Playoff
Encyclopedia
The playoffs, postseason, or finals of a sports league
Sports league
League is a term commonly used to describe a group of sports teams or individual athletes that compete against each other in a specific sport. At its simplest, it may be a local group of amateur athletes who form teams among themselves and compete on weekends; at its most complex, it can be an...

 are a game or series of games played after the regular season by the top competitors, usually but not always with a single-elimination
Single-elimination tournament
A single-elimination tournament, also called a knockout, cup or sudden death tournament, is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of each match or bracket is immediately eliminated from winning the championship or first prize in the event...

 system, to determine the league champion or a similar accolade.

In the U.S. and Canada, the vast distances and consequent burdens on cross-country travel have led to regional groupings of teams, usually called divisions. Generally, during the regular season, teams play more games against opponents that are within their own grouping than those outside it. Since every team has not necessarily had a chance to prove itself against every other team, a playoff is necessary every season. Any team that wins its grouping is eligible to participate in the playoffs. As playoffs became more popular, they were expanded to allow teams that finished second or even lower in the grouping to participate. If a team has to be the best of all the lower-ranked teams, these teams are known as wild card
Wild card (sports)
The term wild card refers broadly to a tournament or playoff berth awarded to an individual or team that has not qualified through normal play.-International sports:...

 teams, such as in the Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...

 system.

In England playoffs are used in association football to decide promotion for lower finishing teams, rather than to decide a champion in the way they are used in North America. In the Championship
Football League Championship
The Football League Championship is the highest division of The Football League and second-highest division overall in the English football league system after the Premier League...

 (the second tier of English football) teams finishing 3rd to 6th after the regular season compete to decide the final promotion spot to the Premier League.

National Basketball Association

The present organization known as the National Basketball Association
National Basketball Association
The National Basketball Association is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in North America. It consists of thirty franchised member clubs, of which twenty-nine are located in the United States and one in Canada...

, then called the BAA (Basketball Association of America), had its inaugural season in 1946–47.

In the current system, eight clubs from each of the league's two conferences qualify for the playoffs, with separate playoff brackets for each conference. In the 2002–03 season, the first-round series were expanded from best-of-5 to best-of-7; all other series have always been best-of-7. In all series, home games alternate between the two teams in a 2-2-1-1-1 format, except the NBA World Championship.

The 2-3-2 finals format was adopted for the 1985 finals, copying the format that was then in effect in the National Hockey League. Prior to 1985, almost all finals were played in the 2-2-1-1-1 format (although the 1971 finals between Milwaukee and Baltimore were on an alternate-home basis, some 1950s finals used the 2-3-2 format, and the 1975 Golden State-Washington and 1978 and 1979 Seattle-Washington finals were on a 1-2-2-1-1 basis). Also, prior to the 1980s, East and West playoffs were on an alternate-home basis except for those series when distance made the 2-2-1-1-1 format more practical.

Teams are seeded according to their regular-season record. The three division champions and best division runner-up receive the top four seeds, with their ranking based on regular-season record. The remaining teams are seeded strictly by regular-season record. However, should the best division runner-up have a higher record than other division champs, it could be seeded as high as 2nd.

However, the NBA system differs from other sports playoffs in the fact that division champions are not guaranteed home-court advantage at any time in the playoffs, as home-court advantage is decided strictly on regular-season record, without regard to seeding.

The NBA playoffs are often criticized for having too many teams, as it is common to see teams with losing regular season records in the playoffs.

National Football League

Evidence of playoffs in professional football
Professional football
In the United States and Canada, the term professional football includes the professional forms of American and Canadian gridiron football. In common usage, it refers to former and existing major football leagues in either country...

 dates to at least 1919, when the "New York Pro Championship
New York Pro Football League
The New York Pro Football League was a professional American football league active in the 1910s and based in upstate New York, primarily Western New York. Between 1920 and 1921, the league's best teams were absorbed into the National Football League, though none survive in that league today...

" was held in Western New York
Western New York
Western New York is the westernmost region of the state of New York. It includes the cities of Buffalo, Rochester, Niagara Falls, the surrounding suburbs, as well as the outlying rural areas of the Great Lakes lowlands, the Genesee Valley, and the Southern Tier. Some historians, scholars and others...

 (it's possible one was held in 1917, but that's not known for sure). The Buffalo
Buffalo, New York
Buffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...

 and Rochester
Rochester, New York
Rochester is a city in Monroe County, New York, south of Lake Ontario in the United States. Known as The World's Image Centre, it was also once known as The Flour City, and more recently as The Flower City...

 metropolitan areas each played a championship game, the winners of which would advance to the "New York Pro Championship" on Thanksgiving weekend. The top New York teams were eventually absorbed into the NFL upon its founding in 1920, but the league (mostly driven by an Ohio League
Ohio League
The Ohio League was an informal and loose association of American football clubs active between 1903 and 1919 that competed for the Ohio Independent Championship . As the name implied, its teams were based in Ohio...

 that did not have true championship games, though they frequently scheduled de facto championship matchups) did not adopt the New York league's playoff format, opting for a championship based on regular season record for its first twelve seasons; as a result, four of the first six "championships" were disputed. Technically, a vote of league owners was all that was required to win a title, but the owners had a gentlemen's agreement
Gentlemen's agreement
A gentlemen's agreement is an informal agreement between two or more parties. It may be written, oral, or simply understood as part of an unspoken agreement by convention or through mutually beneficial etiquette. The essence of a gentlemen's agreement is that it relies upon the honor of the parties...

 to pledge votes based on a score (wins divided by the sum of wins and losses, with a few tiebreakers). When two teams tied at the top of the standings in 1932, an impromptu playoff game
NFL Playoff Game, 1932
The 1932 NFL Playoff Game was the first ever playoff game held by the National Football League , the major professional American football sports league in the United States. Due to extremely cold weather, the game was played indoors on December 18, 1932 at Chicago Stadium in Chicago...

 was scheduled to settle the tie.

The National Football League
National Football League
The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...

 divided its teams into divisions in 1933 and began holding a single playoff championship game between division winners. In 1950 the NFL absorbed three teams from the rival All-America Football Conference
All-America Football Conference
The All-America Football Conference was a professional American football league that challenged the established National Football League from 1946 to 1949. One of the NFL's most formidable challengers, the AAFC attracted many of the nation's best players, and introduced many lasting innovations...

, and the former "Divisions" were now called "Conferences", echoing the college use of that term. In 1967, the NFL expanded and created four divisions under the two conferences, which led to the institution of a larger playoff tournament. After the AFL-NFL merger
AFL-NFL Merger
The AFL–NFL merger of 1970 was the merger of the two major professional American football leagues in the United States at the time: the National Football League and the American Football League...

 brought the American Football League
American Football League
The American Football League was a major American Professional Football league that operated from 1960 until 1969, when the established National Football League merged with it. The upstart AFL operated in direct competition with the more established NFL throughout its existence...

 into the NFL, the NFL began to use three divisions and a single wild card team in each conference for its playoffs, in order to produce eight contenders out of six divisions; this was later expanded so that more wild card teams could participate.

In 2002 the NFL added its 32nd team, the Houston Texans
Houston Texans
The Houston Texans are a professional American football team based in Houston, Texas. The team is currently a member of the Southern Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...

, and significantly reshuffled its divisional alignment. The league went from 6 division winners and 6 wild card spots to 8 division winners and only 4 wild card qualifiers. The winners of each division automatically earn a playoff spot and a home game in their first rounds, and the two top non-division winners from each conference will also make the playoffs as wild-card teams. The top two teams with the best records in the regular season get a first round bye, and each of the bottom two division winners plays one of the two wild-card teams. Each winner of a wild-card game then plays one of the two bye teams. The winners of these two games go to the conference championships, and the winners of those conference championship games then face each other in the Super Bowl
Super Bowl
The Super Bowl is the championship game of the National Football League , the highest level of professional American football in the United States, culminating a season that begins in the late summer of the previous calendar year. The Super Bowl uses Roman numerals to identify each game, rather...

.

NASCAR

NASCAR
NASCAR
The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing is a family-owned and -operated business venture that sanctions and governs multiple auto racing sports events. It was founded by Bill France Sr. in 1947–48. As of 2009, the CEO for the company is Brian France, grandson of the late Bill France Sr...

 implemented a "playoff" system beginning in 2004, that they coined the "Chase for the NEXTEL Cup
Chase for the Nextel Cup
The Chase for the Sprint Cup, originally known as "The Chase for the Championship" during its creation, and then "The Chase for the Nextel Cup" is the championship system used in NASCAR's top division, the Sprint Cup Series, akin to the postseason in American professional sports leagues...

