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61-457: The WNBA draft is an annual draft held by the WNBA through which WNBA teams can select new players from a talent pool of college and professional women's basketball players . The first WNBA draft was held in 1997 . The WNBA "requires players to be at least 22, to have completed their college eligibility, to have graduated from a four-year college or to be four years removed from high school". Since

122-456: A free agent and can sign with any team. They also require minimum and sometimes maximum salaries for newly drafted players. Leagues may also allow teams to trade draft picks among each other in exchange for other draft picks or in exchange for players. In 1935, National Football League president Joseph Carr instituted the NFL draft as a way to restrain teams' payrolls and reduce the dominance of

183-426: A "closed shop", with a strict limit on the number of teams, and with each member having exclusive local rights. This guarantee of a place in the league year after year would permit each club owner to monopolize fan bases in their respective exclusive territories and give them the confidence to invest in infrastructure, such as improved ballparks. This in turn would guarantee the revenues needed to support traveling across

244-410: A lower league or qualify for tournaments. The world's ten most valuable sports teams are American teams playing in closed leagues. In addition, proponents of closed leagues also argue that the system creates more competitive balance in a sports league, because teams cannot "buy" a championship and because there is less of an imbalance between the richer and poorer teams in the league, while not impacting

305-468: A more level playing field among its competitors by preventing rich teams from paying the best players salaries that poorer teams cannot match. Salary caps can be "hard", in which case they cannot be circumvented, or "soft", where teams may go over the salary cap in certain cases, but may be penalized financially for doing so. Closed leagues often feature drafts to assign new talent and promote competitive parity by giving teams with good records late picks in

366-516: A roster system based on where the club finished the previous year. It ran in reverse order with the wooden spooners getting first choice and the premiers last. The draft lasted just the one season before being defeated in the courts by players and coaches opposed to its limitations. Like the IPL the SA20 also has an auction where teams bid on players and subject a salary cap and restrictions on roster size. After

427-450: A team receives as a result of free agency (up to 32 compensatory selections are given each year), and any picks awarded for developing minority candidates for NFL head coaching or general manager positions (starting with the 2021 draft in accordance with NFL Resolution JC-2A). Teams are allowed to trade draft picks (including compensation picks since 2017) among each other in exchange for other draft picks or in exchange for players. Because

488-416: A team via a disaster draft , should an accident or other disaster kill or disable many players. Drafts are usually permitted under antitrust or restraint of trade laws because they are included in collective bargaining agreements between leagues and labor unions representing players. These agreements generally stipulate that after a certain number of seasons, a player whose contract has expired becomes

549-401: A viable strategy to tank, as a second overall pick was still guaranteed. This was made evident in the 2015 NHL Entry Draft , where marquee prospects Connor McDavid and Jack Eichel were both seen as NHL-ready and likely to be stars; much speculation surrounded the struggling Buffalo Sabres , who allegedly tanked to secure the rights to at least the second overall pick (a charge that, although

610-516: Is a process used in some countries (especially in North America) and sports (especially in closed leagues ) to allocate certain players to teams. In a draft, teams take turns selecting from a pool of eligible players. When a team selects a player, the team receives exclusive rights to sign that player to a contract, and no other team in the league may sign the player. The process is similar to round-robin item allocation . The best-known type of draft

671-419: Is currently three rounds long with each of the 12 teams in the league (trades aside) making three picks each. Draft order for teams that made the playoffs the previous year are based on team records. The team with the highest previous record will pick last. Since eight teams qualify for playoffs , the bottom eight picks are determined by this method. For the remaining top four picks, a selection process similar to

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732-412: Is divided into three rounds in which each club has one selection. In addition to drafted players, MLS teams also acquire new players from their youth academies . These players are called homegrown players. Homegrown player are academy players who is given a first-team contract. They are required to have spent at least one year in a club's academy, and to have lived in the club's territory (for example, in

793-406: Is responsible for holding drafts prior to the commencement of each season. Teams can buy foreign players with international experience while they still can purchase Indian players with little or no experience. The Pakistan Super League uses a draft system for player recruitment before the start of every season to fairly distribute the league's new players. Teams are allotted slots in every round of

