In many regions of the world like
Europe,
North Africa,
West Asia, the
Indian subcontinent or
Central and
South America, sports clubs with several sports departments (multisports clubs) or branches, including highly competitive professional teams, are very popular and have developed into some of the most powerful and representative sports institutions in those places. In general, student sports can be described as composed by multisports clubs, each one representing its educational institution and competing in several sport disciplines. In the
United States major institutions like the
New York Athletic Club and
Los Angeles Athletic Club serve as athletic clubs that participate in multiple sports. Examples also abound of sports clubs that are in effect one sports team. Each team from the
NFL (American football),
CFL (Canadian football),
NBA (basketball),
MLB (baseball),
NHL (ice hockey) or
MLS (association football) North American
sports leagues, can be called sports clubs, but in practice, they focus solely on a single sport. There are some exceptions, especially when multiple such teams are under one ownership structure, in which case the club may be referred to as a "sports and entertainment" company; see, for example, the
One Buffalo sports club, which fields an NFL team (the
Buffalo Bills), two hockey teams (
Buffalo Sabres and
Rochester Americans), professional lacrosse (
Buffalo Bandits), general athletics and fitness (Impact Sports and Performance), and even
professional wrestling circuits (such as the
Khan family's
Jacksonville Jaguars,
Fulham F.C., and
All Elite Wrestling). Even in such circumstances,
collective bargaining agreements and contract laws generally do not allow a player on one sports team within a sports and entertainment company to automatically play for another team in the same company. On the other hand, American
varsity teams are generally organized into a structure forming a true multi-sport club belonging to an educational institution, but varsity collegiate athletics are almost never referred to as clubs;
"club sports" in American colleges and universities refer to sports that are not directly sponsored by the colleges but by student organizations (see
National Club Football Association and
American Collegiate Hockey Association for two leagues consisting entirely of college "club" teams in
American football and
ice hockey, respectively). In the
United Kingdom, almost all major sports organisations are dedicated to a single sport. The exception to this is
Cardiff Athletic Club based in
Cardiff, Wales, which is the owner of the
Cardiff Arms Park site. It is responsible for much of the premier amateur sporting activities in city with
cricket (
Cardiff Cricket Club),
rugby union (it is the major shareholder of the semi-professional
Cardiff Rugby Club),
field hockey (
Cardiff & Met Hockey Club), tennis (
Lisvane (CAC) Tennis Club) and
bowls (
Cardiff Athletic Bowls Club) sections. Catford Wanderers Sports Club is also a multisports organisation, with
badminton, cricket, association football and tennis facilities. In addition, like in several other countries, many universities and colleges develop a wide range of student sport activities including at a professional or semi-professional level.
Fulham F.C. once ran a professional
rugby league team and rowing club, which other football clubs have emulated since. Many football clubs originate from cricket teams. Today, most major cities have separate clubs for each sport (e.g.
Manchester United Football Club and
Lancashire County Cricket Club are based in
Manchester). Many clubs internationally describe themselves as
football clubs ("FC", "Football Club" in British English and "Fußball-Club" in German; "CF",
Clube de Futebol in Portuguese and
Club de Fútbol in Spanish). Generally, British football clubs field only football teams. Their counterparts in several other countries tend to be full multi-sport clubs, even when called football clubs (
Futebol Clube do Porto;
Fußball-Club Bayern München;
Futbol Club Barcelona). The equivalent abbreviation "SC" (for "Soccer Club") is occasionally used in North American English (for example,
Nashville SC and
Orlando City SC), but most North American teams (somewhat ambiguously as "football" in
North American English refers to
North American gridiron-style football) still use "F.C." in their name instead (e.g.
FC Dallas or
Toronto FC). ==See also==