Ranking the Major Sports Playoffs Formats

     This is a good time of year for sports.  We are not that far removed from the Super Bowl and NCAA Football championship, and more recently, the NCAA basketball championship.  Currently, the NBA and NHL playoffs are just starting to get under way, and the Major League Baseball and NASCAR seasons are just beginning.  The two sports in playoff season right now gave me the idea to write this post on which sports have the better playoff formats.  There are some playoff formats that seem a lot more exciting than others, and I'm going to rank the major ones in the order that I like them.

7.  NBA Playoffs

     All playoff formats are exciting, and the NBA has some great moments just as the others do.  The problems with the NBA playoffs are that they drag on forever.  First of all, there are way too many teams in the playoffs.  There are 30 teams in the NBA, and the top 8 from each conference make the playoffs, which makes 16 total teams.  That means over half of the teams are in the playoffs.  This also means that more often than not, a team that lost more games than it won in the regular season makes the playoffs.  Just to compare this to the NFL, a team with a losing record made the playoffs in football this year for the first time, and people were furious about it.  With 16 teams in an elimination format, that gives 4 rounds of playoffs, and each round is a best of 7 series.  What makes this even worse, is that the series play 2 games at one team's location, then 2 at the other team's location, then 1 back at the first site, 1 back at the second site, and another game back at the first site, as long as no one has clinched the series yet.  All of these location changes make for several days in between each game, and each series can last as long as two weeks.  These playoffs drag on forever, and there are rarely any upsets, so it ends up being a lot of time spent on predictable results.

6.  NHL Playoffs

     The reasons I have the NHL playoffs ranked so low are similar to the NBA playoffs.  Just like the NBA playoffs, there are too many teams allowed in, and it drags on way too long.  I feel like it is more excusable for the long breaks in between NHL games however, because the physical toll is greater on hockey players than it is for basketball players.  This part could be in my head, but it feels to me like the hockey players are much more passionate about winning their playoff games than any other sport.  Hockey players also grow some pretty sweet playoff beards until they are eliminated, which is automatic bonus points.

5.  NASCAR Chase for the Cup

     I like the Chase for the Cup, mostly because this is a relatively new phenomenon, and formerly there was no playoff system.  The points for the regular season just continued through the whole year, and whoever had the most points at the end of the season was the champion.  This would be similar to just awarding the football team with the best record at the end of the year with the Super Bowl trophy.  While it is much better than before, the NASCAR playoff system still has its faults.  As the first two playoff formats, this one drags on too.  The NASCAR Chase for the Cup is 10 races, and the races are once a week.  This means the Chase is two and a half months long.  There are a lot of great parts of the 10 week long chase though.  The leaders seems to change often.  Not just week-to-week, but also within the race.  At any given moment, a wreck could happen and someone who was leading the points could be knocked down to 8th place.  In no other playoff system can your position in the standings can change so quickly.

4.  MLB Playoffs

     I think of all the professional sports, baseball has got the concept of playoffs down better than the rest of the sports.  There are 30 teams in baseball, and 8 teams total make the playoffs.  It is a big deal for any team to make the playoffs, even for teams who make the playoffs often.  There are only 3 rounds in the baseball playoffs, as opposed to 4 rounds in the other major sports.  Also, the first round is only a best of 5 series, so it is short and sweet.  They also switch locations a lot less in baseball, so that each series lasts shorter than other sports as well.

3.  NCAA Football BCS

     There are a lot of fans and media personalities who think the BCS is as bad as any other system.  I disagree with that for one simple reason.  While it may not necessarily be the most fair way to decide the championship, this is the only sport that can basically guarantee that the top two teams in the sport will play for the championship.  Also, when there is so much importance put on choosing who plays for the championship, it turns the whole regular season into a type of playoffs.  There is by far no more important regular season than college football.  It's the only sport where losing one game could eliminate you from being able to play for the championship.

2.  NFL Playoffs

     The NFL playoffs have a ton of good things going for them.  As previously mentioned, only once has a team with a losing record ever been in the playoffs, which was last year.  There are four rounds in these playoffs just like in the NBA and NHL, but each round is only one game.  This makes each game very intense.  Each game is a win or go home scenario.  Not to mention that the culmination of the NFL playoffs is the Super Bowl, the biggest sporting event in the world. 

1.  NCAA Basketball Tournament

     This one wasn't even close.  I know the Super Bowl is a big deal, but as far as the playoffs as a whole go, nothing is close to the NCAA tournament.  Even though there is a big playoff field, currently at 68 teams, and possibly still growing, there is still a hint of exclusivity with good teams being left out (just ask Virginia Tech fans).  Everyone fills out a tournament bracket, even people who haven't watched a game all year.  Once they have filled out brackets, people can't wait to watch and follow along with their brackets, anxiously hoping one of their 13 seeds beats a 4 seed in the first round.  I think the fan participation is what makes the NCAA tournament as popular as it is.  Some people play their office pools to try and win a little money.  I mostly fill mine out on ESPN just in case I hit it perfect, and I figure they'll have me on Mike and Mike the next morning.  My favorite story about tournament brackets is a few years ago when 3 people of all the millions of people who fill out a tournament bracket on ESPN, correctly picked George Mason to go to the final 4.  When they had the 3 guys on ESPN that morning, 2 of them said they picked Mason to go to the final 4 because they were graduates from George Mason.  The other guy picked George Mason on accident because he thought he was picking George Washington to go to the final 4. 

     I don't think any playoff system is perfect, but this is how I rank the playoff formats as they are right now.  I think the NASCAR and NCAA football systems are most likely to change unless any of the other leagues have an increase or decrease in teams.  Let me know what you think about my rankings, or share your own in the comments section.