Playoff format
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.
Associated concepts[edit]
Reseeding[edit]
In tournaments where participants are seeded, the participants may be "reseeded" at each round in order to ensure that the strongest remaining team faces the weakest team. This type of tournament bracket is not fixed; potential match-ups cannot be anticipated up to the final. For example, in an eight-team bracket, the teams that will meet in the second round will be the winning team with the highest beginning seed against the first-round winner with the lowest original seed. The second-highest-winning seed faces the winning team with the second-lowest original seed.
The only notable tournaments that employ this rule are the NFL playoffs and WNBA playoffs. The Stanley Cup playoffs used the rule between 1975 and 1981, between 1994 and 2013, and 2020. Note that between 1994–2013 and 2020, reseeding does not come into play if there are only two rounds of competition. The NBA playoffs, the NCAA basketball tournaments (men and women), and most tennis tournaments, elect not to reseed, despite the possibility of reseeding resulting in different matchups. Prior to 2022, the MLB postseason did not have a format in which reseeding could change the matchups; the expanded postseason starting in 2022, in which the number of teams in each league making the playoffs will increase from 5 to 6, will not reseed teams.