed into bankruptcy with the intent to circumvent the league's relocation rules, but this was blocked by a judge. Other threats to leave came from two of the 1967 expansion teams, the Pittsburgh Penguins and St. Louis Blues, but ultimately stayed in their existing markets.
While none of the CFL's core Canadian franchises have moved from one market to another, the league's short-lived expansion into the United States did include one team move.
The league also attempted to move the Las Vegas Posse after their single season of 1994. Prior to the 1995 season, multiple ownership groups unsuccessfully tried to buy the team for a move to Jackson, Mississippi. Following that, plans were made to move the team to Miami, Florida as the Manatees, but plans fell through when the league chose to end the US expansion before the Manatees' scheduled launch in 1996.
The CFL's expansion into the US both began and ended with events that were not technically team moves, but were also not truly new teams being formed. The staff of the Ottawa Rough Riders moved from Ottawa to Shreveport, Louisiana, to become the Shreveport Pirates in 1993, but the CFL forced the team itself to be left in Ottawa, where a new owner kept the franchise alive. In 1996, the owners of the Baltimore Stallions folded the team upon the announcement that the Cleveland Browns would be moving to Baltimore. Despite high attendance and success on the field, management felt that they would be unable to directly compete with an NFL team in the same city. The Stallions' ownership group took over the then-dormant Montreal Alouettes franchise. While the players were released from their contracts with the Stallions, many were subsequently signed to the Alouettes. The CFL and the Alouettes do not consider the Stallions' records, including the 1995 Grey Cup victory, as part of the team's legacy. The Alouettes are instead considered a continuation of the previous teams of that name.

Australia and New Zealand

The two major professional sporting leagues in Australia are the Australian Football League and National Rugby League. Both competitions were originally based in one city and expanded to a national level, and through that process, there have been team moves, mergers and closures in both leagues. The clubs are owned by members, not privately, but the North American franchise model exists, which means entry to the league is restricted. The hybrid model has meant that the leading promoter of moving is the league itself, trying to grow the football code by encouraging poorly performing clubs to move interstate.

AFL

The AFL is the national competition in Australian rules football and grew out of the mostly suburban Melbourne based Victorian Football League competition; as a result, the member clubs have had to move to adjust to a changing national focus.

Major interstate moves and mergers

Some Melbourne-based clubs began selling home games interstate in the late 1990s and conducting community camp clinics to build up local supporter bases.
The Demons abandoned operations in Canberra and the Gold Coast in 2011 after the addition of the Gold Coast Suns as a new AFL franchise, in 2014 the club started playing 1 game a year in Darwin and 1 game a year in Alice Springs

A-League

, who played in Auckland, New Zealand, were dissolved and moved to Wellington in 2004, becoming Wellington Phoenix FC. During the later stages of the 2006–07 A-League season, Football Federation Australia removed New Zealand Knights A-League licence due to the club's financial and administrative problems and poor on-field performance. After much delay, the final amount needed for the application came from Wellington property businessman Terry Serepisos in the latter stages of the bid. Serepisos, the club's majority owner and chairman, provided NZD $1,000,000 to ensure the beginnings of a new New Zealand franchise and a continuation of New Zealand's participation in the A-League. FFA finalised a three-year A-League licence to New Zealand Football who then sub-let the licence to the Wellington-based club. The new Wellington club was confirmed on 19 March 2007.
The name for the new club was picked from a shortlist of six, pruned from 250 names suggested by the public, and was announced on 28 March 2007. Serepisos said of the name, that "It symbolises the fresh start, the rising from the ashes, and the incredible Wellington support that has come out".

