Sports League and Organization Abbreviations
63 abbreviations · part of Sports Abbreviations
Professional leagues, college athletic associations, tours and promotions are referred to almost exclusively by their initials in headlines, box scores and broadcasts. This list covers the major North American leagues (NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, MLS), women's leagues, college conferences and divisions, golf and tennis tours, combat-sports promotions, motorsport series and leading leagues abroad. Each entry gives the full name, when the organization was founded and how it differs from similarly named bodies.
| Abbreviation | Stands for | Description |
|---|---|---|
| ACC | Atlantic Coast Conference | NCAA Division I conference stretching from Boston College to Miami and, since 2024, to Stanford and California on the West Coast. |
| AEW | All Elite Wrestling | Professional wrestling promotion based in Jacksonville, Florida, launched in 2019 as the first well-funded US rival to WWE in nearly two decades. |
| AFL | Australian Football League | Top professional league in Australian rules football, with 18 clubs from every mainland state. |
| AHL | American Hockey League | Top development league for the NHL, with 32 teams, nearly all affiliated with a single NHL club. |
| ATP | Association of Tennis Professionals | Body that runs the men's professional tennis circuit, including the ATP Tour, the Challenger Tour and the weekly world rankings. |
| B1G | Big Ten Conference | Logo-style abbreviation of the Big Ten, the oldest NCAA Division I conference, which now has 18 members stretching from Rutgers and Maryland in the east to USC, UCLA… |
| CFL | Canadian Football League | Professional Canadian football league with nine teams, playing a summer and fall season that ends with the Grey Cup in November. |
| CHL | Canadian Hockey League | Umbrella organization for Canada's three major junior hockey leagues: the Ontario Hockey League, the Western Hockey League and the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League. |
| D1 | Division I (NCAA) | Highest level of NCAA college athletics, made up of about 360 schools that offer full athletic scholarships and run large-budget programs. |
| D2 | Division II (NCAA) | Middle tier of NCAA athletics, with about 300 mostly smaller public and private schools. |
| D3 | Division III (NCAA) | Largest NCAA division by membership, with more than 430 schools, many of them small private colleges. |
| ECHL | ECHL (formerly East Coast Hockey League) | Professional hockey league one level below the AHL, with about 30 teams across the United States and Canada, most of them affiliated with NHL and AHL clubs. |
| EFL | English Football League | Professional league system directly below the Premier League in England, made up of the Championship, League One and League Two, with 72 clubs in total. |
| EPL | English Premier League | Top tier of English men's soccer, contested by 20 clubs that each play 38 matches from August to May. |
| F1 | Formula One | Highest class of international single-seater auto racing, sanctioned by the FIA. |
| FIFA | Fédération Internationale de Football Association (International Federation of Association Football) | World governing body of soccer, with 211 member associations. |
| HOF | Hall of Fame | Museum and honor roll that inducts the greatest players, coaches and contributors in a sport, chosen by sportswriters or selection committees. |
| IMSA | International Motor Sports Association | North American sanctioning body for sports-car racing, best known for the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, whose season opens with the Rolex 24 at Daytona in January… |
| IOC | International Olympic Committee | Organization that governs the Olympic movement and awards the Summer, Winter and Youth Olympic Games to host cities. |
| IPL | Indian Premier League | Professional Twenty20 cricket league in India, played each spring by ten franchise teams over about two months. |
| KBO | KBO League (Korea Baseball Organization) | South Korea's top professional baseball league, with ten teams and a season that ends in the Korean Series. |
| KHL | Kontinental Hockey League | International professional ice hockey league based in Russia, also including clubs from Belarus, Kazakhstan and China. |
| LIV | LIV Golf (Roman numeral 54) | Professional men's golf league funded by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, launched in June 2022. |
| LPGA | Ladies Professional Golf Association | Leading professional women's golf tour, staging about 30 events a year on several continents, including five major championships. |
| MiLB | Minor League Baseball | Umbrella for the professional leagues below MLB, organized since 2021 into Triple-A, Double-A, High-A and Single-A, with 120 affiliated clubs (four per major league… |
| MLB | Major League Baseball | Highest level of professional baseball, consisting of 30 clubs split evenly between the American League and the National League. |
| MLBPA | Major League Baseball Players Association | Labor union representing major league baseball players, often called the strongest union in American sports. |
| MLS | Major League Soccer | Top-division men's professional soccer league in the United States and Canada. |
| NAIA | National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics | Governing body for athletics at roughly 240 smaller colleges, separate from the NCAA. |
| NASCAR | National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing | Sanctioning body for stock car racing in the United States, best known for the Cup Series and its season-opening Daytona 500. |
| NBA | National Basketball Association | Premier men's professional basketball league, made up of 30 teams: 29 in the United States and the Toronto Raptors in Canada. |
