The National Basketball Association is a men's professional basketball league. It has 30 franchised members, 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. The teams are divided into two conferences: Eastern and Western. Each conference is divided into three divisions. The regular season begins in the last week of October, teams play 82 games with 41 each home and away. The roster consist of 15 players with 12-man active and 3-man inactive list. In late April, the playoffs begins. Eight teams from both conferences are selected, the top four seeds play against the four lowest seeds(Ex: 1st vs. 8th). The playoffs is a best out of seven and winner advances onto the next round. The NBA has a soft salary cap, a team can exceed the cap but must pay a luxury tax to the league. They have to pay a dollar to the league for every dollar that they are over the limit to prevent teams with higher income from signing all skilled players.
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The National Hockey League is a professional men's ice hockey league composed of 30 clubs. There are 23 teams in the United States and 7 teams in Canada. The teams are divided into two conferences: Eastern and Western. Each conference is split into two divisions. The regular season begins in the first week of October, teams play 82 games with 41 each home and away. For the NHL roster, each team must submit an "Opening Day Playing Roster" that consist of not more than 23 players. An official roster must have at least 20 players, composed of 18 skater and two goaltenders. For the playoffs, eight teams from each conference will compete. The highest seed play against the lowest seed and the last team standing wins the Stanley Cup. The NHL has a hard cap like the NFL; however, it is not as strict. Teams can not exceed the given cap, therefore, there are not much guaranteed contract.
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nflThe National Football League is a men's professional football league consisting of 32 teams. The league is split equally into two conference: The National Football Conference(NFC) and The American Football Conference(AFC). The NFL has the shortest season in the North American league, it begins after labor week and runs until the week after Christmas. Each team plays 16 games and having one a week. After the regular season, six teams from each conference advances to the single-elimination playoffs leading to the Super Bowl between the champions of NFC and AFC. Every team in the league must have 53 players active on their list and only 46 players can dress out for the game. The players' salaries are very strict. The NFL has the hardest cap, therefore, every team must stay under the cap at all time.
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aflThe Australian Football League is a men's professional soccer league in Australia. The league consist of 18 teams, with 2 in each state of Australia except Victoria having 10. The league has pre-season competition, then followed by a 23-round regular season that runs from March to September. The AFL playoffs is a little different than major leagues in the North America. The top eight teams play in a four-round finals series, leading to the AFL Grand Final that is held in Melbourne Cricket Ground every year. Each AFL club has a list of players and every week, 22 are selected for the game and only 18 players allowed on the field. The league has a hard cap, if a club exceed and fall below the floor cap will be fined.
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Mlb
The Major League Baseball is a men's professional baseball league. There are 30 teams in the league, 29 in the United State and one in Canada. The MLB is split into two league: The American League and The National League and each league is divided into three division. The MLB has the longest season in the North American League, it begins on the first Sunday of April and ends on the first Sunday of October. The regular season consist of 162 games per team. Since each league has an odd number of team(15), two of them must participate in the interleague play for most days in the season. For the playoffs, 10 teams participates, 6 teams are the division champion and the 4 wild cards are two teams with the best regular season in each league. For the first round, the 4 wild card teams plays each other in a one-game playoff and the winners plays the #1 team in the league in a best-of-five-games series. The last two teams standing for each league plays the League Championship Series; however, they play in a best-of-seven-games series. The winner of both leagues then plays on the World Series which is also a best-of-seven-games series. MLB is the only major league that does not operate with a cap; however, uses a payroll tax. Teams whose total payroll exceeds a certain amount will be taxed. “Starting next season, a team that has been a taxpayer in three out of the previous four seasons faces even higher rates thanks to a concept known as the Repeater Tax.” If a certain club exceeds their salary cap for consecutive years, their luxury tax will increase and it will benefit the league.
salary cap issues
The different currency is an issue for some league. The NBA only have one Canadian team, however; the NHL have seven. A portion of the league’s revenue are Canadian dollar because there are Canadian franchises. The Canadian teams in the NHL brings their revenues in Canadian dollar, however; they pay lots of expenses mainly on player’s salaries in American dollars. “Salary caps are generally regarded as a way to keep a grip on escalating salaries. They can change annually according to the economic ups or downs of the pro hockey industry.” The different currency can be a major issue for certain teams because if the cap decreases, they must find a way satisfy their players. The strength of the Canadian dollar affects the economic revenues as a team and as a league, it’ll affect the salary cap.The higher the revenue, the higher the projection for the following year.