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Current season, competition or edition: 2024 Major League Baseball season | |
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| Sport | Baseball |
|---|---|
| Founded | National League (NL), 1876[1] American League (AL), 1901[2] National Agreement signed, 1903[3] Merged into one organization, 2000[4] |
| Commissioner | Rob Manfred[5] |
| No. of teams | 30[6] |
| Countries | United States (29 teams) Canada (1 team) |
| Headquarters | 1271 Avenue of the Americas[7] New York, New York 10020 U.S. |
| Confederation | WBSC Americas |
| Most recent champion(s) | Texas Rangers (1st title) |
| Most titles | New York Yankees (27 titles)[8] |
| TV partner(s) |
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| Streaming partner(s) | |
| Official website | MLB.com |
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league and the highest level of organized baseball in the United States and Canada. One of the big four major leagues, MLB comprises 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. Formed in 1876 and 1901, respectively, the NL and AL cemented their cooperation with the National Agreement in 1903, making MLB the oldest major professional sports league in the world. They remained legally separate entities until 2000, when they merged into a single organization led by the Commissioner of Baseball.[3][7][16][17] MLB is headquartered in Midtown Manhattan.[7]
Baseball's first all-professional team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, was founded in 1869. The first few decades of professional baseball saw rivalries between leagues, and players often jumped from one team or league to another. These practices were essentially ended by the National Agreement of 1903, in which AL and NL agreed to respect each other's player contracts, including the contentious reserve clause.
The period before 1920 was the dead-ball era, when home runs were rarely hit. Professional baseball was rocked by the Black Sox Scandal, a conspiracy to fix the 1919 World Series. Baseball survived the scandal, albeit with major changes in its governance as the relatively weak National Commission was replaced with a powerful Commissioner of Baseball with near-unlimited authority over the sport.
MLB rose in popularity in the decade following the Black Sox Scandal, and unlike major leagues in other sports it endured the Great Depression and World War II without any of its teams folding. Shortly after the war, Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color barrier.
The AL and NL added clubs in the 1950s and 1960s and some moved to different cities. Player discontent with established labor practices, especially the reserve clause, led to the organization of the Major League Baseball Players Association to collectively bargain with the owners, which in turn led to the introduction of free agency in baseball.
Modern stadiums with artificial turf surfaces began to change the game in the 1970s and 1980s. Home runs dominated the game during the 1990s. In the mid-2000s, media reports disclosed the use of anabolic steroids among MLB players; a 2006–07 investigation produced the Mitchell Report, which found that many players had used steroids and other performance-enhancing substances, including at least one player from each team.
Each team plays 162 games per season, with Opening Day traditionally held during the first week of April. Six teams in each league then advance to a four-round postseason tournament in October, culminating in the World Series, a best-of-seven championship series between the two league champions first played in 1903. The New York Yankees have the most championships with 27. The reigning champions are the Texas Rangers, who defeated the Arizona Diamondbacks in the 2023 World Series.
MLB is the second-wealthiest professional sport league by revenue after the National Football League (NFL).[18][19][20] Baseball games are broadcast on television, radio, and the internet throughout North America and in several other countries. MLB has the highest total season attendance of any sports league in the world; in 2018, it drew more than 69.6 million spectators.[21]
MLB also oversees Minor League Baseball, which comprises lower-tier teams affiliated with the major league clubs. MLB and the World Baseball Softball Confederation jointly manage the international World Baseball Classic tournament.
