Brian Ross
Senior Editor
Minor League News

Class Act: What are the AAA? AA?

What am I watching when I go to a AAA level game? What is AAA anyway?

One sport, baseball, organized many of the professional leagues below it into a dedicated "farm system."

Originally created by Branch Rickey in the 1930s to develop players for the St. Louis Cardinals organization, the class system has become a way of sorting and categorizing professional athletes into levels of ability and readiness.

By theory, AAA players in the system are the best below the major league, the Class-AA are a notch below that, Single-A, and then Rookie.

Affiliated baseball breaks the A leagues into High-A, A, and Short-Season A.

In other sports, the editors of Minor League News use the same class system designations but they have slightly different meaning.

Outside of baseball, basketball and hockey have fully affiliated minor leagues in a more limited form.

MLN ranks leagues for the players that they contribute to the majors and the quality of players and franchise operations that they run. Guidelines include league size relative to other leagues, financial strength, franchise durability, player quality, and rules regarding the number of years that veteran players can remain in any one league.

The class system outside of affiliated baseball is a rule of thumb. Our system is developed from our years of observing the leagues and their member clubs, and comparing them to other past and present leagues.

The National Basketball Association (NBA) has the NBA D-League, a one league system at the AAA level with direct affiliation to the major league.

The American Hockey League (AHL) has teams with direct affiliation to one or more National Hockey League (NHL) clubs.

NBA clubs are not restricted in their player acquisitions to the NBA's D-League. The independent Continental Basketball Association (CBA) is a AAA league because it routinely sends several players to the NBA teams each year. The USBL, which develops players for the CBA, NBDL and international leagues, we classify as a supporting AA league. The ABA, for the level of talent that it garners, its short time as a modern league, and a perceived lack of stability in the organization, we classify as an A.

Football has no comprehensive, direct farm system. Classifications of leagues in football is subjective, based somewhat on common understanding, and, in the case of Minor League News publications, based somewhat on guidelines that our editorial staff uses.

In hockey there is a strong association between the NHL and the American Hockey League (AHL). NHL teams own a few AHL clubs, or directly own many AHL player contracts, and they have one-to-one affiliations with the major league. We designate that league as Class-AAA.

Beyond that, we use the designations for the hockey leagues, but it is fuzzier. The NHL stocks a large number of its players in amateur Canadian Junior and international hockey leagues. There are very few players in the Class AA professional leagues who get much of a shot at an NHL career. They play largely at the level that they will stay at until they retire.

The Central Hockey League (CHL) and the East Coast Hockey League (ECHL) are the two largest North American professional leagues below the AHL. They have some direct affiliations with the NHL as Class AA teams, and some with just AHL teams as support or feeder league. Both leagues have instituted rules that limit the number of long-term veterans that remain on teams. Thus far they have not been able to score any kind of permanent development relationship with the NHL, which still can warehouse young talent cheaper and better in the juniors and internationals.

The United Hockey League (UHL) has some affiliations, but its size, quality of ownership, markets and the players it attracts make it a Class-AA league that holds on to that status somewhat tenuously.

The new Southeast Professional Hockey League (SPHL) and Northern League of Professional Hockey (NLPH) are Class-A leagues.

There is no professional "Rookie" class in hockey. The amateur Canadian Junior leagues make up that level.

Football is divided into the Class AAA Arena Football League (AFL) and the Class AA arenafootball2 (af2) and the Class A National Indoor Football League (NIFL) as well as the American Indoor Football League (AIFL) and the Independent Professional Football League (IPFL).

For a list of affiliated baseball classes and the leagues in them, see our Baseball FAQ. Even in baseball, where the tiering is set by the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues (NAPBL), the class system is a really more of a guideline than a steadfast rule.

Many scouts and fans alike in baseball will tell you that fast-track talent gathers in the AA leagues. There are many players that jump from the AA level to the majors without having seen a day at the AAA club.

Major league players on rehab used to report to the AAA level for work prior to their return to their team. These days, the team geographically closest in the farm system hosts players on the mend.

In baseball, players are evaluated each Spring and throughout the year, and are moved up or down in the farm system.

They are moved based on ability, maturity in handling both the game and life, or for playing time.

Players from the Dominican Republic may spend two years in the Domincan Summer League being acclamated to the conditioning of professional baseball, learning language skills, and life skills to prepare them for the very different world of life in the United States.

Some players will be moved down a rank because of a slump in their play. Others will need to work on a particular situation or type of play. Still others may lack the emotional skills, self-discipline, or communications tools to advance.

Obviously, the quality of play changes at each level of the game. Yet, just as many people watch college football because there is more opportunity for action at the amateur level, these lower ranks of professionals can often have more exciting games than one sees for most of the season in the majors.

For most of these young men and women, there is no tomorrow unless they produce. None make very much money, so they thrive on a lot of passion and intensity. It is that spirit which millions of fans have found appealing enough to make minor league sports the fastest-growing segment of the sports industry.

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