Bowman Field (a Minor League Baseball field) in Williamsport, Pennsylvania

Minor leagues are professional sports leagues which are not regarded as the premier leagues in those sports. Sport is an Activity that is governed by a set of rules or Customs and often engaged in competitively Minor league teams tend to play in smaller, less elaborate venues, often competing in smaller cities. This term is used in North America with regard to several organizations competing in various sports. They generally have lesser fan bases and smaller budgets.

The minor league concept is a manifestation of the franchise system used in North American sports, whereby the group of major league teams in each sport is fixed for long periods between expansions or other adjustments, which only take place with the consent of the major league owners. Professional Sports leagues are organized in numerous In England, the football leagues have many divisions below the top-flight as part of the football pyramid. A league system is a hierarchy of leagues in a sport that usually teams can be promoted or relegated between depending on finishing positions or playoffs In other parts of the world there is usually either a system of annual promotion and relegation, meaning that clubs have no fixed status in the hierarchy, or there is only one professional league per country in each sport, rendering the major/minor distinction irrelevant. In many Sports leagues around the world (with North American and Australian professional leagues being the most notable exceptions promotion and relegation

The most famous minor league organization is in baseball. Baseball is a Bat-and-ball Sport played between two teams of nine players each Minor league baseball is almost as old as the professional game itself, and at first consisted of attempts to play baseball in smaller cities and towns independent of the National League, the first true major baseball league. Part of the History of baseball series Minor league baseball is a hierarchy of Professional baseball leagues in North The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, or simply the National League ( NL) is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball Soon, scouts for the National League were travelling to watch minor league teams play and attempting to sign the more talented ones away. "Talent scout" redirects here For talent scouting in the music industry see A&R Professional sports scouts are trained talent Some sports historians cite the connection between the other major league, the American League and its minor league forebear, the Western Association. The American League of Professional Baseball Clubs, or simply the American League ( AL) is one of two leagues that make up Major League Baseball in Soon Major League Baseball began formal developmental agreements with some minor league teams, while others remained independent. The most prominent independent minor baseball league today is probably the Northern League. This article refers to the modern Northern League. For the original incarnations of the Northern League which operated between 1902 and 1971 see Northern League

Baseball is not the only sport with minor leagues. In fact all of the prominent team sports in North America have them. The sport with the next most extensive system of minor leagues other than baseball is ice hockey. Ice hockey, often referred to simply as hockey, is a team Sport played on Ice. The American Hockey League is the most prominent of these, with most NHL teams having a "farm" team in the AHL where they develop young players and occasionally rehabilitate older players who are injured or whose quality of play has slumped. American Hockey Association (1926–1942The American Hockey League (AHL is a Professional Ice hockey league in North America that serves as the primary The National Hockey League ( NHL) is a professional Ice hockey league composed of 30 teams in North America In sports a farm team, feeder team or nursery club, generally refers to a team or club whose role is to provide experience and training for young players with an American Hockey Association (1926–1942The American Hockey League (AHL is a Professional Ice hockey league in North America that serves as the primary These teams in turn have lower-level minor leagues to draw players from and pass players down to. Junior and Senior hockey leagues are similar, but not exactly equivalent, to minor leagues due to their age and experience restrictions. Junior hockey is a catch-all term used to describe various levels of Ice hockey competition for players generally between the ages of 16 and 20 years old

The National Basketball Association has an affiliated minor league, the NBA Development League (also called the "D-League"). The NBA Development League, or D-League, is the National Basketball Association 's officially sponsored and operated developmental Basketball organization Additionally, the Continental Basketball Association has served some of the purposes of a minor league for the NBA for many years. The Continental Basketball Association ( CBA) is a professional men's Basketball league in the United States. However, there are no direct developmental agreements between CBA and NBA teams the way that there are between Major League Baseball and National Hockey League teams and their minor league affiliates.

While there are various semi-professional football leagues, none have any affiliation with the National Football League. American football, known in the United States and Canada simply as football, is a competitive Team sport known for mixing strategy with The National Football League ( NFL) is the largest professional American football league. The NFL's only "official" developmental minor league was the now defunct NFL Europa. NFL Europa was an American football league which operated in Europe from 1991 until 2007. Many consider the Arena Football League to be a minor league, but this is not exactly the case. The Arena Football League (AFL was founded in 1987 as an American football indoor league. Arena Football is played under very different conditions, and the AFL has survived for 20 years and has now established itself as a viable professional league. The AFL has its own minor league, af2, and several independent indoor football leagues that play a similar game exist. af2 (short for arenafootball2) is the name of the Arena Football League 's Minor league, which started play in 2000. This article discusses indoor variations of American football for indoor versions of association football (soccer see Futsal and Indoor soccer and for the

Other sports organizations considered to be minor leagues are the golf Nationwide Tour, affiliated with the PGA Tour, NASCAR's Busch Series and Craftsman Truck Series, and various other affiliated satellite tours of other individual sports, including the Challengers Tour of Professional Tennis. The Nationwide Tour is the developmental tour for the US-based PGA Tour, and features Professional golfers who have either failed to score well enough The PGA Tour is an organization that operates the main professional Golf tours in the United States. The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing ( NASCAR) is the largest sanctioning body of Stock cars in the United States. The NASCAR Nationwide Series is a Stock car racing series owned and operated by the National Association of Stock Car Auto Racing.

See also

• List of developmental and minor sports leagues
• Farm team
• Little League