854-468: Is the entry draft, which is used to allocate players who have recently become eligible to play in a league. Depending on the sport, the players may come from college , high school or junior teams, or teams in other countries. An entry draft is intended to prevent expensive bidding wars for young talent and to ensure that no team can sign contracts with all of the best young players and make the league uncompetitive. To encourage parity , teams that do poorly in

915-518: The 2006 season . All seasons before 2002 had 4 rounds. Since 2003 , all drafts are 3 rounds. In 2003 and 2004 , there were dispersal drafts due to the folding of the Cleveland Rockers , Miami Sol and Portland Fire . The players from Rockers, Sol and Fire were reallocated to existing teams. There were also dispersal drafts in 2007 with the folding of the Charlotte Sting , 2009 with

976-523: The 2024 season . The first was a draft of college players , followed by a supplemental draft . The final draft of 2013 was a preseason waiver draft in which teams could select players who had been waived by their first squads, but only one player was selected at that time. The league held a college draft, referred to after 2021 simply as the NWSL Draft after the inclusion of non-collegiate selections, prior to each league season. The waiver draft, now called

1037-674: The First Division in place of its worst teams. Another merger with the top division of the Southern League in 1920 helped form the Third Division in a similar fashion, firmly establishing the principles of promotion and relegation. Closed leagues often feature a form of revenue sharing, where forms of revenue are shared equally by all teams, regardless of team performance or a team's number of supporters. Closed leagues often feature salary caps in order to control labor costs and create

1098-629: The NCAA , prohibit players from competing in professional leagues simultaneously with their college eligibility. Once the player has joined the WNBA, she is eligible to participate in overseas leagues during the WNBA offseason (many WNBA players play in Europe, Australia , or more recently China ). Dena Head is the oldest No. 1 draft pick (she was 27 years old), having graduated from the University of Tennessee in 1992 and

1159-425: The "re-entry wire", has also become a permanent part of the league. The league also created other draft mechanisms to address other types of eligibility, such as the unsubsidized individual distribution ranking order introduced for college draft-ineligible NWSL federation players in 2016, and the under-18 entry list for domestic minors introduced in 2023. With league expansion and contraction since its establishment,

1220-606: The 2021 draft only, the league and its players union, the Women's National Basketball Players Association , agreed to modified eligibility rules due to changes brought on by COVID-19 . The most significant change is that all age-eligible college players who wished to enter that draft had to opt in. Because the NCAA ruled that the 2020–21 season would not count against the eligibility of any basketball player, everyone who played in that season, regardless of class, had remaining athletic eligibility at

1281-653: The Grey Cup champion selecting last. As with the NFL Draft, trading of picks is very common, meaning that a team will not necessarily have eight picks in a given draft. The draft is restricted to Canadian citizens, plus non-citizens who were raised in Canada since childhood (see the relevant section of the main CFL article ). Eligible players can be drafted both from U Sports football programs in Canada and U.S. college football programs (with

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1342-770: The KHL and its players introduced a draft, starting from the very first season of the league . It also allowed teams to use a first-round draft pick to select protected players from a team's farm system. The KHL Junior Draft was discontinued in 2016. A draft system is used for The Hundred , a professional franchise 100-ball cricket tournament in England and Wales run by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), which started in 2021. The inaugural Hundred draft took place in October 2019. The Canadian Football League holds its annual player draft before

1403-547: The MLB draft takes place during the season instead of in the offseason. In December, MLB holds the much shorter Rule 5 draft . If an organization keeps a player in the minor leagues for a certain number of years, other teams can draft him in the Rule 5 draft. The drafting team must keep the player on its major league roster; it cannot put the player in its own minor leagues system. MLL implemented its first collegiate draft in 2001. The draft

1464-485: The NBA Draft Lottery is conducted for the four teams that did not qualify for the playoffs. The WWE Draft is used to refresh WWE 's Raw and SmackDown rosters, as well as shuffle talent between the two. Cricket 's Indian Premier League instead holds a yearly auction before the start of each season in which teams bid on players, subject to a salary cap and restrictions on roster size. Indian Super League

1525-520: The NBA, the NHL uses a lottery system to determine which team gets the top pick. All 16 teams, up from 15 between 2017 and 2021, that failed to qualify for the playoffs take part in the weighted lottery with the winner moving up to select first overall. Any North American player aged 18–20, and any overseas player aged 18–21 is eligible to be selected. Players are generally chosen from junior hockey teams, high schools,

