Professional sports leagues in the United States includes major professional sports leagues, other highest-level professional leagues, and minor leagues.
Based on revenue, the major professional sports leagues in the United States comprise the following: Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Basketball Association (NBA), the National Football League (NFL), the National Hockey League (NHL), and Major League Soccer (MLS).
The major sports leagues tend to have the greatest fan interest, have national television contracts, draw high fan attendance, and have teams located throughout the largest metropolitan areas in the United States.
Major leagues
Major League Baseball (MLB)
Major League Baseball is the highest level of play of baseball in North America. It consists of the National League (founded in 1876) and the American League (founded in 1901). Cooperation between the two leagues began in 1903, and the two merged on an organizational level in 2000 with the elimination of separate league offices; they have shared a single commissioner since 1920. There are currently 30 member teams, with 29 located in the U.S. and 1 in Canada. Traditionally called the "national pastime", baseball was the first professional sport in the U.S.
National Basketball Association (NBA)
The National Basketball Association is the premier basketball league in the world. It was founded as the Basketball Association of America in 1946, and adopted its current name in 1949, when the BAA partially absorbed the rival National Basketball League. Four teams from the rival American Basketball Association joined the NBA with the ABA–NBA merger in 1976. It currently has 30 teams, 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. The NBA is watched by audiences both domestically and internationally.
National Football League (NFL)
The National Football League was founded in 1920 as a combination of various teams from regional leagues such as the Ohio League, the New York Pro Football League, and the Chicago circuit. The NFL partially absorbed the All-America Football Conference in 1949 and merged with the American Football League in 1970. It has 32 teams, all located in the United States.
NFL games are the most attended of domestic professional leagues in the world in terms of per-game attendance, and the most popular in the U.S. in terms of television ratings and merchandising. Its championship game, the Super Bowl, is the most watched annual event on U.S. television, with Super Bowl LVIII in February 2024 being the single most-watched program in U.S. television history.
The NFL is the only one of the major American leagues not to have a presence in Canada, where the Canadian Football League is the premier professional league in the separate though related sport of Canadian football.
National Hockey League (NHL)
The National Hockey League is the only one of the major leagues to have been founded in Canada. It was formed in 1917 as a successor to Canada's NHA, the National Hockey Association (founded 1909), taking all but one of the NHA's teams. The NHL partially absorbed the rival World Hockey Association (WHA) in 1979. As of the 2024–25 season there are 32 teams in the NHL, with 25 in the U.S. and 7 in Canada, with the Utah Mammoth joining as an expansion team.
The most popular sports league in Canada, and widely followed across the northern U.S., the NHL has expanded southward in recent decades to attempt to gain a more national following in the United States, in cities such as Dallas, Miami, Nashville, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Raleigh, and Tampa, with varying success. Hockey remains much more popular in the northern states of the U.S. closer to Canada, such as the Upper Midwest (8 NHL teams), New England and the New York to Washington area (6 NHL teams), than in the rest of the United States. The NHL has more Canadian teams (seven) than MLB, MLS, the NBA, and the NFL combined (five).
Major League Soccer (MLS)
Major League Soccer is the top-level men's professional soccer league in the United States and Canada. As of the 2025 MLS season, the league will have 30 teams — 27 in the United States and 3 in Canada, with the addition of San Diego FC. MLS began play in 1996, its creation a requirement by FIFA for awarding the United States the right to host the 1994 World Cup. MLS is the first major Division I outdoor soccer league in the U.S. or Canada since the North American Soccer League (NASL) operated from 1968 to 1984.
MLS has increased in popularity following the adoption of the Designated Player Rule in 2007, which allowed MLS to sign stars such as David Beckham and Thierry Henry. In 2014, MLS reported an average attendance of 19,148 per game, with total attendance exceeding 6.1 million overall, both breaking previous MLS attendance records. With an average attendance of over 20,000 per game, MLS has the third highest average attendance of any sports league in the U.S. after the National Football League (NFL) and Major League Baseball (MLB),Major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada#Attendance and is the seventh highest attended professional soccer league worldwide.MLSsoccer.com, The expansion, refs, Cascadia: MLS Commissioner Don Garber covers it all in annual address, February 27, 2013, http://www.mlssoccer.com/news/article/2013/02/27/expansion-refs-cascadia-commissioner-garber-covers-it-all-march-soccer-addre
Nate Silver of the ESPN-owned website FiveThirtyEight has argued that there is a case to be made for the inclusion of MLS in the major professional sports leagues of North America.
