and Lithuania use promotion and relegation. In the same vein, Australia's A-League Men does not use the pyramid structure normally found in football, but instead follows the tradition of Australian sports having a franchise model and a post-season playoff system. This model better suits a country with a few important central locations where a sport needs to ensure there is a team playing with no risk of relegation. Likewise, the American franchise model is used by rugby union's Super Rugby, which features 12 non-European franchises. Australia and New Zealand have five franchises each; one franchise represents Fiji but currently plays most of its "home" games in Australia; and one franchise represents the Pacific islands as a whole (mainly Samoa and Tonga) but is based in New Zealand. Super Rugby also formerly featured franchises in South Africa, Japan, and Argentina. In east Asia, places such as Japan, China, South Korea and Taiwan have a particular differentiation among leagues: "European" sports such as football and rugby use promotion and relegation, while "American" sports such as baseball and basketball use franchising and minor leagues, with a few differences varying from country to country. A similar situation exists in countries in Central America and the Caribbean, where football and baseball share several close markets. Historical comparisons A major factor in the development of the North American closed membership system during the 19th Century was the distances between cities, with some teams separated by half of the North American continent, resulting in high traveling costs. When the National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs was established in 1876, its founders judged that in order to prosper, they must make baseball's highest level of competition 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 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