The NFL has the largest stadiums on average in the world, ranging in capacity from just under 60,000 to almost 100,000 spectators, while MLB ballparks generally hold between 30,000 and 50,000 fans.
The most popular sports league in Canada, and widely followed across the northern and northeastern U.S., the NHL has expanded westward and southward in recent decades to attempt to gain a more national following in the United States, in cities such as Denver, San Jose, Dallas, Miami, Nashville, Salt Lake City, Raleigh, Tampa, Las Vegas, and Seattle with varying success.
[citation needed] From 1993 to 1995, the CFL attempted expansion into the United States to cities without NFL teams, but all the clubs folded, while the management structure of the Baltimore Stallions was moved to a relaunched Montreal Alouettes franchise.
[87] The Golden Knights' fee was a dramatic increase from the $80 million paid by each of the previous two teams to enter the NHL, the Columbus Blue Jackets and Minnesota Wild.
Major League Soccer adopted a policy of continuous expansion at a rate of one to two new franchises a year since 2005, and reached 30 teams in 2025 with the addition of San Diego FC.
The CFL has one team, the Saskatchewan Roughriders, in a market not served by any other major league (the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, while having their city to themselves, are on the outskirts of both the Niagara Frontier (less than 50 miles from Buffalo) and the extended Greater Toronto Area).
The NHL is the major league that least follows the general trend, due to the fact that a disproportionate number of its franchises are in cities with cold winters.
The Green Bay Packers survive in major league sports' smallest metropolitan area (300,000 population) thanks to unique nonprofit corporate ownership,[102] proximity to the neighboring Milwaukee market (giving a combined metro area of over 2 million), a league business model that relies more heavily on equally distributed television revenue that puts small-market teams at less of a disadvantage,[102] and the loyalty of their Cheesehead fan base, whose fans and their next of kin typically renew their season tickets every year until their issue expires, resulting in a centuries-long waiting list for season tickets.
The largest CSA without a major franchise is the Hampton Roads area of southeastern Virginia, spilling over into a small part of North Carolina.
The distinctive place ice hockey holds in Canadian culture allowed these franchises to compete with teams in larger cities for some time.
[106] On August 22, 2019, the Oakland Raiders played the Green Bay Packers in a preseason game at the Winnipeg venue now known as Princess Auto Stadium.
[107] All four major leagues have strict rules regarding who may own a team, and also place some restrictions on what other sort of activities the owners may engage in.
The Canadian Football Act, proposed in 1974 but never passed, would have given the CFL a government-endorsed monopoly on professional gridiron football in Canada by prohibiting any other league from playing its games in the country; the mere introduction of the bill in Parliament prompted the WFL's Toronto Northmen to move to the United States before playing a single game and later the first USFL was discouraged from establishing teams in Canada with the threat to reintroduce the Act in 1982.
A major factor in this development was the greater distances between cities, with some teams separated by at least half the continent, which in turn resulted in higher traveling costs.
When the National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs was established in 1876, its founders judged that in order to prosper, they must make baseball's highest level of competition a "closed shop", with a strict limit on the number of teams, and with each member having exclusive local rights.
[131] With the introduction of TV exposure and other sources of increased revenue during the 20th century, team owners have no incentive to risk giving up this annual income in favor of establishing an "open shop system" where they could be relegated to a lower league that does not generate that kind of lucrative money.
When the NHL assumed formal control of the Cup in 1947, the resulting agreement required "that the winners of this trophy shall be the acknowledged World's Professional Hockey Champions" (in contrast to the IIHF's Ice Hockey World Championships, at the time nominally contested by amateurs, although Eastern Bloc nations violated the rules and used de facto professionals).
[159][irrelevant citation] When the World Hockey Association commenced play in the 1970s, they sought to challenge for the Stanley Cup, referring to the 1947 agreement.
As a result, virtually all major league teams were concentrated in the northeastern quarter of the United States, within roughly the radius of a day-long train ride, within the Great Lakes and the Northeast regions.
Early professional soccer activity was concentrated almost entirely on an East Coast corridor from Baltimore to Boston, except for the St. Louis metropolitan area.
The NFL attempted to establish traveling teams representing the west and other far-flung regions in 1926 and barnstormed in Los Angeles that season; the experiment did not last beyond that year.
Since then, as newer, fast-growing Sunbelt areas such as Phoenix, Tampa, and Dallas became prominent, the major sports leagues have expanded or franchises have relocated to service these communities.
The Big Four sports leagues have looked to expand their revenues by playing overseas games in attempt to develop a wider international fan base.
The primary venue for London NFL games is set to switch to Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, opened in 2019 by the soccer club of that name.
The Spurs stadium, in which the NFL made a modest investment, is designed to be capable of hosting both forms of football on a single weekend if necessary.
However in recent years, regular season games have been played in Australia, the United Kingdom, and South Korea with further plans for expansion.
One recent example was the US Supreme Court decision in 2010 in American Needle, Inc. v. National Football League, in which the NFL (which ultimately lost the case) received amicus curiae briefs from the NBA, NHL, and MLS.
[166] In addition, the Big Four have also partnered together on community initiatives such as working together in the "Time Out Against Hate" campaign (alongside Major League Soccer, the Women’s National Basketball Association, the National Women’s Soccer League, and NASCAR) which aims to address and tackle hatred and racism, and the "Love, Your Mind" campaign which encourages fans to take care of their mental health.
In 1997, the NFL loaned $3 million to the CFL after the latter's failed expansion into the United States market in the early 1990s left it in financial danger.
As of October 2024[update] there have been 31 occasions in which all of the Big Four leagues played games on the same day, an occurrence popularly termed a sports equinox.