". Currently, only NASCAR's top series uses the system. In the original version of the Chase (2004–2006), following the 26th race of the season, all drivers in the top 10 and any others within 400 points of the leader got a spot in the 10-race playoff. Like the current system, drivers in the Chase had their point totals adjusted. However, it was based on the number of points at the conclusion of the 26th race. The first-place driver in the standings led with 5,050 points; the second-place driver started with 5,045. Incremental five-point drops continued through 10th place with 5,005 points).

The first major change to the Chase was announced by NASCAR chairman and CEO Brian France
Brian France
Brian France is the CEO and Chairman of NASCAR, taking over the position from his father, Bill France, Jr., in 2003 . He is widely known and regarded as one of the most powerful men in sports. France's family pioneered NASCAR out of a Southeast based sport, into a national and international multi...

 on January 22, 2007. After 26 races, the top 12 drivers advanced to contend for the points championship and points were reset to 5000. Each driver within the top 12 received an additional 10 points for each win during the "regular season," or first 26 races, thus creating a seeding based on wins. As in previous years, the Chase consisted of 10 races and the driver with the most points at the conclusion of the 10 races was the NEXTEL Cup Series
NEXTEL Cup
The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series is the top racing series of the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing . The series was originally known as the Strictly Stock Series and Grand National Series . While leasing its naming rights to R. J...

 Champion. Under the points system then in use, drivers could earn 5 bonus points for leading the most laps, and 5 bonus points for leading a single lap.
Brian France explained why NASCAR made the changes to the chase:
"The adjustments taken [Monday] put a greater emphasis on winning races. Winning is what this sport is all about. Nobody likes to see drivers content to finish in the top 10. We want our sport -- especially during the Chase -- to be more about winning."


Beginning with the 2008 season
2008 in NASCAR
There were three NASCAR national series in 2008:*2008 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series - The top racing series in NASCAR*2008 NASCAR Nationwide Series - The second-tier NASCAR racing series*2008 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series - The third-tier NASCAR racing series...

, the playoff became known as the "Chase for the Sprint Cup" due to the NEXTEL/Sprint
Sprint Nextel
Sprint Nextel Corporation is an American telecommunications company based in Overland Park, Kansas. The company owns and operates Sprint, the third largest wireless telecommunications network in the United States, with 53.4 million customers, behind Verizon Wireless and AT&T Mobility...

 merger.

The current format of the Chase was announced by France on January 26, 2011, along with several other changes, most significantly to the points system. After 26 races, 12 drivers will still advance to the Chase, but the qualifying criteria have changed, as well as the number of base points that drivers receive at the points reset.

Only the top 10 drivers in points now automatically qualify for the Chase. They are joined by two "wild card" qualifiers, specifically the two drivers ranked from 11th through 20th in points who have the most race wins (with tiebreakers used if needed to select exactly two qualifiers). These drivers then have their base points reset to 2,000 instead of the previous 5,000, reflecting the greatly reduced points available from each race (a maximum of 48 for the race winner, as opposed to a maximum of 195 in the pre-2011 system). After the reset, the 10 automatic qualifiers receive 3 bonus points for each race win, while the wild card qualifiers receive no bonus.

Major League Baseball

Major League Baseball (MLB) itself does not use the term "tournament
Tournament
A tournament is a competition involving a relatively large number of competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses:...

" for postseason action. Instead they use the term "postseason" as the title of the official elimination tournament held after the conclusion of Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...

's regular season. It consists of a first round best-of-5 series and two rounds of best-of-seven series for the League Championship and World Series.

MLB has stuck with "____ Series" for each level of its postseason tournament. In the Majors, the singular term "playoff" is reserved for the rare situation in which two (or more) teams find themselves tied at the end of the regular season and are forced to have a tiebreaking playoff game (or games) to determine which team will advance to the postseason. Thus, in the Majors, a "playoff" is actually part of the regular season and thus can be called a "Pennant playoff". However, the plural term "playoffs" is conventionally used by fans and media to refer to baseball's postseason tournament (and has always been used by Minor league baseball
Minor league baseball
Minor league baseball is a hierarchy of professional baseball leagues in the Americas that compete at levels below Major League Baseball and provide opportunities for player development. All of the minor leagues are operated as independent businesses...

 for its own postseason play), so this article defers to that usage.

MLB is the oldest of the major American professional sports, dating back to the with the 1900s. As such, it is steeped in tradition. The final series to determine its champion has been called the "World Series
World Series
The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball, played between the American League and National League champions since 1903. The winner of the World Series championship is determined through a best-of-seven playoff and awarded the Commissioner's Trophy...

" (originally "World's Championship Series" and then "World's Series") as far back as the National League's contests with the American Association
American Association (19th century)
The American Association was a Major League Baseball league that existed for 10 seasons from to . During that time, it challenged the National League for dominance of professional baseball...

 during the 1880s.

National Hockey League



The National Hockey League
National Hockey League
The National Hockey League is an unincorporated not-for-profit association which operates a major professional ice hockey league of 30 franchised member clubs, of which 7 are currently located in Canada and 23 in the United States...

 playoff system is an elimination tournament competition for the Stanley Cup
Stanley Cup
The Stanley Cup is an ice hockey club trophy, awarded annually to the National Hockey League playoffs champion after the conclusion of the Stanley Cup Finals. It has been referred to as The Cup, Lord Stanley's Cup, The Holy Grail, or facetiously as Lord Stanley's Mug...

, consisting of four rounds of best-of-seven series. The first three rounds determine which team from each conference will advance to the final round, dubbed the Stanley Cup Final. The winner of that series becomes the NHL and Stanley Cup champion. The current Stanley Cup Champions
2011 Stanley Cup Finals
The 2011 Stanley Cup Finals was the championship series of the National Hockey League , and the culmination of the 2011 Stanley Cup playoffs. It was the 118th year of the Stanley Cup's presentation. The Eastern Conference Champion Boston Bruins defeated the Western Conference Champion Vancouver...

 are the Boston Bruins
Boston Bruins
The Boston Bruins are a professional ice hockey team based in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. They are members of the Northeast Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League . The team has been in existence since 1924, and is the league's third-oldest team and its oldest in the...

.

The first round of the playoffs, or Conference Quarterfinals, consists of four match-ups in each conference, based on the seedings (# 1 vs. # 8, # 2 vs. # 7, # 3 vs. # 6, and # 4 vs. # 5). In the second round, or Conference Semifinals, the top remaining conference seed plays against the lowest remaining seed, and the other two remaining conference teams pair off (unlike the NBA, for example, where the 1–8 winner always plays the 4–5 winner, and the 2-7 to play 3-6, regardless of who wins). In the third round, the Conference Finals, the two remaining teams in each conference play each other, with the conference champions proceeding to the Stanley Cup Final.

For the first three rounds, the higher-seeded team has home-ice advantage (regardless of point record). In the Stanley Cup Finals, it goes to the team with the better regular season record. In all rounds the team with home-ice advantage hosts Games 1, 2, 5 and 7, while the opponent hosts Games 3, 4 and 6 (Games 5–7 are played "if necessary").

Association football

As a rule, international association football (soccer) has only had championship playoffs when a league is divided into several equal divisions/conferences/groups (Major League Soccer
Major League Soccer
Major League Soccer is a professional soccer league based in the United States and sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation . The league is composed of 19 teams — 16 in the U.S. and 3 in Canada...

, Primera División de México
Primera División de México
The Primera División Profesional , known simply as the Primera División, is the top level of the Mexican football league system and is administered by the Mexican Football Federation. It was established in 1943 and as of 2011 has 18 clubs. Up to June 2011, it was divided into three groups competing...

) and/or when the season is split into two periods
Apertura and Clausura
The Apertura and Clausura tournaments are a relatively recent innovation for many Latin American football leagues in which the traditional European football season from August to May is divided in two sections per season, each with its own champion. Apertura and Clausura are the Spanish words for...

 (as in many leagues in Latin America). In leagues with a single table done only once a year, as in most of Europe, playoff systems are not used to determine champions, although in some countries such systems are used to determine teams to be promoted to higher leagues (e.g., England) or qualifiers for European club competitions (such as Greece and the Netherlands).

A test match is a match played at the end of a season between a team that has done badly in a higher league and one that has done well in a lower league of the same football league system
League system
A league system is a hierarchy of leagues in a sport, usually with a system of promotion and relegation between consecutive levels of the hierarchy. They are often called pyramids due to their tendency to split into an increasing number of regional divisions the further down the pyramid one descends...

. The winner of the test match plays in the higher league the following year, and the loser in the lower league.

