Dispersal Draft

A dispersal draft is a process in professional sports for assigning players to a new team when their current team ceases to exist or is merged with another team. 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 or merged since 1978, 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.