Baseball in the United States the Atlanta Braves' affiliates except the Carolina Mudcats. Minor League teams that are owned directly by the major league Club do not have PDCs with each other and are not part of the reaffiliation shuffles that occur every other year. A special minor league is the Arizona Fall League. It operates outside the Minor League Baseball hierarchy and is owned by MLB as a whole; teams generally assign prospects from the AAA and AA classes to the league's six teams. Today, 19 affiliated minor baseball leagues operate with 246 member clubs in large, medium, and small towns, as well as
Sports in the Tampa Bay Area play in Major League Baseball (MLB). Additionally, six MLB teams hold their spring training camps in the area. A number of minor league franchises play in the region as well, including the Tampa Bay Rowdies of the United Soccer League, and four minor league baseball teams competing in the Class-A Florida State League. In intercollegiate sports, the University of South Florida Bulls compete in NCAA Division I, while Eckerd College, Saint Leo University and the University of Tampa compete in NCAA Division II. Professional football first arrived in the Tampa Bay area in 1964, when the American Football League staged