Professional football in Canada
Only one professional football league has a permanent presence in Canada: the Canadian Football League (CFL), an organization founded in 1958 to accommodate the ongoing trend of professionalism in the Canadian football ranks since the 1940s. The CFL, like most amateur Canadian football leagues, plays on a larger field using a rulebook with several significant rule differences compared to the game as it is played in the United States. The league is composed of two divisions and nine teams in most of the largest Canadian markets, with at least one team in each province between British Columbia (BC Lions) and Quebec (Montreal Alouettes) inclusive. The only presence in Atlantic Canada is a semi-regular series of games in Moncton (Touchdown Atlantic) and a smattering of earlier preseason contests. The CFL operates a two-week preseason beginning in June, an 18-game season from July to October, and a six-team playoff tournament, culminating in the Grey Cup on the fourth weekend of November.
Professional sports leagues in the United States
Major League Soccer (MLS) is the top-level men's professional soccer league in the United States and Canada. MLS has 23 teams as of the current 2018 season — 20 in the United States and 3 in Canada. The league began play in 1996, its creation a requirement by FIFA for awarding the United States the right to host the 1994 World Cup. MLS is the first Division I outdoor soccer league in the U.S. or Canada since the North American Soccer League operated from 1968 to 1984. MLS has increased in popularity following the adoption of the Designated Player rule in 2007, which allowed MLS to sign stars such as David Beckham and Thierry Henry. In 2014, MLS reported an average attendance of 19,148 per game, with total attendance exceeding 6.1 million overall, both breaking previous MLS attendance records.