Belgium

In the Belgian
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

 Pro League, the 15th team out of 16 (starting this year as compared to the 17th out of 18 in previous seasons) in the final standings has to join a playoff pool with three teams from the Belgian Second Division
Belgian Second Division
The Belgian Second Division is the second-highest division in the Belgian football league system after the Belgian Pro League. It was created by the Belgian Football Association in 1905. Between 2008 and 2010 it was named EXQI League after a television channel owned by the league main sponsor,...

 after each season, to determine which of these teams gets to play in the Pro League the oncoming season. The lowest ranked team of the Pro League is relegated and replaced by the Second Division champion.

Originally, these playoffs were introduced in 1974 and were part of the Second Division, to determine which team was promoted to the highest level together with the division champions. From the 2005-06 season on, only one team was relegated directly from the First Division, with the 17th team taking part in the playoff. As a result, this playoff is still called the Belgian Second Division Final Round
Belgian Second Division Final Round
The Belgian Second Division Final Round is the playoff part of the Belgian Second Division. It is a contested by four teams, the winner being promoted to the first division.-Eligibility:...

, although one team from the Pro League now takes part each year.

Starting the 2009-10 season, play-offs are held to determine the champion and tickets for the Champions League and Europa League. The six highest ranked teams play home-and-away matches against each other; a total of 10 matches each. The 6 participating teams start with the points accumulated during the regular competition divided by two. The first 3 teams after play-offs get a European ticket. The fourth ranked team (or fifth, when the cup holder is already qualified for European football) plays a knock-out match against the winner of play-off 2. The teams ranked 7-14 play in two groups. All points gained from the regular competition are lost. The two group winners play a final match to determine the winner of play-off 2. The winning team plays a final match against the fourth ranked team (or fifth) for the last European ticket. http://www.ksvroeselare.be/index.php?id=533

The play-off system has been criticized because more points per match can be earned in the play-off stage than in the regular competition. This way the team who wins the most matches isn't automatically the national champion. The biggest upside in favor of the play-off system is the higher number of matches (40 instead of 34 compared to the previous season) and more topmatches. The extra matches also generate higher revenues for the teams.

Nonetheless, the higher number of matches takes an extra toll on teams and players. Besides play-offs, the Royal Belgian Football Association (KBVB) also introduced Christmas football in order to complete the extra matches in time. This posed some problems because a few matches had to be cancelled due to snowy pitches http://www.sporza.be/cm/sporza/voetbal/Jupiler_Pro_League/091219_charleroi_standard_vooraf. The delays will probably cause the tight schedule to fail and postpone the end of the season.

England

When the Football League
The Football League
The Football League, also known as the npower Football League for sponsorship reasons, is a league competition featuring professional association football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888, it is the oldest such competition in world football...

 was first expanded to two divisions in 1892, test matches were employed to decide relegation and promotion between them, but the practice was scrapped in favour of automatic relegation and promotion in 1898.

The use of play-offs to decide promotion issues returned to the League in 1986 with the desire to reduce the number of mid-table clubs with nothing to play for at the end of the season. The Football Conference
Football Conference
The Football Conference is a football league in England which consists of three divisions called Conference National, Conference North, and Conference South. Some Football Conference clubs are fully professional, such as Luton Town, but most of them are semi-professional...

 introduced play-offs in 2002 after the Football League agreed to a two-club exchange with the Conference.

The top two teams in the Football League Championship
Football League Championship
The Football League Championship is the highest division of The Football League and second-highest division overall in the English football league system after the Premier League...

 and in Football League One
Football League One
Football League One is the second-highest division of The Football League and third-highest division overall in the English football league system....

 are automatically promoted to the division above and thus do not compete in the play-offs. The top three teams in Football League Two
Football League Two
Football League Two is the third-highest division of The Football League and fourth-highest division overall in the English football league system....

 and the champion of Conference National
Conference National
Conference National is the top division of the Football Conference in England. It is the highest level of the National League System and fifth highest of the overall English football league system...

 are also automatically promoted. In each of these divisions the four clubs finishing below the automatic promotion places compete in two-legged semi-finals with the higher-placed club enjoying home advantage in the second leg. The away goals rule
Away goals rule
The away goals rule is a method of breaking ties in association football and other sports when teams play each other twice, once at each team's home ground. By the away goals rule, the team that has scored more goals "away from home" will win if scores are otherwise equal...

 does not apply for the semi-finals, which has led to some games swinging the way of a team that otherwise would have been beaten by the rule. The Football League play-off finals were originally played in two legs, at both teams' home grounds, but were later changed to one-off affairs, which are played at Wembley Stadium
Wembley Stadium
The original Wembley Stadium, officially known as the Empire Stadium, was a football stadium in Wembley, a suburb of north-west London, standing on the site now occupied by the new Wembley Stadium that opened in 2007...

 in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

.

In 2003, Gillingham
Gillingham F.C.
Gillingham Football Club is an English professional football club based in the town of Gillingham, Kent. The only Kent-based club in the Football League, they play their home matches at the Priestfield Stadium...

 proposed replacing the current play-off system with one involving six clubs from each division and replacing the two-legged ties with one-off matches. If adopted, the two higher-placed clubs in the play-offs would have enjoyed first-round byes and home advantage in the semi-finals. It was a controversial proposal — some people did not believe a club finishing eighth in the League could compete in the Premiership
FA Premier League
The Premier League is an English professional league for association football clubs. At the top of the English football league system, it is the country's primary football competition. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with The Football League. The Premier...

 while others found the system too American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 for their liking. Although League chairmen initially voted in favour of the proposal, it was blocked by The FA
The Football Association
The Football Association, also known as simply The FA, is the governing body of football in England, and the Crown Dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. It was formed in 1863, and is the oldest national football association...

 and soon abandoned.

The championship of every division in English football is determined solely by the standings in the league. However, a championship play-off would be held if the top two teams were tied for points, goal difference and goals scored; to date, this has never happened.

Greece

Starting in the 2007–08 season, Superleague Greece instituted a playoff system to determine all of its places in European competition for the following season, except for that of the league champion. Currently, the league is entitled to two Champions League places and three in the Europa League. The playoff currently takes the form of a home-and-away mini-league involving the second- through fifth-place teams, under the following conditions:
  • The fifth-place team starts the playoffs at 0 points.
  • The remaining teams start with a number of "bonus points" determined as follows:
    • The number of points earned by the fifth-place team during the main league season is subtracted from the totals of each other club involved in the playoffs.
    • The resulting number is then divided by 5 and rounded to the nearest whole number.
  • At the end of the playoffs, the winner receives the country's second Champions League place, and the remaining teams receive Europa League berths, entering the competition at different stages according to their playoff finishes.

Italy

In 2004-05, Italy's professional league introduced a promotion playoff to its second tier of football, Serie B
Serie B
Serie B, currently named Serie bwin due to sponsorship reasons, is the second-highest division in the Italian football league system after the Serie A. It is contested by 22 teams and organized by the Lega Serie B since July 2010, after the split of Lega Calcio that previously took care of both the...

. It operates almost identically to the system currently used in England. The top two clubs in Serie B earn automatic promotion to Serie A
Serie A
Serie A , now called Serie A TIM due to sponsorship by Telecom Italia, is a professional league competition for football clubs located at the top of the Italian football league system and has been operating for over eighty years since 1929. It had been organized by Lega Calcio until 2010, but a new...

 with the next four clubs entering a playoff to determine who wins the third promotion place, as long as fewer than 10 points separate the third and fourth-placed teams (which often occurs).

Like the English playoffs, the Italian playoffs employ two-legged semi-finals, with the higher finisher in the league table earning home advantage in the second leg. If the teams are level on aggregate after full time of the second leg, away goals are not used, but extra time is used. Unlike England, the Italian playoff final is two-legged, again with the higher finisher earning home advantage in the second leg. In both rounds, if the tie is level on aggregate after extra time in the second leg, the team that finished higher in the league standings wins.

In 2004, Italy's football (soccer) league used a two-legged test match to determine one spot in the top level of its system, Serie A
Serie A
Serie A , now called Serie A TIM due to sponsorship by Telecom Italia, is a professional league competition for football clubs located at the top of the Italian football league system and has been operating for over eighty years since 1929. It had been organized by Lega Calcio until 2010, but a new...

. Some leagues in continental Europe combine automatic promotion/relegation with test matches. For example, in the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

, only one club is automatically relegated from its top level, the Eredivisie
Eredivisie
The Eredivisie is the highest football league in the Netherlands. The league was founded in 1956 two years after the start of professional football in the Netherlands. It is currently ranked the ninth best league in Europe by UEFA....

