Major League Baseball (MLB) is a closed league. Owners and teams can only enter with the permission of the existing club members. Other US team sports leagues are organized the same way. US sports fans tend to think that this is the only way to organize a sports league.

Fans of world soccer know otherwise. English and European soccer leagues, among others, are open. Anyone with the motivation and money can enter a team in a low-level league, and that team can then work its way up to the top league, such as the Premier League in England. In England, teams get promoted to the next-highest league if they finish in the top three in their league, or demoted if they finish in the bottom three. In open, promotion/ relegation leagues teams have a hard time extorting stadium and other subsidies from host cities, because the number of teams in a particular metropolitan area is determined by market forces. London today, for instance, has six teams in the twenty-team Premier League.

The early years

United States leagues owe their closed structure to William Hulbert, founder of the National League (NL) in 1876. Attempting to improve upon the chaotic and corrupt first professional league – the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players, (NAPBBP ), 1871–1875 – Hulbert insisted upon a league with solid organization, tight discipline, and a strong central authority. During the NAPBBP years, players had too much control, did too much carousing, and jumped teams too frequently, and in Hulbert’s view, all that had to change. Hulbert kicked unreliable teams and miscreant players out of his league and secretively introduced baseball’s player reserve system in 1879.