One thing I have never understood about American sports is the 'playoff' system you have. Can somebody please explain to me how they work?

 

Are they the same for Baseball, Basketball etc?

What exactly happens?

In NFL American Football it kind of goes like this. There's 2 conferences AFC & NFC (American & National Football League). At the end of the regular season, within each conference the top 6 teams go through to the playoffs. The top 2 ranked teams of each conference gets a bye week off. Of the remaining teams, the top rank team plays the lowest rank within their conference, similar to the English Football playoff, in that third place will play the sixth place, at the home ground of the higher ranking team. The winners of each game then goes through to the next round, which now includes the top two teams which had a bye week off. This continues until there's a final winner of each conference. These two conference champions then contest for the Superbowl, the winner of this is the eventual NFL Champion.

 

NBA Basketball is similar but there's no bye week off. The top 8 teams of the East & West leagues qualify for the playoffs. No.1 plays against No.8, No.2 plays against No.7 & so on. They play a best of seven games & the winner of this series then goes into the next round. At the end, the one remaining team from the Eastern Conference, plays the winner from the Western Conference to contest the NBA Championship.

 

Ice Hockey & Baseball I cannot comment on, as I don't follow these sports.

 

I hope this helps in some way, but if any of our US fellow mongers would like to comment further, then please do so.

 

So even if you finish top of the league at the end of the season then you are not the overall champions until you win the playoff?

That's right. This NFL season just gone, the New England Patriots won every single game in the regular season, only the second time it has ever been done, but in the Superbowl final they lost to the New York Giants. Therefore the Giants are the NFL Champs.

 

I guess the whole point of winning as many games as possible during the regular season is to have a higher ranking, & therefore the home crowd advantage during the play-offs.

That's right. This NFL season just gone, the New England Patriots won every single game in the regular season, only the second time it has ever been done, but in the Superbowl final they lost to the New York Giants. Therefore the Giants are the NFL Champs.

 

Kind of makes the whole thing laughable IMHO.

Kind of makes the whole thing laughable IMHO.

 

 

I concur

Kind of makes the whole thing laughable IMHO.

 

Well I see your perspective and I can see the answer being yes and no.

 

In the past, there was one league. It was called the NFL. There were two divisions. They played and the top two teams played for the NFL championship. Then came the AFL. (Two leagues) So there needed to be a way to have the NFL champion play the AFL champion. They created the Superbowl.

 

Later, after the leagues merged, there needed to be a way to ensure some level of parity as in some cases you'd have a division champion with fewer wins than a 2nd or 3rd place team in another division. So you could say the division winner had the right to go and sorry or you could "OK division winner with fewer wins, prove you're the better team by beating a team that finished lower in another division, but has a better won/loss record. And the playoff system as we currently know it was born.

 

So this is not a direct parallel, but I've tried to compare to a structure you're more famililar (and that I promise I'll totally fu*k up beyond all recognition, or FUBAR)

 

Winners of the 4 divisions in each conference (league) along with 2 wild card teams from the regular season move on to the next level. We call that the playoffs, and I'll loosly compare it to your champions league. The 6 teams from each conference are ranked from top to bottom and the top 2 don't play in the first round.

3 plays 6 and 4 plays 5.

The following week, 1 plays lowest ranked and 2 plays the other.

The following week, the winners play each other. (Conference Champion)

Two weeks later, the two conference champions compete for the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl winner is called the NFL Champion.

 

So that is how a team that has been undefeated in the regular season (premier league) can go onto the playoffs (champions league) and lose the Superbowl (UEFACup).

 

Under the old system, the previously undefeated team (Patriots) would have been the American Football League Champions and they lost to the National Football League Champions in the SuperBowl.

 

I think the key difference is that the NFL places its 32 teams in 8 divisions.

Whereas when I look at the Barclay's Premier League website, I only see a single ranking from top to bottom. http://www.premierleague.com/page/LeagueTa...,,12306,00.html

 

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Baseball

 

This used to be easy. There is an American League and a National League. For each league, there were two divisions (east/west). For the regular season, teams would complete to see who won the pennant (division). The two division winners would play for league championship. Then the champion of each league would play in the MLB Championship which is called the "World Series". Like most things America, this isn't very global in it's calling. Now with expansion of teams, MLB has introduced a playoffs system as well.

 

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NHL (Hockey)

 

Has the longest playoffs because they allow the most teams to compete for Lord Stanley's cup. (16 teams: 8 in each conference)

 

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NBA (Basketball)

 

Like the NHL, has the longest playoffs because they allow 16 teams to compete for Larry O'Brien NBA Championship Trophy. Until recently, NBA playoffs was shorter in length than NHL as the first series was best of 5 instead of best of 7.

 

Hope that explains it even if it's clear as mud.

Edited May 25, 200818 yr by arbiez