, each season, with the winner of the second-flight being promoted. The next two lower-placed teams enter a promotion/relegation mini-league with high-placed teams from the Dutch First Division
Eerste Divisie
The Eerste Divisie is the second-highest division of football in the Netherlands. It is linked with the top-level Eredivisie via a promotion/relegation system. It is also known as the Jupiler League due to sponsorship, which is the same name as the top league in Belgium...


Japan

J.League in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 used a test match series between the third-from-bottom team in J1 and third-place team in J2 (see J. League Promotion/Relegation Series
J. League Promotion/Relegation Series
In 2004, J. League introduced a series of two test matches called League between the sixteenth-place J. Division 1 club and third-place J.league Division 2 club...

) from 2004 to 2008. The Promotion/Relegation Series concept dates as far back as 1965 and the first season of the Japan Soccer League
Japan Soccer League
, or JSL, was the top flight soccer league in Japan between 1965 and 1992, and was the precursor to the current professional league, the J. League. JSL was the second national league of a team sport in Japan after the professional Japanese Baseball League that was founded in 1936...

.

The Japan Football League
Japan Football League
The is the 3rd tier of the Japanese association football league system, following J. League Division 1 and J. League Division 2. Also known as the JFL, it is generally considered as the top amateur league in Japan although in reality it is a semi-professional league as many full-time footballers...

, the current Japanese third division, uses the Promotion/Relegation Series only when the number of clubs in the league needs to be filled with clubs from the Japanese Regional Leagues
Japanese Regional Leagues
Japanese Regional Leagues are a group of parallel association football leagues in Japan that are organized on the regional basis...

.

Mexico

Mexico's top flight league, the Primera División de México
Primera División de México
The Primera División Profesional , known simply as the Primera División, is the top level of the Mexican football league system and is administered by the Mexican Football Federation. It was established in 1943 and as of 2011 has 18 clubs. Up to June 2011, it was divided into three groups competing...

, divides its 18 teams into three groups of six. In each of two annual tournaments
Apertura and Clausura
The Apertura and Clausura tournaments are a relatively recent innovation for many Latin American football leagues in which the traditional European football season from August to May is divided in two sections per season, each with its own champion. Apertura and Clausura are the Spanish words for...

, every team plays every other team in the league once (17 games), after which the top two teams in each group advance to the Liguilla and the next four best teams overall advance to the Repechaje. The four Repechaje teams play a single home-and-away round, with the best team (by points) facing the worst team and the second-best facing the second-worst. The winners of these two series advance to the Liguilla.

In the Liguilla, all rounds are home-and-away. Teams are drawn so the best team plays the worst, the second-best plays the second-worst, and so on. After one round, the teams are redrawn so the best remaining team again plays the worst remaining one and the second-best faces the second-worst in the semi-finals. The two winners of this round play each other for the championship.

There is no playoff between the Apertura and Clausura winner. As a result, the league crowns two champions each year. After each Clausura, the team with the lowest points-per-game total for the previous six tournaments (three years, counting only Primera División games) is relegated to Primera División A to be replaced by that league's champion (if eligible).

Netherlands

In the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

, a playoff was introduced in season 2005-2006. It is used to determine which teams from the Eredivisie
Eredivisie
The Eredivisie is the highest football league in the Netherlands. The league was founded in 1956 two years after the start of professional football in the Netherlands. It is currently ranked the ninth best league in Europe by UEFA....

 qualify for European football. The playoff system has been criticized by clubs, players and fans as the number of matches will increase. Under the original playoff format, it was possible, though thoroughly unlikely, that the runner-up would not qualify for Europe; the following year, the format was changed so that the second-place team was assured of no worse than a UEFA Cup berth. Starting in 2008–09, the format was changed yet again. The champion goes directly to the Champions League
UEFA Champions League
The UEFA Champions League, known simply the Champions League and originally known as the European Champion Clubs' Cup or European Cup, is an annual international club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations since 1955 for the top football clubs in Europe. It...

; the runner-up enters the second qualification round of the CL; the number three enters the fourth (and last) qualification round of the UEFA Europa League (EL; the new name of the UEFA Cup from 2009–10 onward) and the number four goes to the third qualification round of the EL. The only play-off will be for the clubs placed 5th through 8th. The winner of that play-off receives a ticket for the second qualification round of the EL.

Playoffs are also part of the promotion and relegation
Promotion and relegation
In many sports leagues around the world, promotion and relegation is a process that takes place at the end of each season. Through it, teams are transferred between divisions based on their performance that season...

 structure between the Eredivisie
Eredivisie
The Eredivisie is the highest football league in the Netherlands. The league was founded in 1956 two years after the start of professional football in the Netherlands. It is currently ranked the ninth best league in Europe by UEFA....

 and the Eerste Divisie
Eerste Divisie
The Eerste Divisie is the second-highest division of football in the Netherlands. It is linked with the top-level Eredivisie via a promotion/relegation system. It is also known as the Jupiler League due to sponsorship, which is the same name as the top league in Belgium...

, the two highest football leagues in the Netherlands.

Scotland

The Scottish Premier League
Scottish Premier League
The Scottish Premier League , also known as the SPL , is a professional league competition for association football clubs in Scotland...

 experimented briefly with playoffs in the mid-1990s, with only one team - Dundee United
Dundee United F.C.
Dundee United Football Club is a Scottish professional football club located in the city of Dundee. Formed in 1909, originally as Dundee Hibernian, the club changed to the present name in 1923...

 - achieving promotion through it (Partick Thistle
Partick Thistle F.C.
Partick Thistle Football Club are a professional association football club from Glasgow. Despite their name, the club are based in the Maryhill area of the city, and have not played in Partick since 1908...

 were relegated at their expense). Currently, the bottom team is relegated to the First Division of the Scottish Football League
Scottish Football League
The Scottish Football League is a league of football teams in Scotland, comprising theScottish First Division, Scottish Second Division and Scottish Third Division. From the league's foundation in 1890 until the breakaway Scottish Premier League was formed in 1998, the Scottish Football League...

, and the top team from there is promoted. In the First/Second and Second/Third Division, while the champions are automatically promoted and the bottom team relegated, there are playoffs of the second-bottom teams against the second, third and fourth placed teams from the league below. Home and away ties decide semi-finals and a final, and the overall winner plays in the higher league the following season, with the loser in the lower league.

Spain

For the 2010/11 season, the Segunda División experimented with promotion playoffs between the 3rd to 6th placed teams, similar to the rules in the English and Italian systems. However, due to reserve teams being allowed to compete in the same football league system, subsequent places may be allowed to play off depending on reserve teams finishing within the 3rd to 6th places.

At a lower level, playoffs in Segunda División B take place to decide the divisional title between the 4 group winners, and to decide which other teams would be promoted, as follows:
  • The first set of matches are an elimination tournament between the 4 group winners. The winners of each match are promoted and then play a final for the tier title.
  • After the tier final takes place, the teams who finished 2nd in each of the 4 groups play the teams who finished 4th, whereas the teams who finished third play each other. The 6 winners, along with the 2 Group winners who lost their games in the earlier semifinals, play in each other in a knockout format until there is 2 teams remaining who are promoted.


Previously a play off system had been used in which the teams finishing 3rd and 4th from last in La Liga
La Liga
The Primera División of the Liga Nacional de Fútbol Profesional , commonly known as La Liga or, for sponsorship reasons, Liga BBVA since 2008, is the top professional association football division of the Spanish football league system...

 had played off against the teams finishing 3rd and 4th in the Segunda División
Segunda División
The Segunda División is the lower tier of the two professional football leagues in Spain. From the season 2008-09 onwards, the name of the league is Liga Adelante.-History:...

. This system had been introduced in the 1980s but ended in 1998-99 .

United States and Canada

In Major League Soccer
Major League Soccer
Major League Soccer is a professional soccer league based in the United States and sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation . The league is composed of 19 teams — 16 in the U.S. and 3 in Canada...

 in the U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, at the end of the regular season, the top 3 teams in each Conference receive byes to the Conference Semifinals, the 2nd round of the postseason knockout tournament. The winner of each conference will play for the MLS Cup
MLS Cup
The MLS Cup is the championship match of Major League Soccer, the highest tier of professional soccer in the United States and Canada. As the final match of the MLS Cup playoffs, the winner is crowned the season champion in the same manner as other North American sports leagues...

, the league championship. The 4 teams regardless of conference with the next most points will be the wild card teams.

In the Wild Card round (starting in 2011), the league's 7th-seeded team plays the 10th seed, while the 8th plays the 9th, with the winners playing the top-seeded team in their respective Conference Semifinals. This round is single elimination. The lowest-seeded survivor plays the Supporters' Shield winner.

