A league system is a hierarchy of leagues in a sport, usually with a system of promotion and relegation between consecutive levels of the hierarchy. They are often called pyramids due to their tendency to split into an increasing number of regional divisions the further down the pyramid one descends. League systems are used in a number of sports, especially association football, rugby league and rugby union.
In North America, a similar league system exists, but without promotion or relegation. Most professional sports are divided into major and minor leagues. While baseball and association football (known as soccer in North America) have well-defined pyramid shapes to their minor league hierarchies, ice hockey's professional minor league system is linear, with one league at each level. The systems for American football and basketball are far less organized.
Famous quotes containing the words league and/or system:
“We’re the victims of a disease called social prejudice, my child. These dear ladies of the law and order league are scouring out the dregs of the town. C’mon be a glorified wreck like me.”
—Dudley Nichols (1895–1960)
“UG [universal grammar] may be regarded as a characterization of the genetically determined language faculty. One may think of this faculty as a ‘language acquisition device,’ an innate component of the human mind that yields a particular language through interaction with present experience, a device that converts experience into a system of knowledge attained: knowledge of one or another language.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)