Phoenix club (sports)

The term phoenix club is one used in professional team sports to refer to a new parent company that is set up to replace the parent company of a club that has failed in business terms but not in sporting terms, ideally while maintaining the continuity of the sporting activity. In some cases, the phoenix club is created by the supporters of the club which has ended (or appears to be on the point of ending). A phoenix club will often have the same or similar name, logo and playing uniform to the original club. The term is particularly prevalent in the United Kingdom in relation to association football, though it is also used in other countries.

The term is also occasionally used to refer to a club formed by disgruntled supporters of a major team when a change of ownership or policy causes them to lose faith in the management of their favoured side (as happened in 2005 when F.C. United of Manchester were formed by fans of Manchester United as a protest at the sale of the latter to Malcolm Glazer). although their status as such may be disputed if the original club is still in existence at the time.

The term is taken from the mythical phoenix bird, which is said to resurrect itself from its own ashes. In the Australia-New Zealand A-League the demise of the sole New Zealand team, New Zealand Knights, resulted in the newly created club actually calling itself the Phoenix, albeit that the club moved to a different city, Wellington.

In some cases, phoenix clubs will retain the name of the club which they replaced, implying a continuation from the former team. In other cases, name changes occur, perhaps due to proprietorial ownership existing on the old club's name. An American football example is the Cleveland Browns, the original franchise of which moved to Baltimore in 1995 to become the Baltimore Ravens; the NFL however stipulated as part of the move the franchise would not be able to keep the team history and records of the Browns, a cornerstone NFL franchise. In 1999, the "new" Browns were granted an expansion franchise and were awarded all of the former team's history by the league, even though the extant Ravens had the original Browns players and personnel.

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