1586-412: The NCAA and overseas clubs. The NHL rotates the draft's location among cities with teams in the league. Like baseball, players drafted in the entry draft usually have to wait a few years in development, either in junior hockey or the minor leagues, before cracking an NHL roster; usually, only one or two draft picks, generally, those that are widely predicted to be blue-chip superstars, jump directly from

1647-607: The NFL requires that players be three years removed from high school, and of the lack of an effective junior development system outside the college and university programs, players are chosen almost exclusively from National Collegiate Athletic Association college football programs. The NFL draft has become one of the key events on the American football calendar, airing live on television each April. In recent years it had been held at New York's Radio City Music Hall , but in 2015 and 2016 it

1708-469: The Sabres' fans openly encouraged it, the team officially denied). From the 2016 to 2020 drafts , the top three overall picks were subject to lottery among all fourteen teams that did not make the playoffs, meaning the last-place team will only be assured of the fourth overall pick, at which point virtually any marquee prospect will have already been selected. Since the 2021 draft , only two draws are held for

1769-416: The U.S. and Canada . Most professional football clubs and those in other sports obtain young players through transfers from smaller clubs or by developing youth players through their own academies. The youth system is operated directly by the teams themselves, who develop their players from childhood. Parity in these leagues is instead maintained through promotion and relegation , which automatically expels

1830-471: The WNBA draft is currently held in April, before most U.S. colleges and universities have ended their academic years, the league considers anyone scheduled to graduate in the 3 months after the draft to be a "graduate" for draft purposes. The current rules for draft eligibility have been in place since at least 2014. The specifics of this rule differ in several ways from those used by the NBA for its draft . For

1891-571: The bottom of the AFL ladder will get the first draft picks. Also, any team that finishes in a low ladder position for consecutive seasons will receive priority picks. The AFL's National Draft is held in November, with a pre-season draft and a rookie draft held in December. The 1991 NSWRL season featured the introduction of rugby league football's first draft system. The draft allowed teams to recruit players on

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1952-407: The case of Orlando City , northern Florida). The draft gives to the teams opportunity to acquire players from other regions of the country, from outside their territory. The teams can also acquire new players by signing players from other leagues (usually foreigner leagues). MLS has two transfer windows —the primary pre-season transfer window lasts three months from mid February until mid May, and

2013-523: The continent. In contrast, the shorter distances between urban areas in England allowed more clubs to develop large fan bases without incurring the same travel costs as in North America. When The Football League, now known as the English Football League , was founded in 1888, it was not intended to be a rival of The Football Association but rather the top competition within it. The new league

2074-512: The draft and slots can be exchanged with other teams. Closed league Closed leagues developed in North America during the 19th Century because of the distances between cities, with some teams separated by half of the North American continent, resulting in high traveling costs. The National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs was established in 1876, and its founders determined that they must make baseball's highest level of competition

2135-559: The draft lasts 20 rounds (down from 40 in 2019 with the exception of a 5-round 2020 draft), but earlier drafts have lasted up to 100 rounds. The MLB Draft generally receives less attention than the drafts in other American sports, since drafted players usually spend several years in the minor leagues before they crack the Major League team's roster. Also, unlike the MLS, NFL, NBA and the NHL Drafts,

2196-405: The draft lottery is rigged. NBA teams choose players from the NCAA and from teams overseas. It was formerly common for players to be chosen directly from high school, but in 2006, the NBA required that players wait a year after high school before playing in the NBA. Almost all top U.S. players thus play at least one year in college. The NHL operates a seven-round off-season draft (224 picks). Like

2257-480: The draft to the NHL (e.g. Sidney Crosby or Jaromír Jágr ). The league has incrementally expanded the draft lottery process over the course of the early 2010s to discourage "tanking"—the act of deliberately losing to get a better draft pick. Historically, the league only subjected the first overall pick to the draft lottery among the five worst teams in the league, meaning that if a draft had more than one marquee prospect (a generally rare occurrence), it would still be

2318-593: The draft while poor performing teams benefit by having good early picks to select talent. Often, closed leagues have a draft lottery to discourage tanking . Closed league systems have been subject to debate over whether the system creates better and more fair competition in comparison to open leagues, and whether they are more financially viable. Proponents for closed leagues often argue that this system leads to more financially stable and profitable teams and creates less risk for owners due to teams not needing to spend money in order to stay competitive to avoid relegation to

