NEW YORK -- The NFL has the strongest credit among the major U.S. professional sports and the NHL has the weakest, according to Moody's Investors Service.

Moody's ranked the NFL highly because teams share most revenue equally, and the league makes teams fund deferred compensation in advance.

''Few player contracts are guaranteed, which results in controllable and predictable player expenses,'' Neil Begley of Moody's said Thursday. ''The league's collective bargaining agreement is the strongest in sports, with a salary cap that limits the growth of players' salaries to a fixed percentage of revenues.''

NASCAR was ranked second, cited for its revenue sharing and attendance growth.

''In addition, corporate sponsorship is on the rise, contributing more than $1.5 billion to the sport annually,'' Begley said.

The NBA was third, with a strong league structure and salary cap cited as positives. Moody's said there was more variability in local broadcast money.

''Ticket revenues and local broadcast rights are also not shared among teams,'' Begley said.

Moody's said that while Major League Baseball's new labor contract increases revenue sharing among the teams, ''it still falls short of achieving a balance that will significantly improve credit quality and league-wide health.''

Baseball's small-market teams aren't able to compete against the large-market teams that can sign large television and advertising contracts, Begley said. ''There is also some medium-term uncertainty, since both the collective bargaining agreement and national broadcasting contract will expire in 2006.''

The NHL is considered to be the weakest major U.S. sports league by Moody's, which anticipates a strike when the current labor deal expires in 2005.

''The NHL suffers from the wide-scale lack of profitability of its member teams,'' Begley said.

Of the six Canadian-based teams, for example, only the Toronto Maple Leafs are financially sound, Begley said, and according to Forbes, only 19 of the 30 teams generate positive operating income.