Dispersal draft
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A dispersal draft is a process in professional sports for assigning players to a new team when their current team folds, consolidates with another team, or for some other reason ceases to exist. Since most sports drafts are held in North America, this is where most dispersal drafts are conducted as well. Since no major professional sports team has folded in decades, dispersal drafts are more commonly seen in emerging sports (such as soccer or women's basketball in the United States) where initial support for a team failed to remain consistent and the team was unable to survive financially.
Examples of dispersal drafts
- In 1991, the National Hockey League conducted a dispersal draft in order to split a new team, the San Jose Sharks, off of the Minnesota North Stars as a compromise when the Minnesota owners requested permission to move the franchise to the San Francisco Bay Area.
- In 2002, Major League Soccer held a dispersal draft after shutting down the Tampa Bay Mutiny and Miami Fusion teams. See 2002 MLS Dispersal Draft.
- The Cleveland Rockers of the WNBA folded after the 2003 season, after the company that owned the team announced that they would no longer operate the team and the league could not find a suitable owner to run the Cleveland franchise. Sixteen players were available in the draft - each remaining WNBA team was allowed a draft pick, in reverse order of their regular-season record for the season. Thirteen players were ultimately drafted by other teams.
- The Major Indoor Soccer League shut down two teams in December of 2004 - the San Diego Sockers and Monterrey Fury - over various issues with the operation of those teams. Players in those teams were then distributed to remaining teams in a dispersal draft. The order of player selection was based on the winning percentage of the remaining teams from the 2003-04 season and the 2004-2005 season up to that point.
- On April 9, 2006, the Ottawa Renegades had their team operations suspended by the Canadian Football League. On April 12, 2006, the former players still under contract (and those that the Renegades had the rights to) were distributed amongst the remaining 8 teams. The worst team from the previous year selected first and went until all players were selected or all teams passed on the remaining players. Quarterback Kerry Joseph was selected #1 overall by the Saskatchewan Roughriders after they traded with the Hamilton Tigercats for the rights to the #1 pick.
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