2379-477: The first player ever drafted to the WNBA. Lauren Jackson is the youngest No. 1 draft pick, being drafted at the age of 19. As of 2012, six first picks have gone on to win WNBA Championships, with 12 rings among them. In the seventeen seasons that the WNBA has been in existence, eight No. 1 draft picks have helped lead their teams to a playoff berth in their rookie year. Draft (sports) A draft

2440-508: The first two selections. Starting with the 2022 lottery , the team winning one of the two lotteries is only allowed to move up a maximum of ten spots in the draft order and teams will only be allowed to win the lottery twice in a five-year period. The three major junior leagues that make up the Canadian Hockey League also hold drafts of teenage players in their territories. Major League Baseball holds two drafts each year. In June,

2501-418: The first-year player draft, MLB's entry draft, takes place. Only players from Canada, the U.S. or a U.S. territory may be drafted; players from elsewhere are free agents and can be signed by any team. Draftees are high-school graduates who have opted not to go to college; college baseball players at four-year institutions who have played three years or turned 21; or junior college baseball players. As of 2021,

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2562-465: The latter category containing one Canadian school, Simon Fraser ). International players, which can compose up to half of a CFL team's roster, are not subject to a draft and enter the league by way of the negotiation list , a process that allows a CFL team to unilaterally stake claim to any international player on a first-come, first-served basis without the player's consent and bar them from negotiating with any other CFL team. This includes almost all of

2623-469: The league closer in line with global standards within the sport. The Premier Lacrosse League held its first collegiate draft in 2019, shortly before the start of its inaugural season. The WNBA draft is held every spring. It has had several locations during its history; the most recent draft in 2022 took place in New York City, following two drafts held virtually due to COVID-19 concerns. The draft

2684-718: The league has also irregularly held both expansion drafts to help stock the rosters of new teams, and a dispersal draft in which teams could select players from a defunct team . On August 22, 2024, the NWSL announced the elimination of its draft and discovery systems as part of its renegotiated collective bargaining agreement with the National Women's Soccer League Players Association . NWSL teams could pursue and sign any prospective collegiate and international players as free agents, transfers between NWSL teams would require player consent, and all contracts would become guaranteed, bringing

2745-495: The league's quarterbacks . In the inaugural 2018 Global T20 Canada a player draft was held for franchises to choose the players from the available pool. Draft order in the NFL is determined in a reverse-record order (the previous season's worst team picking first, the Super Bowl winner picking last). There are 7 rounds of the draft (a maximum of 224 picks), so each team can have 7 selections, plus whatever compensatory selections

2806-643: The league's perennial contenders. It was adopted by the precursor of the National Basketball Association in 1947; by the National Hockey League in 1963; and by Major League Baseball in 1965, although draft systems had been used in baseball since the 19th century. Major Indoor Lacrosse League ( National Lacrosse League ) adopted a collegiate draft in 1988, Major League Soccer in 2000, Major League Lacrosse in 2001, and Major League Rugby in 2020. Sports drafts are uncommon outside

2867-457: The league. It was also a result of the failure of country zoning , introduced in the late 1960s, which had led to a systematic inequality whereby the clubs with the best zones, like Carlton and Hawthorn , could dominate over clubs with poorer zones like Melbourne . In the AFL Draft, clubs receive picks based on the position in which they finish on the ladder. Therefore, the teams that finish at

2928-535: The main auction takes place there is then a rookie draft where each team has two minutes to pick one rookie player that is 18-22 years of age. The team that finished last place in the last season is the first to pick and the team that finished first in the last season is the last to pick. When the Russian Superleague became the Kontinental Hockey League , the collective bargaining agreement between

2989-482: The previous season usually get to choose first in the postseason draft, sometimes with a "lottery" factor to discourage teams from deliberately losing. Other types of drafts include the expansion draft , in which a new team selects players from other teams in the league, and the dispersal draft, in which a league's surviving teams select players from the roster of a newly defunct franchise. Major professional sports leagues also have special contingency plans for rebuilding

