The playoffs, play-offs, postseason or finals of a sports league are a competition played after the regular season by the top competitors to determine the league champion or a similar accolade. Depending on the league, the playoffs may be either a single game, a series of games, or a tournament, and may use a single-elimination system or one of several other different playoff formats. Playoff, in regard to international fixtures, is to qualify or progress to the next round of a competition or tournament.
A tournament is a competition involving at least three competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses:
- One or more competitions held at a single venue and concentrated into a relatively short time interval.
- A competition involving a number of matches, each involving a subset of the competitors, with the overall tournament winner determined based on the combined results of these individual matches. These are common in those sports and games where each match must involve a small number of competitors: often precisely two, as in most team sports, racket sports and combat sports, many card games and board games, and many forms of competitive debating. Such tournaments allow large numbers to compete against each other in spite of the restriction on numbers in a single match.
In sports leagues, promotion and relegation is a process where teams can move up and down between multiple divisions arranged in a hierarchical structure, based on their performance over a season. Leagues that use promotion and relegation systems are often called open leagues. In a system of promotion and relegation, the best-ranked team(s) in a lower division are promoted to a higher division for the next season, and the worst-ranked team(s) in the higher division are relegated to the lower division for the next season. During the season, teams that are high enough in the league table that they would qualify for promotion are sometimes said to be in the promotion zone, and those at the bottom are in the relegation zone.
The Rugby League European Championship is a rugby league football tournament for European national teams that was first held in 1935.
The Baseball World Cup (BWC) was an international baseball tournament for national teams around the world, sanctioned by the International Baseball Federation (IBAF). First held in 1938 as the Amateur World Series (AWS), it was, for most of its history, the highest level of international baseball competition in the world. Even after it was supplanted in this regard in 2006 by the modern World Baseball Classic (WBC), the Baseball World Cup was still considered by the IBAF to be a major world championship, along with the WBC and the Summer Olympic Games.
The Christy Ring Cup is an annual hurling competition organised by the Gaelic Athletic Association. Originally introduced as a second-tier competition, it is currently the third tier overall in the inter-county hurling championship system. Each year, the champions of the Christy Ring Cup are promoted to the Joe McDonagh Cup, and the lowest finishing team is relegated to the Nicky Rackard Cup. The competition is named in honour of Christy Ring, a legendary player from Cork.
The Asia Series was an international club baseball competition, contested by the champions of all four professional leagues associated with the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC)—Australian Baseball League (ABL), Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL), Korea Baseball Organization League, and Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB)—along with the CEB European Champion Cup holder and host city, to bring the number of teams to six.
The Australian national baseball team represents Australia in international baseball tournaments and competitions. It is ranked as the top team in Oceania, and is the Oceanian Champion, having been awarded the title in 2007 when New Zealand withdrew from the Oceania Baseball Championship. After achieving a last (16th) place in the 2013 World Baseball Classic, its rank dropped to 13, which is the lowest rank Australia ever received. The highest rank it has achieved is 6th, and its current rank is 10th.
The FPF Campeonato de Futebol de Praia is a league competition for beach soccer clubs in Portugal. Organised by the Portuguese Football Federation (FPF) who also established the championship in 2012, it is the country's primary beach soccer club competition. The national league replaced a previous championship run by district associations as Portugal's paramount club tournament.
The National Premier Leagues (NPL) is a men's national association football competition in Australia which acts as the second tier of the sport in the country below the A-League. The NPL consists of the highest level state league in each state-based federation within Australia. In total the NPL is contested by clubs from eight divisions; these are ACT, NSW, Northern NSW, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia. The NPL is overseen by Football Australia, in partnership with participating state-based member federations.
The EPCR Challenge Cup is an annual rugby union competition organised by European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR). It is the second-tier competition for clubs based in European leagues behind the European Rugby Champions Cup. From its inception in 1996 to 2014, it was known as the European Challenge Cup and governed by European Rugby Cup (ERC). Following disagreements in the structure of the tournament's format and division of revenue, the English and French leagues withdrew to form the EPCR, which organized the Challenge Cup and the Champions Cup since the 2014–15 season.
The Women's British Basketball League (WBBL) is the top-level women's basketball league in Great Britain, founded on 5 June 2014 as the women's counterpart to the British Basketball League (BBL). The league's headquarters are in Leicester alongside the offices of the men's BBL.
The 2014 Northern NSW Football season was the first season under the new competition format in northern New South Wales. The competition consisted of six divisions across the district. The overall premier for the new structure qualified for the National Premier Leagues finals series, competing with the other state federation champions in a final knockout tournament to decide the National Premier Leagues Champion for 2014.
The 2015–16 European Rugby Challenge Cup was the second edition of the European Rugby Challenge Cup, an annual pan-European rugby union competition for professional clubs. It is also the 20th season of the Challenge Cup competition in all forms, following on from the now defunct European Challenge Cup. Due to the 2015 Rugby World Cup taking place during September and October 2015, the competition began slightly later than usual, with the first round of the group stage, on the weekend of 12/13/14/15 November 2015, and ended with the final on 13 May 2016 in Lyon.
The 2016 Football Federation Victoria season was the third season under the new competition format for state-level football (soccer) in Victoria. The competition consisted of seven divisions across the state of Victoria.
The Baseball European Cup, formerly called the Confederation Cup and CEB Cup, is an annual baseball tournament, sanctioned and created by WBSC Europe. The tournament is the second-tier tournament for baseball leagues across Europe, alongside the first-tier European Champions Cup, third-tier Federation Cup, and fourth-tier Federation Cup Qualifiers, all of which operate with a promotion and relegation system for its federations.
The 2017–18 European Rugby Challenge Cup was the fourth edition of the European Rugby Challenge Cup, an annual second-tier rugby union competition for professional clubs. It was also the 22nd season of the Challenge Cup competition in all forms, following on from the now defunct European Challenge Cup. Clubs from six European nations plus two Russian club competed for the title.
The Women's Twenty20 Cup, known for sponsorship reasons as the Vitality Women's County T20, is a women's Twenty20 cricket competition organised by the England and Wales Cricket Board. Until the end of the 2019 season, teams were organised in tiered divisions, with a national winner; since, teams have been organised into regional groups.
WXV is an annual women's rugby union competition between national teams. Launched in 2023, the competition consists of three tiers, each comprising six teams divided into two pools in a split pool format, where teams only face teams from the other pool.
The 2023 European Champions Cup was a European baseball competition, held from 4 to 10 June 2023, in Amsterdam and Bussum, Netherlands. This is the sixtieth iteration of the Cup since its inaugural tournament in 1963.
2023 European Champions Cup (baseball) 
HCAW (2023)
Parma (15 titles)
