Why isn't the league table featured prominently in American sports

The Game Room
1

So I spend quite a while watching American sports with the in-laws over the holidays (mainly NFL, but also some basketball and hockey). As well as the usual observations as a British person watching American sports (advert breaks, too many stoppages, etc) I noticed something else.

The positions of the different teams in the league (or conference or whatever they call it in different sports) is rarely mentioned, I do think I saw see the actual league table itself at all. Even in the NFL matches (which were the last ones before the playoffs) I’d only hear an occasional reference in the final game such as “Team X needs a win to advance to the play offs”, not “Team X are top of the conference with N wins, team Y are thirds with M wins”.

Why is this? In European football (soccer) leagues the table is mentioned a lot (even early in the season when its effective meaningless). The lack of draws (and AFAIK bonus points as in Rugby?) makes the league tables a little less interesting, as you have less possible combinations. But still seems strange to me.

2

Probably comes up less often because the major American sports do not have a system of promotion and relegation.

3

I think regular followers of American sports, such as myself, pretty much know the standings at all times during the season. That said, for most fans what is important is playoff position. Standings/table position is of utmost importance for most soccer leagues, because that IS the championship. In US sports, where distance makes completely balanced schedules impossible, the championship is won by winning the playoffs. Once they start, no one really cares about who had the best record during the regular season.

4

As noted above: there’s no promotion / relegation in U.S. pro sports, and all of the major professional team sports in the U.S. have both (a) a system of playoffs to determine a season’s champion, and (b) are organized into subgroups of conferences and divisions, which are what determine which teams make the playoffs.

For instance, in the NFL, a team is either in the American Football Conference (AFC), or the National football Conference (NFC). Twelve teams make the playoffs each year – six from each conference.

Within a conference, there are then four divisions (North, South, East, and West). The team with the best record in its division at the end of the regular season makes the playoffs (so, that’s four from each conference). Then, there are two “wild card” teams in each conference, which also get into the playoffs – the wild card teams are the two teams in a conference with the best record, who did not win their division.

Having the best record in your conference means (i.e., the “#1 seed”) that you’ll be playing at home through the playoffs, and it also means that you’ll get a “bye” (a week off) during the first week of the playoffs. (The #2 seed also gets that bye.)

Then, the two conference champions (as determined by three rounds of playoff games) meet in the Super Bowl, which is played at a neutral site. The winner of the Super Bowl is the league’s champion for that season.

A team’s overall record / standing in the league for the season doesn’t factor into any of that. Having “the best record in the league” for a season is a minor point of bragging rights, but there’s no award or trophy associated with that, and there have been a whole lot of teams who went into the playoffs having had the best regular-season record, only to fall short of winning the championship.

You’ll very frequently hear mention of a team’s position within their division, as that’s a relevant point (winning your division ensures a playoff spot). When you look at the league’s standings online, it’s always divided up by conference and division.

About the only thing that overall league standing in the NFL acts to determine is the order in which teams will draft new players (coming out of college) before the next season, as well as the order in which teams are allowed to claim players off of waivers when they’ve been released by other teams. In both of those cases, the “reverse order” is used (i.e., the team with the worst record gets the #1 draft choice).

5

This is not that different Champions League or World Cup. Where you have a group stage followed by knock out rounds. Unlike domestic club football completions where you typically have a single league.

That is what I mean.by position within the league. Position within the division. In the champions league or similar football competition you will hear a lot of discussion of the different teams position of within the group. And the various possible outcomes (especially at the end of the group stage). I’ve never heard that for the divisions in NFL (I couldnt tell how many teams in each division, and how many get to the playoffs)

6

I’ll also add that MLS works the same way, as opposed to most (all?) other soccer leagues around the world. Again, I think travel distance plays a big part of why they have to do it this way.

7

In the U.S., we use the term “standings” rather than “league table.” The standings are published each day, and they are important in that they determine which teams will qualify for the playoffs.

However, there are perhaps three developments during my lifetime that have made actual discussion of the daily standings less common for American sports these days.

One is the expansion of playoffs. When I was growing up, I followed baseball. There were two leagues—National and American—and each league was divided into eastern and western divisions. Divisions in the National league had six teams each and in the American league seven teams each. The important thing was that only the first place team in each division qualified for the playoffs.

Now, the phenomenon of wild card playoff entries has become ubiquitous, so you don’t have to be first in your division to make the playoffs. So it’s much less important to be the first place team.

Second and third, is the creation of more divisions with fewer teams. The American League had two divisions with seven teams each in my youth. Now, National Football League’s eight divisions have only four teams each. So, placement within a division is not really all that variable. Add that to the existence of wild cards, and there’s not much to say about it. And the NFL regular season will end with eight first-place teams. It’s not really all that much of an accomplishment to be first any more.