| NBL | National Basketball League (Australia) | Australia's top men's professional basketball league, with ten teams including the New Zealand Breakers. |
| NBPA | National Basketball Players Association | Labor union representing NBA players, which negotiates the collective bargaining agreement with the league covering the salary cap, contract rules, revenue sharing and… |
| NCAA | National Collegiate Athletic Association | Governing body for college sports at about 1,100 US colleges and universities, organized into Divisions I, II and III. |
| NFL | National Football League | Top professional American football league in the United States, with 32 teams divided into the American Football Conference and the National Football Conference. |
| NFLPA | National Football League Players Association | Labor union representing NFL players, which negotiates the collective bargaining agreement covering salaries, the salary cap, benefits, discipline and working conditions. |
| NHL | National Hockey League | Top professional ice hockey league, with 32 teams in the United States and Canada split into Eastern and Western Conferences. |
| NHRA | National Hot Rod Association | Largest drag-racing sanctioning body in the world, running a national professional series and grassroots events at hundreds of tracks. |
| NIL | Name, image and likeness | Athletes' right to earn money from endorsements, sponsorships, autographs and social-media posts that use their own name, image and likeness. |
| NPB | Nippon Professional Baseball | Japan's top professional baseball organization, with 12 teams split into the Central League and the Pacific League. |
| NRL | National Rugby League | Top professional rugby league competition in Australia and New Zealand, with 17 clubs as of 2025. |
| NWSL | National Women's Soccer League | Top-division women's professional soccer league in the United States, featuring many US and international national-team players. |
| Pac-12 | Pacific-12 Conference | NCAA Division I conference on the US West Coast that lost ten of its twelve members to other leagues in 2024, leaving only Oregon State and Washington State. |
| PBA | Philippine Basketball Association | Professional basketball league in the Philippines and the oldest pro basketball league in Asia. |
| PBR | Professional Bull Riders | Organization running the top professional bull riding tours, in which riders try to stay on a bucking bull for eight seconds and are scored by judges on both rider and… |
| PFL | Professional Fighters League | Mixed martial arts promotion that uses a season format: fighters earn points in regular-season bouts and advance to playoffs, with a large cash prize for each… |
| PGA | PGA Tour | Organizer of the main men's professional golf circuit in North America, running weekly tournaments such as the Players Championship and the season-ending FedEx Cup… |
| PLL | Premier Lacrosse League | Professional field lacrosse league in North America, playing a summer season that ends with a championship weekend in September. |
| PWHL | Professional Women's Hockey League | Top professional women's ice hockey league in North America, launched in January 2024 with six teams in the United States and Canada. |
| SEC | Southeastern Conference | NCAA Division I athletic conference with 16 member universities across the American South, including Alabama, Georgia, LSU, Florida and, since 2024, Texas and Oklahoma. |
| UEFA | Union of European Football Associations | Governing body of European soccer and one of FIFA's six continental confederations, with 55 member associations. |
| UFC | Ultimate Fighting Championship | World's largest mixed martial arts promotion, based in Las Vegas. |
| UFL | United Football League | US spring professional football league formed in 2024 by merging the XFL and USFL, playing from late March to a championship game in June. |
| USFL | United States Football League | Spring professional football league that played from 1983 to 1985 with stars such as Herschel Walker, Jim Kelly and Steve Young. |
| USL | United Soccer League | Organization running professional and amateur soccer leagues in the United States, including the second-tier USL Championship, the third-tier USL League One and the… |
| WEC | FIA World Endurance Championship | World championship for sports-car endurance racing, featuring races of six to 24 hours with crews of two or three drivers sharing a car. |
| WNBA | Women's National Basketball Association | Professional women's basketball league played during the North American summer. |
| WRC | World Rally Championship | FIA world championship for rallying, in which drivers and co-drivers race against the clock over closed stages of gravel, snow and asphalt rather than wheel to wheel. |
| WSL | Women's Super League | Top tier of women's soccer in England, contested by 12 clubs in 2025-26, including Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester City. |
| WTA | Women's Tennis Association | Organizing body of women's professional tennis, responsible for the WTA Tour, the women's world rankings and the season-ending WTA Finals. |
| WWE | World Wrestling Entertainment | Largest professional wrestling company, producing scripted matches for the weekly shows Raw and SmackDown and premium live events such as WrestleMania. |
| WWF | World Wrestling Federation | Former name of WWE, used from 1979 to 2002, the era of Hulk Hogan's "Hulkamania" and the late-1990s "Attitude Era" with Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock. |
| XFL | XFL (no official expansion) | Name of two short-lived US spring football leagues: a 2001 version owned by WWE and NBC, and a revival that played in 2020 and 2023. |