Franchise

Meanings of franchise:

Full rights of citizenship given by a country or a town, especially suffrage (political franchise)
In a wider sense: any right or privilege granted by constitution or statute.
Franchising – a business model.
In government, franchise may also mean the granting of permission by a government to a service provider to use the public right-of-way. Examples include sewer pipes, water pipes, telecommunications conduit, gas pipes, electrical lines, and garbage collection. Franchises may be exclusive (such as garbage collection where everyone receives refuse collection from the same company or agency) or nonexclusive (such as telecommunications from multiple carriers).
In sport, a franchise is a club given permanent rights to play in a specific league. This concept is standard in the United States and Canada, but is foreign to sport structures in most of the rest of the world.

See also