Conference Semifinal series are conducted under a home-and-away, aggregate-goal format, with single-game Conference Championships determining the MLS Cup Finalists. For each Conference, the top seed plays the wild-card winner, and the 2nd seed faces the 3rd seed in the Conference Semifinal series, with the lower seeded team hosting the first game.

The team that scores the most goals in the home-and-away series advances to the single elimination Conference Championship. If the teams are tied after 90 minutes in the Conference Semifinal series, a 30-minute extra time period (divided into two 15-minute periods) would be played followed by a penalty-kick shootout, if necessary. The team with the higher seed between the two Conference finalists will host the Conference Championship game.

In the case of ties after regulation in the Wild Card, Eastern and Western Conference Championship games and MLS Cup, 30 minutes of extra time (divided into two 15-minute periods) would be played followed by a penalty-kick shootout, if necessary, to determine the winners.

MLS does not use the away goals rule in any playoff series.

Women's Professional Soccer
Women's Professional Soccer
Women's Professional Soccer is the top level professional women's soccer league in the United States. It began play on March 29, 2009. The league was composed of seven teams for its first two seasons and fielded 6 teams for the 2011 season, with continued plans for future expansion...

, which currently operates only in the U.S., conducts a four-team stepladder tournament consisting of one-off knockout matches. The third seed hosts the fourth seed in the first round. The winner of that game advances to the "Super Semifinal", hosted by the second seed. The Super Semifinal winner travels to the top seed for the championship game.

International playoffs

In international football
Football (soccer)
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...

, playoffs were a feature of the 1954
1954 FIFA World Cup
The 1954 FIFA World Cup, the fifth staging of the FIFA World Cup, was held in Switzerland from 16 June to 4 July. Switzerland was chosen as hosts in July 1946. The tournament set a number of all-time records for goal-scoring, including the highest average goals scored per game...

 and 1958 FIFA World Cup
1958 FIFA World Cup
The 1958 FIFA World Cup, the sixth staging of the World Cup, was hosted by Sweden from 8 June to 29 June. The tournament was won by Brazil, who beat Sweden 5–2 in the final for their first title. To date, this marks the only occasion that a World Cup staged in Europe was not won by a European...

 final tournaments. They are still a feature of the qualification tournaments for the FIFA World Cup
FIFA World Cup
The FIFA World Cup, often simply the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of Fédération Internationale de Football Association , the sport's global governing body...

 and the UEFA European Football Championship
UEFA European Football Championship
The UEFA European Football Championship is the main football competition of the men's national football teams governed by UEFA . Held every four years since 1960, in the even-numbered year between World Cup tournaments, it was originally called the UEFA European Nations Cup, changing to the current...

.

In the qualification playoffs
2006 FIFA World Cup qualification
A total of 197 teams entered the qualification process for the 2006 FIFA World Cup, competing for a total of 32 spots in the final tournament. Germany, as the host, qualified automatically, leaving 31 spots open for competition...

 for the 2006 FIFA World Cup
2006 FIFA World Cup
The 2006 FIFA World Cup was the 18th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international football world championship tournament. It was held from 9 June to 9 July 2006 in Germany, which won the right to host the event in July 2000. Teams representing 198 national football associations from all six...

, for example:
  • In Europe
    2006 FIFA World Cup qualification (play-off UEFA)
    The 2006 FIFA World Cup European Qualification Playoffs were a set of home-and-away playoffs to decide the final three places granted to national football teams from European nations for the 2006 FIFA World Cup....

    , after the first-place finishers in each of eight groups received automatic finals places, along with the two second-place teams that had earned the most points against teams in the top six of their individual groups, the remaining six second-placed teams entered playoffs to select three teams for the finals.
  • The winners of the Oceania qualifying tournament
    2006 FIFA World Cup qualification (OFC)
    Listed below are the dates and results for the 2006 FIFA World Cup qualification rounds for Oceania. 12 teams took part, competing for a place in the intercontinental play-off against the fifth-placed team from South America...

    , Australia played the fifth placed team from the South American qualifying tournament
    2006 FIFA World Cup qualification (CONMEBOL)
    Listed below are the dates and results for the 2006 FIFA World Cup qualification rounds for South America. 10 teams took part, all in a single group. The rules were very simple: the teams would play against each other in a home-and-away basis, with the four teams with most points qualifying to...

    , Uruguay
    Uruguay national football team
    The Uruguayan national football team represents Uruguay in international association football and is controlled by the Uruguayan Football Association, the governing body for football in Uruguay. The current head coach is Óscar Tabárez...

    .
  • The fifth-placed team of the Asia qualifying tournament
    2006 FIFA World Cup qualification (AFC)
    Listed below are the dates and results for the 2006 FIFA World Cup qualification rounds for Asia.44 Asian teams are affiliated with FIFA, but Cambodia, Philippines, Bhutan and Brunei decided not to take part, and Myanmar was banned from the competition, so a total of 39 teams took part, competing...

    , Bahrain
    Bahrain national football team
    The Bahrain national football team is the national team of the Kingdom of Bahrain and is controlled by the Bahrain Football Association; it was founded in 1951 and joined FIFA in 1966. They have never reached the finals of the World Cup, but have twice come within one match of doing so...

     played the fourth-placed team in the CONCACAF qualifying tournament
    2006 FIFA World Cup qualification (CONCACAF)
    Listed below are the dates and results for the 2006 FIFA World Cup qualification rounds for North, Central America and the Caribbean. A total of 34 teams took part , competing for 3.5 places in the World Cup.The qualification process was divided in three stages...

    , Trinidad and Tobago
    Trinidad and Tobago national football team
    The Trinidad and Tobago national football team, nicknamed The Soca Warriors, is the national team of Trinidad and Tobago and is run by the Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation. It reached the first round of the 2006 FIFA World Cup Finals...

    .

Knockout competitions

In addition to their league competitions, most European footballing nations also have knockout cup competitions - English football, for example, has the FA Cup
FA Cup
The Football Association Challenge Cup, commonly known as the FA Cup, is a knockout cup competition in English football and is the oldest association football competition in the world. The "FA Cup" is run by and named after The Football Association and usually refers to the English men's...

 and the League Cup
Football League Cup
The Football League Cup, commonly known as the League Cup or, from current sponsorship, the Carling Cup, is an English association football competition. Like the FA Cup, it is played on a knockout basis...

. These competitions are open to many teams—92 clubs compete for the League Cup, and hundreds compete for the FA Cup. These competitions run concurrently with the "regular season" league competitions and are not regarded as playoffs.

Australian rules football

Playoffs are used throughout Australia in Australian rules football
Australian rules football
Australian rules football, officially known as Australian football, also called football, Aussie rules or footy is a sport played between two teams of 22 players on either...

 to determine the premiership. The term finals is most commonly used to describe them. In each league, a set number of teams, usually between four and eight, qualifies for finals based on the league ladder from the season. Australian rules football leagues employ finals systems which act as a combination between a single elimination tournament for lower-ranked teams, and a double elimination tournament for higher-ranked teams, in order to provide teams with an easier pathway to the Grand Final as reward for strong performances throughout the season. Finals are decided by single matches, rather than series.

The Australian Football League
Australian Football League
The Australian Football League is both the governing body and the major professional competition in the sport of Australian rules football...

, which is the top level of the sport, currently has eight teams qualify for the finals; the finals are operated under a system designed by the league
AFL finals system
The current AFL finals system was devised by the Australian Football League in 2000 as its end-of-season championship playoff tournament. It is a revision of the McIntyre Final Eight System, used by the AFL from 1994 to 1999, designed to address several perceived issues with that system...

 in 2000. Between 1931–1999, variants of the McIntyre System
McIntyre System
The McIntyre System, or systems because there have been five of them, is a playoff system that gives an advantage to teams or competitors qualifying higher...

 were used to accommodate four, five, six and eight teams; prior to 1930, several different finals systems
Early VFL Final systems
Throughout its history, the Victorian Football League has used a system of finals after playing a regular season to determine the winner of the premiership....

 were used.

In most other leagues, from state-level leagues such as the South Australian National Football League
South Australian National Football League
The South Australian National Football League is an Australian rules football league based in the Australian state of South Australia. It is also the governing body for the sport of Australian rules football in South Australia....

 and West Australian Football League
West Australian Football League
The West Australian Football League is an Australian rules football league based in Perth, Western Australia. The WAFL is the second-most popular in the state, behind the nation-wide Australian Football League...

