In many regions of the world like Europe, North Africa, Middle East, Indian subcontinent or Latin America, sports clubs with several sports departments (multisports clubs) or branches, including highly competitive professional teams, are very popular and have developed into some of the most powerful and representative sports institutions in those places. In general, student sports can be described as composed by multisports clubs, each one representing its educational institution and competing in several sport disciplines.
In the United States of America major institutions like The New York Athletic Club, Los Angeles Athletic Club or many university athletic programs such as the California Golden Bears, Stanford Cardinal and Texas Longhorns are good examples of a sports club (see list of College Athletic Programs by US State). However, examples abound of sports clubs that are in effect one sports team. Each team from the NBA (basketball), NFL (American football) or MLS (association football) American sports leagues, can be called sports clubs, but in practice, they focus solely on a single sport. On the other hand, American varsity teams are generally organized into a structure forming a true multi-sport club belonging to an educational institution.
In the United Kingdom, almost all major sports organizations are dedicated to a single sport, with a few minor multisport clubs such as Catford Wanderers. In addition, like in several other countries, many universities and colleges develop a wide range of student sport activities including at a professional or semi-professional level. Fulham F.C. once ran a professional rugby league team and rowing club, which other football clubs have emulated since. Many football clubs originate from cricket teams. Today, most major cities have separate clubs for each sport (e.g. Manchester United football club and Lancashire County Cricket Club are based in Manchester).
Many clubs internationally describe themselves as football clubs ("FC", "Football Club", in English, "CF", Clube de Futebol in Portuguese and Club de Fútbol in Spanish). Generally, British football clubs field only football teams. Their counterparts in several other countries tend to be full multi-sport clubs, even when called football clubs (Futebol Clube do Porto; Società Sportiva Lazio; Futbol Club Barcelona).