Organizational structure
MLB is governed by the Major League Baseball Constitution. This document has undergone several incarnations since its creation in 1876.[22] Under the direction of the Commissioner of Baseball, MLB hires and maintains the sport's umpiring crews, and negotiates marketing, labor, and television contracts. MLB maintains a unique, controlling relationship over the sport, including most aspects of Minor League Baseball. This is due in large part to the 1922 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Federal Baseball Club v. National League, which held that baseball is not interstate commerce and therefore not subject to federal antitrust law; MLB is the only league that has such a status, and has not faced any competition since this case.[23][24] This ruling has been weakened only slightly in subsequent years.[25] The weakened ruling granted more stability to the owners of teams and has resulted in values increasing at double-digit rates.[25][26] There were several challenges to MLB's primacy in the sport, with notable attempts to establish competing leagues occurring during the late 1800s, from 1913 to 1915 with the short-lived Federal League, and in 1960 with the aborted Continental League.[25]
The chief executive of MLB is the commissioner, Rob Manfred. The deputy commissioner of baseball administration and chief legal officer is Dan Halem. There are seven other executives: executive vice president and general counsel, chief operations and strategy officer, chief communications officer, chief financial officer and senior advisor, executive vice president and chief marketing officer, chief revenue officer, and chief baseball development officer.[27][28]
The multimedia branch of MLB is MLB Advanced Media, which is based in New York City. This branch oversees MLB.com and each of the 30 teams' websites. Its charter states that MLB Advanced Media holds editorial independence from the league, but it is under the same ownership group and revenue-sharing plan. MLB Productions is a similarly structured wing of the league, focusing on video and traditional broadcast media. MLB also owns 67 percent of MLB Network, with the other 33 percent split between several cable operators and satellite provider DirecTV.[29] It operates out of studios in Secaucus, New Jersey, and also has editorial independence from the league.[30]
League organization
In 1920, the weak National Commission, created to manage relationships between the two leagues, was replaced with the much more powerful Commissioner of Baseball, who had the power to make decisions for all of professional baseball unilaterally.[3] From 1901 to 1960, the American and National Leagues fielded eight teams apiece.
In the 1960s, MLB expansion added eight teams, including the first non-U.S. team (the Montreal Expos). Two teams (the Seattle Mariners and the Toronto Blue Jays) were also added in the 1970s. From 1969 through 1993, each league consisted of an East and West Division. In 1993, the National League expanded with two teams, the Florida Marlins and the Colorado Rockies, to even up the number of teams in both leagues. A third division, the Central Division, was formed in each league in 1994. Until 1996, the two leagues met on the field only during the World Series and the All-Star Game. Regular-season interleague play was introduced in 1997.[31]
In March 1995, two new franchises, the Arizona Diamondbacks and Tampa Bay Devil Rays (now known as the Tampa Bay Rays), were awarded by MLB, which began play in 1998. This addition brought the total number of franchises to 30. In early 1997, MLB decided to assign one new team to each league: Tampa Bay joined the AL and Arizona joined the NL. The original plan was to have an odd number of teams in each league (15 per league, with five in each division), but in order for every team to be able to play daily, this would have required interleague play to be scheduled throughout the entire season. However, it was unclear at the time if the interleague play would continue after the 1998 season, as it had to be approved by the players' union. For this and other reasons, it was decided that both leagues should continue to have an even number of teams, and therefore, one existing club would have to switch leagues. The Milwaukee Brewers agreed in November 1997 to move from the AL to the NL, thereby making the NL a 16-team league. At the same time, the Detroit Tigers agreed to move from the AL East to the AL Central (to replace Milwaukee), with the expansion Tampa Bay Devil Rays joining the AL East.[32] Later, when the Houston Astros changed ownership prior to the 2013 season, the team moved from the NL Central to the AL West,[33][34] resulting in both leagues having three divisions of five teams each and allowing all teams to have a more balanced schedule.[34] Interleague play is now held throughout the season.[34]
In 2000, the AL and NL were dissolved as legal entities, and MLB became a single, overall league de jure, similar to the National Football League (NFL), National Basketball Association (NBA) and National Hockey League (NHL)—albeit with two components called "leagues" instead of "conferences". The same rules and regulations are used in both leagues, with one former exception: the AL operated under the designated hitter (DH) rule, while the NL did not.[35][36] This difference in rules between leagues was unique to MLB, as the other major professional sports leagues in the U.S. and Canada have one set of rules for all teams.[citation needed]
In 2020, the National League (NL) used the designated hitter (DH) rule for the first time.[37] As part of the settlement of the 2021–22 Major League Baseball lockout, this change was made permanent thus making the rules in the two leagues identical.[35][38]
Teams
An asterisk (*) denotes a relocation of a franchise. See respective team articles for more information.