Relocation of professional sports teams

Relocation of professional sports teams is a practice which involves a sporting club moving from one metropolitan area to another, but occasionally, moves between municipalities in the same conurbation are also included. In North America, a league franchise system is used, and as the teams are generally privately owned and operate according to the wishes of their owners, the practice is much more common there than it is in other areas of the world, where sporting teams are often identified with a specific location. Moving of teams is more commonplace among less established teams with small or nonexistent fan-bases. Reasons for relocations are commonly motivated by either problems with finances, problems with inadequate facilities, lack of support or the wishes of the owner(s). In most cases, it is a combination of some or all of those problems.

Unlike most professional sport systems worldwide, sports organizations in North America 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. North America does not have comprehensive governing bodies whose authority extends from the amateur to the highest levels of a given sport. Unlike in other countries, where one may invest in a local lower-level club and through performance see that club rise to major league status, the only three ways a North American city can host a major league sports team are through league expansion, forming/joining a rival league, or most commonly, buying an existing league franchise and relocating it.

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, as of 2015, each of the major leagues has 30 or 32 franchises. Many current owners believe this is the optimal size for a major league and aside from the possible expansion of the National Hockey League (NHL) to 32 teams (a 31st team already approved to begin play by 2017), none of the major leagues is believed to be considering an imminent expansion. In fact, Major League Baseball (MLB) actually considered contracting the Montreal Expos and Minnesota Twins in 2002, which would have taken effect in the 2007 season, but the baseball players union sued MLB to prevent the dissolution of the teams. In the end, nothing happened to the Twins, which had the issue leading to their possible contraction, a new stadium, resolved with the opening of Target Field in 2010, and the Expos relocated to Washington, D.C. to become the Washington Nationals in 2005.

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