, down to suburban leagues, it is most common for either four or five teams to qualify for finals. In these cases the Page-McIntyre final four system or the McIntyre final five system are used universally.

The Australian Football League
Australian Football League
The Australian Football League is both the governing body and the major professional competition in the sport of Australian rules football...

 (which was then known as the Victorian Football League) was the first league to introduce regular finals when the league was established in 1897. The South Australian National Football League
South Australian National Football League
The South Australian National Football League is an Australian rules football league based in the Australian state of South Australia. It is also the governing body for the sport of Australian rules football in South Australia....

, introduced finals in 1898, and other leagues soon followed. Prior to this, the premiers were generally decided based on overall win-loss record, except where a playoff match was needed to break a tie.

Play-offs in National Rugby League

Play-offs are used to decide the premiers of the National Rugby League
National Rugby League
The National Rugby League is the top league of professional rugby league football clubs in Australasia. The NRL's main competition, called the Telstra Premiership , is contested by sixteen teams, fifteen of which are based in Australia with one based in New Zealand...

 (NRL) in Australasia, where they are known as finals (also as semi finals or semis) - although unlike North American leagues, participating teams only come from within a single division, and also consist of single matches rather than series. The term play-off was used in the NSWRL
New South Wales Rugby League premiership
The New South Wales Rugby League premiership was the first rugby league football club competition established in Australia. Run by the New South Wales Rugby League from 1908 until 1994, the premiership was the state's and later the country's elite rugby league competition...

 competition to describe sudden death matches used as tie breakers for finals qualification.

The top eight teams at the end of the regular season qualify for the finals. Two teams are eliminated in each round until only two teams remain (the participants in the Grand Final
Grand Final
Grand Final is a predominantly Australian sport term used to describe a match that decides a league champion.It originated in Victoria and South Australia and has become specifically significant Australian culture...

), the system is structured so that higher-ranked teams are given a more advantageous draw.
The McIntyre Final Eight System
McIntyre Final Eight System
The McIntyre Final Eight System was devised by Ken McIntyre in addition to the McIntyre Four, Five and Six systems. It is a playoff system of the top 8 finishers in a competition to determine which two teams will play in the Grand Final. The teams play each other over three weeks, with two teams...

, used by the NRL but previously used by the AFL, works as follows:

Week One
  • Fourth-ranked team vs fifth-ranked team (4th Qualifying Final)
  • Third-ranked team vs sixth-ranked team (3rd Qualifying Final)
  • Second-ranked team vs seventh-ranked team (2nd Qualifying Final)
  • First-ranked team vs eighth-ranked team (1st Qualifying Final)

After this round, the four winners are ranked in order of their positions at the end of the regular season, as are the four losers. The two highest ranked winners advance directly to week three, while the two lowest ranked losers are eliminated. The remaining four teams continue on to week two.

Week Two
  • Fourth highest-ranked winner vs second highest-ranked loser (1st Semi Final)
  • Third highest-ranked winner vs highest-ranked loser (2nd Semi Final)

The two winners advance to week three while the losers are eliminated.

Week Three
  • Highest-ranked winner from Week One vs winner of 1st semi-final (1st Preliminary Final)
  • Second highest-ranked winner from Week One vs winner of 2nd semi-final (2nd Preliminary Final)

The two winners advance to the Grand Final, held in week four at ANZ Stadium in Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

.

Play-offs in Super League

The European Super League
Super League
Super League is the top-level professional rugby league football club competition in Europe. As a result of sponsorship from engage Mutual Assurance the competition is currently officially known as the engage Super League. The League features fourteen teams: thirteen from England and one from...

 rugby league
Rugby league
Rugby league football, usually called rugby league, is a full contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular grass field. One of the two codes of rugby football, it originated in England in 1895 by a split from Rugby Football Union over paying players...

 competition has used a play-off system to decide its champion since 1998. The original play-off format featured the top five highest-ranked teams after the regular season rounds. Starting in 2002, the play-offs added an extra spot to allow the top six to qualify. With the addition of two new teams for the 2009 season
Super League XIV
The 2009 Super League season is the fourteenth season of rugby league since the Super League format was introduced in 1996...

, the play-offs expanded to eight teams
Super League play-offs
Since 1998 a play-off system has been used to determine the Super League champions. The format has changed over the years, starting with a play-off involving first five, then six teams and currently eight. The play-offs culminate in the Super League Grand Final....

. The current format works like this:

Week One
  • Qualifying Play Off 1: 1st vs 4th (winner receives a bye to week three)
  • Qualifying Play Off 2: 2nd vs 3rd (winner receives a bye to week three)

  • Elimination Play Off 1: 5th vs 8th (loser goes out)
  • Elimination Play Off 2: 6th vs 7th (loser goes out)


Week Two
  • Preliminary Semi Final 1: QPO 1 Loser vs EPO 1 Winner
  • Preliminary Semi Final 2: QPO 2 Loser vs EPO 2 Winner


Week Three
  • Qualifying Semi Final 1: QPO 1 Winner vs PSF 1 or PSF 2 Winner *
  • Qualifying Semi Final 2: QPO 2 Winner vs PSF 1 or PSF 2 Winner *


Week Four
  • Grand Final: Winners of Qualifying Semi-Finals meet at Old Trafford
    Old Trafford
    Old Trafford commonly refers to two sporting arenas:* Old Trafford, home of Manchester United F.C.* Old Trafford Cricket Ground, home of Lancashire County Cricket ClubOld Trafford can also refer to:...


  • Opponents decided by the QPO winner (in Week 1) that finished higher in the regular season

Other leagues

The two tiers directly below Super League, the Championship and Championship 1
Championship 1
Championship 1, known as The Co-operative Championship 1 due to sponsorship by The Co-operative Group, is a rugby league competition based in the United Kingdom. It acts as the country's third-tier competition behind the Championship, with which it has a system of promotion and relegation. It is...

—formerly the National Leagues until the 2009 addition of a French club
Toulouse Olympique
Toulouse Olympique are a French professional rugby league team from Toulouse, in the southwest of France. They were founded on 22 October, in 1937 two years after the founding of the French Rugby League Federation. Between 1995 and 2002 the club were known as Spacers de Toulouse, due to links with...

 to the previously all-British competition—still use the old top six system to determine which teams are promoted between its levels. Before the 2008 season, when Super League established a franchising system and ended automatic promotion and relegation in Super League, the National Leagues also used this system to determine the team that earned promotion to Super League. The top six system involves the following:

Week One
  • Elimination Semi-final A: 3rd vs 6th (4th vs 7th in Championship 1)
  • Elimination Semi-final B: 4th vs 5th (5th vs 6th in Championship 1)


Week Two
  • Elimination Final: Winners of Elimination Semi-final A vs Winners of Elimination Semi-final B
  • Qualification Match: 1st vs 2nd (2nd vs 3rd in Championship 1)


Week Three
  • Final Qualifier: Winners of Elimination Final vs Losers of Qualification Match


Week Four
  • Grand Final: Winners of Qualification Match vs Winners of Final Qualifier (in Super League, at Old Trafford)

Premiership

In the Aviva Premiership the top four qualify for the play-offs, where they are not referred to by that name. The tournament is a Shaughnessy playoff: the team who finished first after the league stage plays the team who finished fourth, while the team who finished second plays the team who finished third in the Semi-Finals with the higher-ranked team having homefield advantage. The winners of these semi-finals qualify for the Premiership Final at Twickenham
Twickenham Stadium
Twickenham Stadium is a stadium located in Twickenham, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. It is the largest rugby union stadium in the United Kingdom and has recently been enlarged to seat 82,000...

, where the winner will be champions of the league.

Championship

The second-level RFU Championship
RFU Championship
The RFU Championship replaced National Division One as the second tier in the English rugby union system in September 2009. Unlike National Division One, which is semi-professional, the RFU Championship is a fully professional league.-History:...

 also uses play-offs—but unlike the Premiership, the Championship officially uses the term "play-offs". At the end of the league stage, the top eight teams advance to a series of promotion play-offs, while the bottom four drop into a relegation play-off.

In the promotion play-offs, the eight teams involved are divided into two groups of four each, with the teams within each group playing a home-and-away mini-league. The top two teams in each group advance to a knockout phase consisting entirely of two-legged ties. The top team in each pool plays the second-place team from the other group in the semi-finals; the winners advance to the finals, where the ultimate winner earns promotion to the Premiership (assuming that the team meets the minimum criteria for promotion).

In the first year of the play-offs in 2009–10
2009–10 RFU Championship
The 2009–10 RFU Championship was the 1st season of the second division of the English domestic rugby union competitions, played between August 2009 and May 2010...