The result is that the standings have become much less important than they used to be. So, for the most part, discussion centers on the overall “wild card” table. You no longer get any prize for first place, so there’s not much to say about it.

8

I know Mexico has a US style football competition (a single competition with a group stage and playoffs, not a separate league and cup)

IMO I think the MLS should adopt a European style league with relegation and promotion. I think it would help spread the game here if some random small town could get promotion to the big leagues (at the expense of a big team that has bad season). Though thats a different thread (I started one on it a while back)

9

Then, either, you’ve been particularly unlucky, or you haven’t been sure of what you’ve been listening for.

In any given NFL TV broadcast, particularly when you get into the second half of the season, the teams’ positions in the standings will almost always get mentioned a few times, and it’ll usually be shown with an on-screen graphic at least once or twice (especially if the game is between two teams in the same division).

Particularly in the last month of the season, if one or both teams are in contention for a playoff spot, that, too, gets mentioned. The fact that there are two avenues into the playoffs for an NFL team (win your division, or win a wild-card spot) makes it a little more complicated, but the TV networks nearly always will dedicate a few moments of airtime to talk about the standings, and how the teams stand regarding their playoff hopes.

I grew up in Green Bay, I have Packers season tickets, and I have a share of stock in the Packers. I watch a lot of NFL football, and I’ve done so for decades. Please trust me when I say that this does, in fact, get covered, regularly, in game broadcasts.

10

Not entirely true, since winning your division in the NFL ensures that you will, at a minimum, get to host the first playoff game that you play in. A wild card team makes the playoffs, but they are on the road for as long as they’re in.

11

In US sports, leagues and divisions are not the same thing as leagues and divisions in a European sports.

A “division” in many European leagues is a group selected by competition level. Leagues encompass all levels of play and their Divisions are ranked from high to low and clubs an move in and out of the division based on their performance

I’m the U.S., however, a league like the MLB, NFL, NBA, or NHL is the equivalent of the European division. It represents the top level of play in the professional sport. And ranking within the league doesn’t result in relegation or promotion.

Divisions are groupings within the league to simply create smaller units of competition and create more opportunities for playoff berths. They don’t represent level of play.

12

That’s not a “prize” as I see it. It may be a bit of an advantage for a portion of the playoffs, but once the playoffs end, there’s little sense of lasting prestige or accomplishment in having won the division as opposed to entering the playoffs as a wild card.

When there are eight division winners, being first place in the division doesn’t mean as much as when there were four.

If you didn’t make it to the Super Bowl, a ffirst place finish isn’t a huge occasion for celebration any more.

13

The American system is pretty understandable.
The one thing I always thought they should change is making it possible for teams from the same conferance to play in the final. In NBA and as far as I know, the NFL and MLB, the final game or series is played between the conferance winners. What happens if the two best teams are in the same conferance. Like the Pistons and the Bulls during the Jordan era.

14

There isn’t really a way to prove that the 2 best teams are in the same division. You can’t go by record, since the schedules are not balanced; i.e. your record may be bloated to due to particularly weak teams in your division or conference that you play more frequently than those from other divisions or conference.

The one thing that bothers me about the NBA and NHL is that geographic rivals can never meet in the Finals, since there are Eastern and Western conferences. Each MLB league and NFL conference have divisions that span the country. So you can get a New York Mets vs. New York Yankees derby (although no one here calls it that) in the World Series.

15

Yeah, the equivalent in European sport would be a group in something like the Champions League. During the group stage you’ll hear a lot of discussion of the placings within the group. I’ve not heard any in the NFL

16

As mentioned above, the playoff picture is the most relevant information and that’s what is discussed.

17

And yet when an NFL team wins their division or their conference they will usually have a banner with the accomplishment permanently hung in the stadium, they will put out merchandise with the accomplishment on it, it will be mentioned frequently in the media, etc. Sure seems like a big deal to me. Not as much as a Super Bowl of course but you make it seem like nobody pays attention or cares, and I think you’re just projecting your own opinion. People care.

ETA: Except maybe New England. They pretty much automatically win their division every year since they’re the only team not hot garbage for the past decade or so.

18

It helps that they don’t have to play New England twice a year. :wink:

Agreed, the OP isn’t clear - American fans do know where their teams are in the standings, and those are on TV and in the paper and online lavishly enough for anyone to find out.

19

One thing I don’t think has been answered definitively: why are European league tables listed with the results as wins, then draws, then losses, but in the USA, they are listed as wins, then losses, then draws (er, ties)?

20

Speaking of not entirely true, if both wild card teams in a division win two playoff games in a row - eliminating the first through fourth seeds - then the fifth seeded (wild card) team will host the sixth seeded team and thus play at home.