Are Playoffs Really Best For the Sport?

You have to wonder what it is with the American sports fan's love for the playoffs. Almost every single major sport in the United States has a playoff system to determine the league's champion (usually dubbed the World Champion, which is a load of bull). Teams squeak into the playoffs in the last possible spot for the chance to play for the title in their respective sport. It makes for great games and events towards the end of the season as teams jockey for position and look to qualify through tiebreakers and conference records and such, but that is the one of the only things that makes playoffs good for sports.

Take this season's NFL, for example. In the NFC, you have the Giants, Seahawks, Bears, and Buccaneers with bids into the playoffs because they're division leaders, and then you've got theoretically five teams with a decent chance if some bounces go their way. Three teams in the NFC south are separated by one game, with the division leaders tied, but the Bucs get the edge because of the infamous tiebreaker.

In the AFC, you've got the Pats, Broncos, Bengals, and Colts leading, with those teams either already having clinched or very close with commanding positions in their divisions. Then, though, you've got four teams separated by one game, with one team at 9-4 and the other three at 8-5, all vying for only two wildcard spots. Scenarios like this make for excellent play towards the end of the season because then every team has to play like it is already in the playoffs because chances are that if they lose, then they could be out of contention to win the title.

Baseball is the same way with only one wildcard, while in hockey and basketball, the division winners get automatic spots in the top of the order, and then the remaining top five teams fill out the top eight in each conference. The thing that I don't like about this system is that you can have a team in a weak division, like the Carolina Hurricanes a few years ago, where they would have qualified fifth or sixth based on record, but since they won their very weak division, they were given the third-seed and have a home-ice advantage in their first-round playoff series. Or three years ago, when the Mighty Ducks were the seventh-seeded team in the Western Conference and they managed to make it to the NHL Finals and get to Game 7 against the Devils.

Basketball at least has a decent playoff in March when they take 65 teams and have them play in three consecutive weekends and the last team standing is crowned the champion. The problem with this system, though, is again that not always will the best team win the tournament, but the hottest team. In the 2002 season, was Maryland necessarily the best team in the country? No, neither was the team they played in the final, Indiana, the second best team. If the best team in the country won the title every year, then a number one seed would win it every time.

The NBA is even worse with their ads on TNT saying things like, "Win, or go home." That needs to be revised a little bit to, "Win, or win four of your next six games, or go home." The NBA is a little bit better in having the best team(s) play for the title with the Spurs and Pistons being able to make it to the championships recently. The reason for that is they treat basketball like a team sport as it should be, instead of a showcase of players, but that's a different article. Even still, though, why have the top eight teams in the playoffs, since it serves no real purpose?

The idea of a playoff system is about one thing: marketing. In every major European soccer league (to which the MLS should follow suit), the team that finishes the season is rewarded as the champion of the league. They have a tournament, the FA Cup in England for example, that has a playoff format, but that doesn't have any effect on that season's championship race in terms of standings. The Champions League, for example, has a home-and-home series, and that's it. Each team has one home game, and then the aggregate goals wins the series.

Simple, isn't it? Now, it would naturally be hard for the NFL to have that sort of system considering there are a lot of teams and the NFL can't necessarily go as long as soccer seasons do, but why not in basketball, hockey, and baseball? They play enough games that they can play every team in the league twice, once at home and once away, and then the winner of the league is the champion. Personally, I feel like the winner of the President's Cup in the NHL is actually the champion because they played the best all season long, not for a few weeks at the end of the season.

That is also why the way college football is working this season is good because the teams that had the best overall season are being rewarded by playing in the championship game. Sure, in years past, we've had three undefeated teams and we want to crown one winner, but to have an extensive playoff in college football is ridiculous. The reason, though, that the playoffs will never be taken out of major sports is because anyone involved in a playoff system in terms of marketing makes money, and money talks.

Notes

* Stan Van Gundy has decided to step down from coaching the Miami Heat to spend more time with his family. Why are people having such a hard time believing this? His kids are probably more mature than the players on the Heat, so it's like taking a step up for him.

* Kenny Rogers recently signed a two-year, $18,000,000 deal with the Tigers. They should change that deal to somehow make it so that Rogers only pitches the first halves of the seasons since he's not worth it after the All-Star Break.