NRL

The NRL is the national competition in rugby league and was born out of the Sydney-based Australian Rugby League and New South Wales Rugby League competitions. In 1987, the Western Suburbs Magpies agreed to move from its Western suburbs base to the outer south-western Macarthur district following a prior move west to Lidcombe Oval. In 1999, they merged with the remaining Inner Western team, the Balmain Tigers, to become Wests Tigers.
The North Sydney Bears attempted to move from their Northern Suburbs base to the swiftly growing Central Coast region just north of Sydney in 1999, however problems with construction at the proposed home ground now known as Bluetongue Central Coast Stadium meant that the Bears continued to play home matches in a variety of Sydney grounds before being forced into a merger with the Manly Sea Eagles as the Northern Eagles. The merged clubs played home matches at both the Central Coast and Manly's home ground of Brookvale Oval, but after the bears were expelled from the partnership, poor crowds at the former location led to a reversion to the name of Manly and games played exclusively at Brookvale Oval. Subsequently, one of the owners of Bluetongue Central Coast Stadium, John Singleton, has attempted to lure another club to play there, notably the South Sydney Rabbitohs who have experienced poor crowds at their new home ground of ANZ Stadium.
The Canterbury Bulldogs were formed in 1935 and played their first season without a home ground. In 1936, they settled at Belmore Oval and played home matches there until the end of the 1998 season. The Bulldogs trialled a number of alternative home grounds during the 1990s, including Concord Oval in 1994. In 1995, they changed their name to the Sydney Bulldogs and played most of the Premiership winning season at Parramatta Stadium, sharing the ground with bitter rivals, the Parramatta Eels and the also moved-and-renamed Sydney Tigers. They finally settled on Stadium Australia, the main stadium for the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games as their home ground, and in 2008, moved their training and administration facilities from Belmore to the Homebush Olympic Park Site, though have since re-embraced the Belmore region by returning to the name of the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs and playing some of their home games at the new Belmore Sports Ground.
Other clubs have moved to new home grounds but have retained their original base.

Europe

In Europe, moves are very rare because of the different relationship between clubs and their league in the European system of professional sports league organization. The practice is considered anathema. In most European sports, teams can be relegated from their current league to a lower one or promoted to the one above.

Armenia

At least three clubs were forced to move due to the 1974 Turkish invasion of that country:
In 1967, the top-tier but deep in-debt Toulouse FC, located in Toulouse, merged with Paris suburbs Red Star, then a tier-2 club, actually moving the entire club, including players and staff, North. This created a major scandal, leading to legislation changes, in particular the 1984 Avice law, which prevents out-of-departement fusions or moves for all sports
Due to the Abkhaz–Georgian conflict several clubs from the region cannot compete in the Georgian league and therefore several clubs have been re-founded by internally displaced persons from Abkhazia in Tbilisi, and although the original clubs continue to exist in exile, and no actual move has occurred, the Abkhaz peoples who had founded these club consider the clubs to be the continuation of the original club:
Due to the Georgian–Ossetian conflict, several teams have been displaced:
While football club moves have so far been unusual in West German football, it was a rather common practice in communist East Germany. As teams were dependent on the regime, it intervened several times to promote an equal distribution of teams across the country. A number of prominent East German teams were affected by these political moves, and even in modern-day Germany, the reason for the regional dominance of some teams and the roots of many strong rivalries can be found there.
Major moves in the DDR-Oberliga:
In recent times, team moves have become a more common feature in sports that are less popular with the German public. Notable examples include former ice hockey team München Barons, former handball side VfL Bad Schwartau and basketball club Bayer Giants Leverkusen.

Greece

Association football

Current Italian football laws allow clubs to move only between bordering cities. Some examples include:
Irish clubs moving out of their original district are slightly more common. In certain cases, the club has moved within a conurbation.
Team moves are very rare in the Netherlands. The most prominent case involves professional football club Almere City FC. When 1964 Eredivisie champion and 1964–65 European Cup quarter finalist DWS was merged into FC Amsterdam, its supporters founded amateur football club De Zwarte Schapen, named after their nickname, which translates as Black Sheep. The club quickly rose through the ranks of amateur football, eventually reaching the Hoofdklasse. After several violent incidents on the pitch and a six-month suspension by the Royal Dutch Football Association, the club moved from Amsterdam to nearby Almere and changed its name to Sporting Flevoland. That name was changed to FC Omniworld in the 1990s, and FC Omniworld was admitted to the Eerste Divisie for the 2005–06 season.
Team moves are slightly more common in other sports in the Netherlands. Volleyball club AMVJ, for instance, moved from Amsterdam to Amstelveen in 1980. The men's team was subsequently moved to Almere in 1999, becoming VC Omniworld, the volleyball branch of the aforementioned FC Omniworld.

Norway

The most notable example is the 1996 move of the ice hockey team Spektrum Flyers from Oslo to Bergen.
Otherwise, team moves are rare, although mergers, for instance of teams of neighboring settlements, are common. Moving has sometimes happened on the top level of women's football. SK Sprint-Jeløy was moved from Jeløy to Moss under the new name FK Athene Moss. Asker Fotball's women's team was absorbed by Stabæk Fotball ahead of the 2009 season. Ahead of the 2010 season Team Strømmen FK was absorbed by Lillestrøm SK, and Gjøvik FK absorbed by Raufoss IL.