, all eight teams started equal. After that season, it was decided to reward teams for their performance in league play. Since 2010–11
2010–11 RFU Championship
- Group A :- Group B :- Group C :* * Refers to number of points awarded before the start of the play-offs.- Semi-finals :----- Final :----- Top try scorers :- Top points scorers :...

, the top two teams at the end of the league stage carry over 3 competition points to the promotion play-offs; the next two teams carry over 2; the next two carry over 1; and the final two teams carry over none. (Points are earned using the standard bonus points system
Rugby union bonus points system
The Rugby union bonus points system is a method of deciding table points from a rugby union match. It was implemented in order to encourage attacking play throughout a match, to discourage repetitive goal-kicking, and to reward teams for "coming close" in losing efforts...

.)

The relegation play-offs, like the first stage of the promotion play-offs, are conducted as a home-and-away league, with the bottom team at the end of league play relegated to National League 1
National League 1
National League 1, , is the third level of domestic rugby union competition in England.This is the lowest level of the English rugby union league system which is nationwide...

. As with the 2009–10 promotion play-offs, that season's relegation play-offs started all teams equal. From 2010–11 forward, each team in the relegation play-offs carries over 1 competition point for every win in the league season.

France

The highest level of French rugby union, the Top 14, expanded its playoffs starting with the 2009–10 season
2009–10 Top 14 season
Stade de France was listed as an alternate home for Stade Français because the club hosted five of their 13 home matches this season at the national stadium. Similarly, Stadium Municipal was listed as an alternate home for Toulouse, who normally play two Top 14 matches a year at that facility...

 from a four-team format to six teams. In the new system, the top two teams after the double round-robin season receive first-round byes. The first-round matches involve the third- through sixth-place teams, bracketed so that 3 hosts 6 and 4 hosts 5. The winners then advance to face the top two teams in the semifinals, which are held at neutral sites (a traditional feature in the French playoffs). The winners of these semifinals qualify for the final at Stade de France
Stade de France
The Stade de France is the national stadium of France, situated just north of Paris in the commune of Saint-Denis. It has an all-seater capacity of 80,000, making it the fifth largest stadium in Europe, and is used by both the France national football team and French rugby union team for...

, where the winner will be champions of the league and receive the Bouclier de Brennus
Bouclier de Brennus
The Bouclier de Brennus, or Brennus Shield in English, is a trophy awarded to the winners of the French rugby union domestic league.The shield was not named, as it is often believed, after the famous Gallic warrior Brennus but rather artist Charles Brennus, co-founder of the USFSA, the original...

. Before 2009–10, the playoffs format was identical to that of the English Premiership with the exception of neutral sites for the semifinals.

The second level, Rugby Pro D2
Rugby Pro D2
Rugby Pro D2, also known as Pro D2 is the second level of domestic club rugby union in France, below the first division, Top 14. The competition was introduced in 2000. There is relegation and promotion between both the Top 14 and Fédérale 1, the third-level competition...

, uses the standard four-team playoff, but involving the second- through fifth-place teams, to determine the second of two teams promoted to the next season's Top 14 (the champions earn automatic promotion). The promotion semifinals are held at the home fields of the second- and third-place teams, and the promotion final is held at a neutral site.

Celtic League

The Celtic League
Celtic League (rugby union)
The Celtic League is an annual rugby union competition involving professional sides from Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales....

, operating in Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

, and Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

 since its inception in 2001
2001–02 Celtic League
The 2001–02 Celtic League was the first season of the Celtic League. The first season would see fifteen teams compete: the four Irish provinces , two Scottish teams and all nine Welsh Premier Division teams .Played alongside...

 and also including teams in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 since 2010, adopted a four-team playoff starting with the 2009–10 season. The format is essentially identical to that of the English Premiership, except that the Grand Final is held at the home stadium of the top surviving seed.

New Zealand

Both domestic competitions in New Zealand rugby — the fully professional ITM Cup (formerly Air New Zealand Cup) and the nominally amateur Heartland Championship
Heartland Championship
The Heartland Championship New Zealand Division One competition, known for sponsorship reasons as the AA Rewards Heartland Championship, is a domestic rugby union competition in New Zealand. It was founded in 2006 as one of two successor competitions to the country's former domestic competition,...

 — use a playoff system to determine their champions, although the term "playoff" is also not used in New Zealand, with "finals" used instead.

Air New Zealand/ITM Cup

In the 2006 Air New Zealand Cup
2006 Air New Zealand Cup
The 2006 Air New Zealand Cup is a provincial rugby union competition involving 14 teams from New Zealand. Matches started on Friday 28 July 2006, and the Grand Final was won by Waikato on 21 October 2006....

, the first season of the revamped domestic structure in that country, the top six teams after Round One of the competition automatically qualified for the finals, officially known as Round Three. Their relative seeding was determined by their standings at the end of the Top Six phase of Round Two. The teams that finished below the top six entered repechage pools in Round Two, with the winner of each pool taking up one of the final two finals slots. The seventh seed was the repechage winner with the better record, and the eighth seed was the other repechage winner.

From 2007
2007 Air New Zealand Cup
The 2007 Air New Zealand Cup was a provincial rugby union competition involving 14 teams from New Zealand. Matches started on Thursday 26 July 2007, and the Final, in which Auckland defeated Wellington, was held on Saturday 20 October....

 onward, the former Rounds One and Two were collapsed into a single pool phase of play in which all teams participated. In 2007 and 2008
2008 Air New Zealand Cup
The 2008 Air New Zealand Cup was a provincial rugby union competition involving 14 teams from New Zealand. Matches started on Thursday 31 July 2008, and continued until the final on 25 October 2008....

, the top eight teams advanced to the playoffs; in what was intended to be the final season of the Air New Zealand Cup format in 2009
2009 Air New Zealand Cup
The 2009 Air New Zealand Cup was the 33rd provincial rugby union competition, the fourth since the competition reconstruction in 2006, involving the top 14 provincial unions in New Zealand. It ran for 15 weeks from 30 July to 7 November...

, the Shaughnessy format was used, with the top four advancing to the finals. The New Zealand Rugby Union (NZRU) ultimately decided to stay with the previous format for the rebranded 2010 ITM Cup
2010 ITM Cup
The 2010 ITM Cup was the 34th provincial rugby union competition, the fifth since the competition reconstruction in 2006 and the first under the new sponsor of ITM , involving the top 14 provincial unions of New Zealand...

, with the same four-team playoff as in 2009. Starting in 2011
2011 ITM Cup
The 2011 ITM Cup is the 35th provincial rugby union competition in New Zealand, the sixth since the competition reconstruction in 2006 and the second under the new sponsor of ITM ....

, the NZRU split the ITM Cup into two seven-team leagues, the top-level Premiership and second-level Championship, and instituted promotion and relegation in the ITM Cup (a feature of the country's former National Provincial Championship
National Provincial Championship
The National Provincial Championship, or NPC, is the major domestic rugby competition in New Zealand. The NPC has seen many alterations to its format and brand. Since 2006 the National Championship has been split into 2 competitions, the ITM Cup and the Heartland Championship...

).

The playoffs in each season format have consisted of a single-elimination tournament. The teams are bracketed in the normal fashion, with the higher seed receiving home-field advantage. In 2007 and 2008, the playoff was rebracketed after the quarterfinals, with the highest surviving seed hosting the lowest surviving seed and the second-highest surviving seed hosting the third surviving seed. The winners of these semifinals qualify for the Cup Final (2006–10) or Premiership/Championship Final (2011–), held at the home ground of the higher surviving seed. From 2011 onward, the winner of the Championship Final is promoted to the Premiership, replacing that league's bottom team.

Because the 2011 season ran up against that year's Rugby World Cup
2011 Rugby World Cup
The 2011 Rugby World Cup was the seventh Rugby World Cup, a quadrennial international rugby union competition inaugurated in 1987. The International Rugby Board selected New Zealand as the host country in preference to Japan and South Africa at a meeting in Dublin on 17 November 2005...

 in New Zealand, the competition window was truncated, with only the top two teams in each division advancing to the final match. The Shaughnessy finals series will return to both divisions in 2012, and presumably will be used in non-World Cup years.

Heartland Championship

In the Heartland Championship, teams play for two distinct trophies — the more prestigious Meads Cup and the Lochore Cup. The 12 Heartland Championship teams are divided into two pools for round-robin play in Round One, with the top three in each pool advancing to the Meads Cup and the bottom three dropping to the Lochore Cup.

Round Two in both the Meads and Lochore Cups is an abbreviated round-robin tournament, with each team playing only the teams it did not play in Round One. The top four teams in the Meads Cup pool at the end of Round Two advance to the Meads Cup semifinals; the same applies for the Lochore Cup contestants.

