I’ve never understood American professional sports.
The franchising system, the cornerstone of most U.S. sports leagues, makes teams permanent members of a league, rewarding mediocrity and penalizing success.
This is vastly different to most European sports leagues, which feature promotion, relegation, and little-to-no connection between organization and league. As such, franchising lacks what I consider to be one of the most important elements of any competition: fear of relegation to a lower league.