Poland

Although no major moves have occurred, two clubs from the capital Stockholm have changed municipality and acquired another team into their club colours respectively. AIK was formed in Stockholm in 1891 but then moved to neighbouring Solna in 1937. Hammarby IF had an ice hockey section that was shut down in 2008. In 2013, the club Bajen Fans Hockey then changed their name to Hammarby Ishockey, thereby becoming one of very few clubs in Sweden that have acquired another club and made it their own. Also see AFC Eskilstuna.

Switzerland

In Switzerland only one move has happened so far. The Zürich-based football club Grasshoppers Zürich under company name "Die Neue Grasshopper Fussball AG" controversially moved their headquarters in 2005 from the city itself to Niederhasli. The addition of Zurich was remained in the club's name and the team is still playing in the city of Zurich at Letzigrund. All other teams of the club are playing Niederhasli.
The fans of Grasshoppers Club protested the move, claiming the club has lost part of its identity.

Turkey

Due to the War in Donbass, several clubs have temporarily moved for an indefinite period of time due to safety concerns. Shakhtar Sverdlovsk and Avanhard Kramatorsk could not find alternative venues and withdrew from all competitions as a result. Those teams that moved continue to participate in all competitions:
Due to the 2014 Crimean Conflict initially none of the Crimean clubs, Tytan Armyansk, Tavriya Simferopol, Zhemchuzhina Yalta or FC Sevastopol were able to move due to the Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, and subsequently they all disbanded or became dormant. However some have managed to re-establish themselves:

Latin America

Team moves in Latin America occur very rarely for the established teams with established bases. Smaller teams, either small team from large agglomerations or provincial teams with little or no fan base frequently move in search of a larger market and/or more affordable facilities, as frequently, there are only large complexes available with a necessity to groundshare with a larger club. The practice is considered anathema.

Brazil

In Brazil, the first move of a first division football team was in 2010. Grêmio Barueri moved to Presidente Prudente, becoming Grêmio Prudente, only to return as Grêmio Barueri in the middle of 2011. In other sports, such as volleyball, basketball or futsal, moving is a bit more common, although it doesn't occur frequently.

Chile

In Colombia historic teams from first division are rarely moved, but newer teams created in second division are often moved from city to city looking for a responding fan base.
has a relegation system but its teams have some territorial rights recognized, perhaps due to U.S. influence as many league matches are aired in the U.S., where only traditional top-flight teams are perceived to most effectively reach the immigrant fan-base.
In Peru several teams have had to use already built large stadiums, including ones in the interior of the country, to be able to participate in Peruvian Primera División; this includes several teams from the capital, Lima, who have not been able to establish fanbases in their districts due to the required moves.
Team moves in Asia are done according to the type of sport played and/or the predominant style of league organization, as well as individual economic circumstances. For instance, in Japan there is a difference between Nippon Professional Baseball which is run like MLB, and the J.League which is run like European football leagues.
Club moves are also common when an amateur or semiprofessional club tries to acquire its own facilities to become a professional club, and no money and/or space is available to build their own in a long-established location.

China

Team moves in China are very common, as teams are privately owned or owned by businesses, and there are neither rules regarding moves nor many established fan bases outside of the handful of established top teams:

Association football

Association football

The J.League is run similarly to European football leagues. In contrast to the baseball league it has allowed only a few teams to move out of crowded or unprofitable markets:
is run in similar fashion to MLB and has moved several franchises out of crowded markets. Moves also happened when the teams changed ownership.

Association football

Football club moves were frequent in the 1980s and 1990s. South Korea has three national tiers, but as in the North American system, there was initially no promotion or relegation between them.
There were 3 professional football clubs Ilhwa Chunma, LG Cheetahs, Yukong Elephants in Seoul by 1995. However, due to K League's decentralization policy, these three clubs were forced to move to other cities in 1996, changing their name in the process. These moves are done under the accord that if any of these teams build a football specific stadium in Seoul, they can return there, of which 2 clubs took advantage of. As a result, the following moves occurred:
In South Korean major professional sports such as Korea Professional Baseball, Korean Basketball League, V-League, moves were common.
In ice hockey, Mando Winia were a team based in Mok-dong, Seoul, which moved to Anyang, Gyeonggi in 2005 and became Anyang Halla.

Thailand

in 2019,relocated their base from Delhi to Bhubaneswar,Odisha and renamed the club as Odisha FC.

Africa

South Africa

In South Africa most football clubs are privately owned, and club moves are relatively common. Several clubs, including top division Premier Soccer League clubs have moved and taken on new identities. There are many other cases of South African moves. The ease of selling and buying of club licences make moves common and sometimes difficult to determine what determines a continuation of a relocated club or whether it is an entirely separate new entity.