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 double-elimination tournament is a type of elimination tournament competition in which a participant ceases to be eligible to win the tournament's championship upon having lost two games or matches. It stands in contrast to a single-elimination tournament, in which only one defeat results in elimination.
Repechage is a practice in series competitions that allows participants who failed to meet qualifying standards by a small margin to continue to the next round. A well-known example is the wild card system.
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.
The Page playoff system is a playoff format used primarily in softball and curling at the championship level, and the Indian Premier League and Pakistan Super League cricket tournaments. Teams are seeded using a round-robin tournament and the top four play a mix of a single-elimination and double-elimination tournament to determine the winner. It is identical to a four-team McIntyre system playoff, first used by the WANFL, SANFL and VFL in Australia in 1931, originally called the Page–McIntyre system, after the VFL delegate, the Richmond Football Club's Secretary, Percy "Pip" Page, who had advocated its use. A form has been adopted in the Canadian Premier League national soccer competition.
The Atlantic Coast Conference baseball tournament, sometimes referred to simply as the ACC tournament, is the conference championship tournament in baseball for the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). In 2017, the event adopted a modified twelve-team pool play format. The winner receives the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA Division I baseball tournament.
The 2011–12 Australian Baseball League season is the second Australian Baseball League (ABL) season, and is being held from 4 November 2011 to 12 February 2012. The season was scheduled to start on 3 November with a single game between the Perth Heat and the Adelaide Bite at Baseball Park in Perth, but the game was postponed due to wet weather.
The qualifying round of the 2013 World Baseball Classic was held from September 19 to November 19, 2012. Although the 2006 and 2009 editions of the World Baseball Classic were contested by the same pre-selected field of 16 teams, for the 2013 tournament only the 12 teams that won at least one game in 2009 were guaranteed a berth in the main tournament. The other four contested the qualifying round along with 12 additional teams invited by the International Baseball Federation (IBAF).
Qualifier 1 of the Qualifying Round of the 2013 World Baseball Classic was held at Roger Dean Stadium, Jupiter, Florida, United States from September 19 to 23, 2012.
Qualifier 2 of the qualifications of the 2013 World Baseball Classic was held at Armin-Wolf-Arena, Regensburg, Germany from September 20 to 24, 2012.
Qualifier 3 of the Qualifying Round of the 2013 World Baseball Classic was held at Rod Carew Stadium, Panama City, Panama from November 15 to 19, 2012.
Pool 2 of the Second Round of the 2013 World Baseball Classic was held at Marlins Park, Miami, Florida, United States from March 12 to 16, 2013.
The qualifying Round of the 2017 World Baseball Classic was held from February 11 to September 25, 2016. Teams which participated at the 2013 World Baseball Classic were automatically qualified for the 2017 tournament except the four nations which ended up last in their respective groups: Australia, Brazil, Mexico, and Spain had to play in the qualifiers along with 12 other national teams. 16 teams participated, divided into four groups of four teams each. The winners of each of the four groups qualified for the 2017 World Baseball Classic.
Major League Baseball tie-breaking procedures are used by Major League Baseball (MLB) to break ties between teams for qualification and seeding into the MLB postseason. The procedures in use since 2022, when a third wild card team and resulting Wild Card Series were added for both the American League and National League, are outlined below.
ESL One Cologne 2016, also known as ESL Cologne Major 2016 or Cologne 2016, was an Electronic Sports League Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament. It was the ninth Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Major Championship and was held at the Lanxess Arena In Cologne, Germany from July 8–10. It featured 16 teams from throughout the world competing. Cologne 2016 had the second consecutive major with a prize pool of $1,000,000.
Qualifier 1 of the Qualifying Round of the 2017 World Baseball Classic was held at Blacktown Baseball Stadium, Sydney, Australia from February 11 to 14, 2016.
Qualifier 2 of the Qualifying Round of the 2017 World Baseball Classic was held at Estadio B'Air, Mexicali, Mexico, from March 17 to 20, 2016.
Qualifier 3 of the Qualifying Round of the 2017 World Baseball Classic was held at Rod Carew Stadium, Panama City, Panama from March 17 to 20, 2016.
Qualifier 4 of the Qualifying Round of the 2017 World Baseball Classic was held at MCU Park, Brooklyn, New York, United States from September 22 to 25, 2016. It was won by Team Israel, which went on to play in the World Baseball Classic in March 2017.
Baseball was featured at the 2020 Summer Olympics, in Tokyo, for the first time since the 2008 Summer Olympics. Six national teams competed in the tournament: Israel, Japan (host), Mexico, South Korea, the United States, and the Dominican Republic.
