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A dispersal draft is a process in professional sports for assigning players to a new team when their existing team folds or is merged with another team. Like most other sports drafts, most dispersal drafts are conducted in closed leagues and are intended to prevent bidding wars and to maintain a league's competitive balance when absorbing a folded or merged team's roaster into the rest of a league as generally they would all turn into free agents following their team's destablishment.
Dispersal drafts are more commonly seen in emerging sports (such as soccer or women's basketball in the United States) or alternative leagues where initial support for a team failed to remain consistent and the team was unable to survive financially resulting in a team folding or merging with another team.