The five major professional sports leagues League Sport Year founded Teams Last expansion Last contraction Revenue US$ (bn) Average attendance (2022) Major League Baseball (MLB) Baseball 1903 30 1998 1899 $10.7 National Basketball Association (NBA) Basketball 1946 30 2004 1954 $8.8 National Football League (NFL) American football 1920 32 2002 1952 $15.3 National Hockey League (NHL) Ice hockey 1917 32 2021 1978 $5.1 Major League Soccer (MLS) Soccer 1996 30 2025 2014 $1.1 Explanatory citations
Other highest-level professional leagues In addition to the major sports leagues, there are several other highest-level professional sports leagues in the United States. These leagues usually lack TV contracts for popular network TV or mainstream cable channels, draw more modest attendance, and generally pay significantly lower salaries than the major sports leagues. + Highest-level professional leagues (non-major)League Sport First season (Teams) Current teams Recent average attendance Average salaries RefsAthlete's Unlimited (AU Pro Basketball)Women's basketball2022N/A$20,000-$30,000Athletes Unlimited Softball League (AUSL)Softball20246$35,000-$80,000Indoor Football League (IFL) Arena football 2009 14 LOVB Pro Women's volleyball 2025 6 $60,000 Major Arena Soccer League (MASL) Indoor soccer 2008 10 2,554 (2019–20) $15,000-$45,000 Major League Cricket (MLC) Twenty20 cricket 2023 6 Major League Rugby (MLR) Rugby union 2018 (7) 5 4,125 (2018)$45,000 Major League Volleyball (MLV) Women's volleyball 2024 (7) 10 National Lacrosse League (NLL) Box lacrosse 1987 (4) 12 9,596 (2019) $19,000 National Volleyball Association (NVA) Men's volleyball 2018 12 National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) Women's soccer 2013 (8) 16 11,250 (2024) $65,000 Premier Lacrosse League (PLL) Field lacrosse 2019 (6) 8 $35,000 Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL) Women's ice hockey 2023–24 (6) 89,304 (2026) $72,000 Ultimate Frisbee Association (UFA) Ultimate 2012 22 UnrivaledWomen's 3x3 Basketball20238$220,000Women's Lacrosse League (WLL) Women's Lacrosse20254$5,000 Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) Women's basketball 1997 (8) 15 9,807 (2024) $72,000 Women's Pro Baseball League (WPBL) Women's baseball 2026 (4) 4 ~$6,300
Major League Cricket (MLC)
Major League Cricket (MLC) is a professional Twenty20 cricket league in the United States. Operated by American Cricket Enterprises (ACE) and sanctioned by USA Cricket, it plans to begin play in 2023, with six teams in major U.S. cities under a single-entity model. In 2021, the development league for MLC, Minor League Cricket (MiLC), completed its inaugural season, which was contested by 27 franchise-based teams.
Major League Rugby (MLR)
Major League Rugby is the highest level of professional rugby union in the United States and Canada. The competition is supported and sanctioned by USA Rugby. The first season of Major League Rugby began in May 2018 with seven teams ranging from the Pacific Northwest to the Southwest. The top four teams make the playoffs for a spot in the final, the winner receives the American Championship Shield. Thirteen teams competed in the 2022 season but will be reduced to twelve in the 2023 season, with Chicago replacing Los Angeles and Austin.
National Lacrosse League (NLL)
The National Lacrosse League (NLL) is a men's professional box lacrosse league in North America. It currently has 12 teams: 7 in the United States and 5 in Canada. The NLL plays its games in the winter and spring. The league's American teams have historically been concentrated in the northeastern United States, and two of the league's longest-established and most commercially successful teams, the Buffalo Bandits and Rochester Knighthawks, still reside there. Each year, the playoff teams battle for the National Lacrosse League Cup. The NLL averaged between 9,400 and 10,700 spectators per game each year from 2004 to 2012.
National Women's Soccer League (NWSL)
The National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) is a professional women's soccer league. At the top of the United States league system, it is the country's primary competition for women's soccer. The NWSL was established in 2012 as a successor to Women's Professional Soccer (2007–2012). The league began play in 2013 with eight teams; four of which were former members of Women's Professional Soccer. With the addition of two expansion teams in Houston and Orlando since the league's founding, it reached a peak of 10 teams based throughout the United States. Following the 2017 season, the league dropped to 9 teams following the demise of two charter members, one of which was replaced by a new franchise. The league returned to 10 teams for 2021. Utah Royals FC, which had inherited the roster of the defunct FC Kansas City after the 2017 season, itself folded after the 2020 season, with its roster being taken over by a new Kansas City ownership group that now fields the Kansas City Current. The completely new Racing Louisville FC also started play in 2021. The NWSL added two teams in 2022, the Los Angeles-based Angel City FC and San Diego Wave FC. In 2024, the Utah Royals returned to the league under new ownership, and the San Francisco Bay Area-based Bay FC also joined. The Boston-based Boston Legacy FC and Denver-based Denver NWSL team plan to join in 2026.
Premier Lacrosse League (PLL)
The Premier Lacrosse League is a professional field lacrosse league. The league originally uses a competitive model that radically differs from those of other U.S. professional leagues—its eight teams play a tour-based schedule. Each week, the league visits a different market, with all teams playing. It absorbed the older Major League Lacrosse in a merger in 2020. In 2023, all 8 PLL teams were assigned to cities. Starting in 2024, the teams were aligned into Eastern and Western conferences, and the regular-season schedule was expanded to 10 games. Each team plays two games against the other teams in its conference and single games against teams in the opposite conference.
Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL)