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.
The FA Women's National League, formerly WFA National League and FA Women's Premier League (WPL), is a group of six football divisions run by the English Football Association. Founded in 1991 by the Women's Football Association, the League included England's top division from 1991 to 2010.
An athletic conference is a collection of sports teams, playing competitively against each other in a sports league. In many cases conferences are subdivided into smaller divisions, with the best teams competing at successively higher levels. Conferences often, but not always, include teams from a common geographic region.
A perfect season is a sports season including any requisite playoff portion, in which a team remains and finishes undefeated and untied. The feat is extremely rare at the professional level of any team sport, and has occurred more commonly at the collegiate and scholastic levels in the United States. A perfect regular season is a season excluding any playoffs, where a team remains undefeated and untied; it is less rare than a complete perfect season but still exceptional.
There are a number of 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 more commonly known as on aggregate, and the round-robin tournament.
A wild card is a tournament or playoff berth awarded to an individual or team that fails to qualify in the normal way; for example, by having a high ranking or winning a qualifying stage. In some events, wildcards are chosen freely by the organizers. Other events have fixed rules. Some North American professional sports leagues compare the records of teams which did not qualify directly by winning a division or conference.
The Penn State Nittany Lions are the athletic teams of Pennsylvania State University, except for the women's basketball team, known as the Lady Lions. The school colors are navy blue and white. The school mascot is the Nittany Lion. The intercollegiate athletics logo was commissioned in 1983.
Bracknell Queen Bees IHC is a women’s ice hockey club based in Bracknell, Berkshire, England. They are located at the John Nike Leisuresport complex in Bracknell. Their home ice rink is affectionately known as the Hive.
EuroCup Basketball, commonly known as the EuroCup and currently called 7DAYS EuroCup for sponsorship reasons, is an annual professional basketball club competition that has been organized by Euroleague Basketball since 2002. Behind the EuroLeague, the league is regarded as Europe's second-tier professional basketball club tournament.
The San Francisco Bay Area, which includes the major cities of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, hosts six major league sports franchises, as well as several other professional and college sports teams, and hosts other sports events.
In the United States, sports are televised on various broadcast networks, national and specialty sports cable channels, and regional sports networks. U.S. sports rights are estimated to be worth a total of $22.42 billion in 2019, about 44 percent of the total worldwide sports media market. U.S. networks are willing to pay a significant amount of money for television sports contracts because it attracts large amounts of viewership; live sport broadcasts accounted for 44 of the 50 list of most watched television broadcasts in the United States in 2016.
The Shaughnessy playoff system is a method of determining the champion of a sports league that is not in a divisional alignment. This format is also known as the Argus finals system. It involves the participation of the top four teams in the league standings in a single elimination tournament. While the first round of the playoffs involve the pairing of the first- and fourth-place teams in one contest and the second- and third-place teams in the other, a variant of the Shaughnessy playoffs would pair the first- and third-place teams in one semifinal round and the second- and fourth-place teams in the other. In either variant, the winners of the first two games would then compete for the league championship. Some lower-level leagues use a Shaughnessy playoff for purposes of promotion to the next-higher league.
The USA Rugby Women's Premier League is the top annual American women's rugby union competition. It is player-run and operates in partnership with USA Rugby. It involves the top 10 clubs in the country. The league was founded in 2009.
The Sandwell Steelers are an American football team based in Walsall, West Midlands, England, that competes in the BAFA National Leagues Premier Division North, the highest level of British American Football. They operate from Walsall Rugby Club and were formed in 2013. The Steelers earned promotion to Division One in their second ever season an have won 3 Division titles in their 5 years as a BAFA League team. In 2019 they were promoted to the Premier Division North beating Northumberland Vikings in the NFC 1 Bowl game. The club also operate a selection Youth, Junior and Women's American Football teams.
The 2019 WPL Rugby Season was the eleventh season of the Women's Premier League Rugby. Life West Gladiatrix made their WPL debut and joined the West Conference and Chicago North Shore moved to the East Conference.
The 2009 Women's Premier League Rugby season was the inaugural season of the Women's Premier League in the United States. It began on September 6 and involved eight teams.
The 2010 Women's Premier League Rugby season was the second season of the Women's Premier League in the United States. It began on September 11 and involved eight teams.
The 2011 Women's Premier League Rugby season was the third season of the Women's Premier League in the United States. It began on September 10 and involved eight teams.
The 2012 Women's Premier League Rugby season was the fourth season of the Women's Premier League in the United States. It began on September 8 and involved eight teams.
The 2014 Women's Premier League Rugby season was the sixth season of the Women's Premier League in the United States. It began on September 13 and involved eight teams.