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.
A single-elimination, knockout, or sudden death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of each match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final match-up, whose winner becomes the tournament champion. Each match-up may be a single match or several, for example two-legged ties in European sports or best-of series in American pro sports. Defeated competitors may play no further part after losing, or may participate in "consolation" or "classification" matches against other losers to determine the lower final rankings; for example, a third place playoff between losing semi-finalists. In a shootout poker tournament, there are more than two players competing at each table, and sometimes more than one progressing to the next round. Some competitions are held with a pure single-elimination tournament system. Others have many phases, with the last being a single-elimination final stage, often called playoffs.
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 PBA Governors' Cup is a tournament of the Philippine Basketball Association. Along with the PBA Commissioner's Cup, the tournament is one of the two conferences that allows teams to hire a single foreign player, also known as an "import". The tournament was first held in 1993 as the third conference of the PBA season.
A one-game playoff, sometimes known as a pennant playoff, tiebreaker game or knockout game, is a tiebreaker in certain sports—usually but not always professional—to determine which of two teams, tied in the final standings, will qualify for a post-season tournament. Such a playoff is either a single game or a short series of games.
The NASCAR playoffs is a championship playoff system used in NASCAR's three national series. The system was founded as 'The Chase for the Championship' on January 21, 2004, and was used exclusively in the NASCAR Cup Series from 2004 to 2015. Since 2016, NASCAR has also used the playoff system in the Xfinity Series and Camping World Truck Series.
The MLS Cup Playoffs is the annual postseason elimination tournament of Major League Soccer. The MLS Cup, the league's championship game, is the final match of the tournament. Under the current format adopted for the 2023 season, 18 teams qualify for the tournament based on regular-season point totals — the nine highest-placed teams from each the Eastern Conference and the Western Conference. Audi is the title sponsor of this tournament.
The 2012 ICC World Twenty20 was the fourth ICC World Twenty20 competition, an international Twenty20 cricket tournament that took place in Sri Lanka from 18 September to 7 October 2012 which was won by the West Indies. This was the first World Twenty20 tournament held in an Asian country, the last three having been held in South Africa, England and the West Indies. Sri Lankan pacer Lasith Malinga had been chosen as the event ambassador of the tournament by ICC. The format had four groups of three teams in a preliminary round.
The Inline Hockey World Championship is an annual inline hockey tournament organized by World Skate. Prior to the creation of World Skate in September 2017, the championship was administrated by the Comité International Roller In-Line Hockey (CIRILH), an organization and discipline of Fédération Internationale de Roller Sports (FIRS). It is the sport's highest-profile annual international tournament.
The women's snowboard cross competition of the Sochi 2014 Olympics was held at Rosa Khutor Extreme Park on 16 February 2014.
The men's ski cross event in freestyle skiing at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia took place on February 20, 2014.
This article contains a chronological summary of major events from the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
The Northern and Southern Cups are the two major regional quidditch tournaments of the United Kingdom. Organised by QuadballUK, the tournaments serve both as qualification prerequisites for other tournaments, such as the European Quidditch Cup and the British Quidditch Cup alongside being their own stand alone tournaments. Regionals are often considered the most important tournaments of the year after the British Quidditch Cup and they serve as qualifiers for the latter tournament. Those teams that fail to qualify for BQC each season compete in the Development Cup instead. From 2021 onwards the tournaments have been held as a series of one-day fixtures exclusively for university teams with the equivalent Community League tournament held for community teams.
The men's snowboard cross competition of the 2018 Winter Olympics was held on 15 February 2018 Bogwang Phoenix Park in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
The women's snowboard cross competition of the 2018 Winter Olympics was held on 16 February 2018 Bogwang Phoenix Park in Pyeongchang, South Korea. The event was won by Michela Moioli. Julia Pereira de Sousa Mabileau became second, and Eva Samková, the defending champion, third.
The men's shortboard competition at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo was held from 25 to 27 July at the Shidashita Beach, or "Shida", located about 40 miles (64 km) outside of Tokyo in Chiba.
The women's shortboard competition at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo was held from 25 to 27 July at the Shidashita Beach, or "Shida", located about 40 miles (64 km) outside of Tokyo in Chiba.
The 2023 Leagues Cup is the third edition of the Leagues Cup, an international club soccer tournament between Major League Soccer (MLS) and Liga MX. It is being held from July 21 to August 19, 2023, with all 77 matches held in either the United States or Canada. The tournament is organized by MLS and the Mexican Football Federation and sanctioned by CONCACAF, the continental governing body for the sport in North America.