3050-519: The secondary mid season transfer window runs one month from early July to early August. Major League Rugby implemented its first collegiate draft in 2020 . Players are eligible for draft after 3 years in college at 21 years old. Free agents can try to join teams at 18 years old. Major League Wrestling held its first draft in 2021. NLL held its first collegiate draft in 1988 as Major Indoor Lacrosse League . The National Women's Soccer League used drafts from its inaugural 2013 season until

3111-647: The shuttering of the Houston Comets , and in 2010 when the Maloofs cast off the Sacramento Monarchs to focus their resources on the Kings franchise in the NBA. There are no restrictions on what part of the world the players come from (though under varying rules, international players have been subject to tighter age restrictions within the draft than college players). However, college sports governing bodies, most notably

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3172-438: The skill ceiling that the league hopes to achieve. Opponents of closed leagues argue that there are more games where something is "at stake" in a promotion and relegation structure, which could increase interest in the league's games. In addition, opponents argue that a closed system leads to teams tanking in order to receive better draft picks. Opponents also argue that a promotion and relegation system increases competition in

3233-546: The start of the season, either in the last days of April or the start of May. It was formerly held as part of the annual league meetings in Hamilton , but is now typically held by conference call with the first two rounds being broadcast live on TSN . Since 2016 , the draft has consisted of eight rounds, with teams drafting in inverse order of their records in the previous season, with the Grey Cup runner-up selecting second-to-last and

3294-419: The time of the draft. Players who wished to enter the 2021 draft had to renounce college eligibility and notify the WNBA offices by email no later than April 1 of that year. Players involved in the 2021 Final Four had 48 hours after the completion of their final game, instead of the normal 24, to notify the league of their intent to enter the draft. The 1997 WNBA draft was divided into three parts. The first part

3355-399: The top pick to the worst team from the year before, the NBA holds a draft lottery to determine who chooses first. The top four picks are allocated by chance among the 14 teams that did not make the playoffs the year before. This discourages a team from losing on purpose to get a better draft pick, but also causes other controversies such as allegations and conspiracy theories suggesting that

3416-592: The weakest teams from a league in exchange for the strongest teams in the next lower league. In Australian rules football 's premier competition, the Australian Football League (AFL), a draft was introduced in 1986 when the competition was then known as the Victorian Football League (VFL). This was in response to the increasing transfer fees and player salaries at the time, which in combination with declining attendances, threatened to derail

3477-745: Was held at Chicago's Auditorium Theatre , and in 2017 it was held on the Rocky Steps at the Philadelphia Museum of Art . The 2018 draft was the first ever to be held at an NFL stadium, namely the Dallas Cowboys ' AT&T Stadium . The NBA Draft, held historically in an NBA city, but in recent drafts in either a theater in the New York area or at the Barclays Center each summer, is only two rounds long (60 picks). Instead of automatically granting

3538-558: Was held every year until MLL merged with the Premier Lacrosse League in December 2020, with the merged league operating under the PLL banner. Major League Soccer has two types of draft that occur each year, plus a third that is held intermittently when the league adds one or more teams . The two annual drafts are the three-round long MLS SuperDraft (a maximum of 81 picks since 2021, down from four rounds and 104 picks in 2020), which

3599-668: Was held for the first time in 2001, and MLS Supplemental Draft , with the MLS Expansion Draft held in the offseason immediately before the league expands. The MLS SuperDraft happens every January. During the draft the teams from the league will pick up to three players each from colleges across the United States. Only players from the American college sports system (e.g., the NCAA and the NAIA ) are eligible to be drafted. Canadian U Sports men's soccer players are not included. The draft

3660-546: Was not universally accepted as England's top competition right away. To help win fans of clubs outside The Football League, a system was established in which the worst teams at the end of each season would need to win re-election against any clubs wishing to join. The rival Football Alliance was then formed in 1889. When the two merged in 1892 it was not on equal terms, with most of the Alliance clubs being put into new Football League Second Division , whose best teams would move up to

3721-549: Was the initial allocation of 16 players into individual teams. Players such as Cynthia Cooper and Michelle Timms were assigned to different teams. The second part was the WNBA Elite draft , which was composed of professional women's basketball players who had competed in other leagues. The last part would be the 4 rounds of the regular draft. The next three seasons to follow 1998 , 1999 and 2000 would all have expansion drafts. There would not be another expansion draft until

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