The semifinals of both cups are seeded 1 vs 4 and 2 vs 3, with the higher seeds earning home field advantage. The semifinal winners advance to their respective cup final, hosted by the higher surviving seed.

Super Rugby

Throughout the pre-2011 history of Super Rugby—both in the Super 12 and Super 14 formats—the competition's organiser, SANZAR
SANZAR
SANZAR is the body which operates Super Rugby and Tri Nations competitions in rugby union. It is a joint venture of the South African Rugby Union, the New Zealand Rugby Union and the Australian Rugby Union, formed in 1996.Created shortly after rugby's move to professionalism in 1995, SANZAR's two...

, held a Shaughnessy playoff involving the top four teams. The top two teams on the league ladder each hosted a semifinal, with the top surviving team hosting the final.

In May 2009, SANZAR announced that it would adopt an expanded playoff when the competition added a new Australian team
Melbourne Rebels
The Melbourne Rebels are a professional rugby union team based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. They made their debut in SANZAR's Super Rugby tournament in 2011. They are the first privately owned professional rugby union team in Australia...

 for the 2011 season. The current Super Rugby playoff involves six teams—the winners of each of three conferences (Australia, New Zealand and South Africa conferences), plus the three non-winners with the most competition points without regard to conference affiliation.

The top two conference winners receive a first-round bye; each plays at home against the winner of an elimination match involving two of the four other playoff teams. As in the previous system, the final is hosted by the top surviving seed.

Canadian Football League

The playoffs begin in November. After the regular season, the top team from each division has an automatic home game berth in the Division Final, and a bye week during the Division Semifinal. The second-place team from each division hosts the third-place team in the Division Semifinal, unless the fourth-place team from the opposite division finishes with a better record. This "crossover rule" does not come into play if the teams have identical records—there are no tiebreakers. While the format means that it is possible for two teams in the same division to play for the Grey Cup
Grey Cup
The Grey Cup is both the name of the championship of the Canadian Football League and the name of the trophy awarded to the victorious team. It is Canada's largest annual sports and television event, regularly drawing a Canadian viewing audience of about 3 to 4 million individuals...

, so far only one crossover team has won the divisional semifinal game. The winners of each Division's Semifinal game then travel to play the first place teams in the Division Finals. Since 2005, the Division Semifinals and Division Finals have been sponsored by Scotiabank
Scotiabank
The Bank of Nova Scotia , commonly known as Scotiabank , is the third largest bank in Canada by deposits and market capitalization. It serves some 18.6 million customers in more than 50 countries around the world and offers a broad range of products and services including personal, commercial,...

 and are branded as the "Scotiabank East Championship" and "Scotiabank West Championship". The two division champions then face each other in the Grey Cup game, which is held on the third or fourth Sunday of November.

The Edmonton Eskimos
Edmonton Eskimos
The Edmonton Eskimos are a Canadian football team based in Edmonton, Alberta. They currently play in the West Division of the Canadian Football League . Edmonton is currently the third-youngest franchise in the CFL, although there were clubs with the name Edmonton Eskimos as early as 1895...

 are notable for qualifying for the CFL playoffs every year from 1972
1972 CFL season
The 1972 Canadian Football League season is considered to be the 19th season in modern-day Canadian football, although it is officially the 15th Canadian Football League season.-CFL News in 1972:...

 to 2005
2005 CFL season
The 2005 Canadian Football League season is considered to be the 52nd season in modern-day Canadian football, although it is officially the 48th Canadian Football League season.-CFL News in 2005:...

, a record in North American pro sports. The Eskimos are also notable for being the first crossover team to ever win the divisional semifinal game.

Playoffs in Japan's Baseball Leagues

Before 1950 the original Japanese Baseball League
Japanese Baseball League
For the current Japanese Professional League, see Nippon Professional Baseball. was a professional baseball league in Japan.It was established on February 5, 1936 as "Japan Occupational Baseball League". Then it was renamed "Japanese Baseball League" in 1939. It was run until 1949. There was no...

 had been a single-table league of franchises. After it was reorganized into the Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) system, a series of playoffs ensued between the champions of the Central League
Central League
The or is one the two professional baseball leagues that constitute Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan. The winner of the league championship plays against the winner of the Pacific League in the annual Japan Series. It currently consists of six teams from around the country,The Central League...

 and Pacific League
Pacific League
The or is one of the two professional baseball leagues constituting Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan. The winner of the league championship competes against the winner in the Central League for the annual Japan Series...

.

Before the playoff system is placed in both professional leagues, the Pacific League had applied a playoff system for twice. The first is between 1973–1982, which they applied a split-season and have an 5-game playoff between the winning teams of both halves of season (unless a team won both of the half so that they need not to play such games). And the second time was between 2004–2006, which the top three team will play a two-staged stepladder knockout (3 games in first stage and 5 games in second stage) the decide the League Champion (and the team playing in Japan Series
Japan Series
, or is the annual championship series in Nippon Professional Baseball, the top baseball league in Japan. It is a seven-game series between the winning clubs of the league's two circuits, the Central League and the Pacific League....

). After applied with such system, the Seibu Lions (now Saitama Seibu Lions), Chiba Lotte Marines
Chiba Lotte Marines
The are a professional baseball team in Japan's Pacific League based in Chiba City, Chiba Prefecture, in the Kantō region, and owned by the Lotte conglomerate.-History:...

 and Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters
Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters
The are a Japanese professional baseball team based in Sapporo, Hokkaidō. They compete in the Pacific League of Nippon Professional Baseball, playing the majority of their home games at the Sapporo Dome. The Fighters also host a select number of regional home games in cities across Hokkaidō,...

, which claimed the Pacific League Champion under such system, were all able to clinch the following Japan Series in that season. The success of such playoff system made Central League
Central League
The or is one the two professional baseball leagues that constitute Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan. The winner of the league championship plays against the winner of the Pacific League in the annual Japan Series. It currently consists of six teams from around the country,The Central League...

, which never used playoff system to decide League Champion, show interest in a playoff system. In 2007, a new playoff system, named "Climax Series", is introduced to both professional leagues in NPB to decide the team playing in Japan Series. The Climax Series basically applied the rule of the playoff system in Pacific League. But unlike the previous playoff system, Climax Series does not affact teams' standing nor individual records in regular season which the previous playoff system in Pacific League did, this means the winner of Japan Series may not be the winner of the League. The Chunichi Dragons
Chunichi Dragons
The are a professional baseball team based in Nagoya, the chief city in the Chubu region of Japan. The team is in the Central League. They won the 2007 Japan Series and 2007 Asia Series.-History:...

 takes the advantage of such system in the first Climax Series-implemented season, finishing second in regular season, but swept Hanshin Tigers
Hanshin Tigers
The are a Nippon Professional Baseball team based in Koshien, Nishinomiya, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan, and are in the Central League. Hanshin Electric Railway Co., Ltd., the subsidiary of Hankyu Hanshin Holdings Inc., owns the Hanshin Tigers directly...

 and League Champion Yomiuri Giants
Yomiuri Giants
The are a professional baseball team based in Bunkyo, Tokyo, Japan. The team competes in the Central League in Nippon Professional Baseball, the top level of professional play in Japan. They play their home games in the Tokyo Dome, opened in 1988. The English-language press occasionally calls the...

 in Central League Climax Series, and beat the Champion of Pacific League Climax Series Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters to claim their first Japan Series in 52 years.

In 2008, the format of Climax Series will have a slight change, in which the second stage will be played for 6-games, and in which the League Champion will have an extra 1-game advantage.

See also

  • Playoff format
    Playoff format
    There are several different Playoff formats used in various levels of competition in sports and games to determine an overall champion. Some of the most common are the single elimination, the best-of- series, the total points series, and the round-robin tournament.-Single elimination:A Single...

  • Shaughnessy playoff system
    Shaughnessy playoff system
    The Shaughnessy playoff system is a method of determining the champion of a sports league that is not in a divisional alignment. It involves the participation of the top four teams in the league standings in a single elimination tournament...

  • Playoff beard
    Playoff beard
    A playoff beard is the practice of a National Hockey League player not shaving his beard during the Stanley Cup playoffs. The player stops shaving when his team enters the playoffs and does not shave until his team is eliminated or wins the Stanley Cup. The tradition was started in the 1980s by...

  • Season (sport)
  • Grand Final
    Grand Final
    Grand Final is a predominantly Australian sport term used to describe a match that decides a league champion.It originated in Victoria and South Australia and has become specifically significant Australian culture...

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