they may be required to, Centrum, it simply isn't as easy to terminate a franchise as it once was thought, which is why the terminology 'fold' is never used unless necessary....
only the leagues themselves can terminate a member club's franchise, but it has to be egregious violations of league rules, they just simply suspend or cease operations...
Quad City was not a 'fold' THOUGH, they voluntarily returned their membership.....
why is the company who found the current ownership and are they still actively involved in the ownership search ...
the question becomes if Manchester suspends ops as has now been reported, what recourse does the ECHL HAVE and past history of the league tells you the E keeps certain markets indefinitely....
Manchester now, if it's bleeding red ink in the ECHL, no way does that improve financially in the AHL, THE only thing other than Boston affiliation is flipping Hartford to Manchester, and I'M not sure MSG would be too keen moving further from MSG than where they are
I think that terminology might be confusing to some people.
The way I understand it there are three categories a franchise can be in.
Operational - the team is playing, selling tickets, etc.
Suspended operations - someone still owns the franchise, but they will not be playing for the upcoming or current season.
Terminated - the team no longer exists, and the franchise has been dissolved by the league.
An operational or suspended team can be sold to someone else. A terminated franchise cannot - although the league can create a new franchise via expansion.
"operational" could also be called "active", and probably some other synonyms.
"Suspended operations" is generally the only term used for that category.
"Terminated" can also be referred to as "folded", "ceased operations", "out of business", and probably more synonyms.
Sort of like saying Peter Tork recently died. You might prefer to say he "passed on", "passed away", "croaked", "kicked the bucket", "expired", "perished", "deceased", "gave up the ghost", "expired", or some other synonym. Some imply a particular type of death, but they all mean the same thing in the end.
The league might not like to say "folded" and prefer "ceased operations", "voluntarily returned the franchise to the league" or "terminated", but that is just semantics. Either way the franchise is gone, and if a new team decides to begin they would need to buy an expansion franchise, or buy some other team, because that particular one no longer exists.