Why no playoffs?

[Deuce]

Mike man

 

It was harsh, but it's baseball season. We ain't cool right now.

 

Tbh I was laughing at this thread in general. You knew exactly what you were getting yourself into when you started it.

[ElDiablo]

I like the idea in isolation, but I just wouldn't swap total fairness for entertainment.

[Mike]

Mike man

 

It was harsh, but it's baseball season. We ain't cool right now.

 

Tbh I was laughing at this thread in general. You knew exactly what you were getting yourself into when you started it.

 

Took longer than a minute to hit post. Just heard "Fuck off" in like an echo chamber.

[Deuce]

I like the idea in isolation, but I just wouldn't swap total fairness for entertainment.

 

Difference in sporting cultures obviously, but I still think playoffs would be far more exciting than what the PL currently offers in an average season, in terms of finishes.

 

And the league is hardly "totally fair" as is.

[Mike]

I like the idea in isolation, but I just wouldn't swap total fairness for entertainment.

 

Where is the total fairness, though? Where were City or Chelsea before their billionaires?

[BillClinton]

I like the idea in isolation, but I just wouldn't swap total fairness for entertainment.

 

Where is the total fairness, though? Where were City or Chelsea before their billionaires?

 

Right. Nothing will be fair while teams are spending that kind of money ever year. Manchester City bought Sinclair from the 9th best team for no reason at all. Money is the problem. 

[Mike]

I like the idea in isolation, but I just wouldn't swap total fairness for entertainment.

 

Where is the total fairness, though? Where were City or Chelsea before their billionaires?

 

Right. Nothing will be fair while teams are spending that kind of money ever year. Manchester City bought Sinclair from the 9th best team for no reason at all. Money is the problem. 

 

Money is a problem. You can't aggressively fight the impact of money in the league without chasing the best players out of the country. Give more teams a reason to spend and compete and you'll slowly see the best players on more than four or five teams.

[Guest ItalianMagpie]

I like the idea in isolation, but I just wouldn't swap total fairness for entertainment.

 

The entertainment would drop instead, imho.

38 games that count more or less as much as a league cup first round.

Boring as fuck for 9 months, tbh.

 

In other sports the best team wins in 99% of the cases, in football this percentage is already much lower and there's no need to add an extra factor to make it drop further.

[Superior Acuña]

I like the idea in isolation, but I just wouldn't swap total fairness for entertainment.

 

Difference in sporting cultures obviously, but I still think playoffs would be far more exciting than what the PL currently offers in an average season, in terms of finishes.

 

And the league is hardly "totally fair" as is.

 

I think it'd also be more exciting if they banned Man United from winning it for a while after 20 titles but I couldn't begin to justify it. I just can't get over how ridiculously unfair it is that a team who won the league doesn't win the league. If Newcastle won the league, and then fucking 8th-placed West Brom won a play-off, nobody could tell me we didn't win the league. I'd buy my own fucking trophy if necessary.

[ElDiablo]

I like the idea in isolation, but I just wouldn't swap total fairness for entertainment.

 

Where is the total fairness, though? Where were City or Chelsea before their billionaires?

 

I agree with that point, but it just isn't enough to justify completely revolutionising the league format because a few clubs have had investment pumped in to them. It also takes the magic of winning away slightly. The prestige between 3rd and 6th is massive now, that would get taken away totally and it wouldn't be an achievement to finish ahead of anyone else in the play offs any longer.

 

Our 5th place last season will go down as a good season in our history, if we'd only qualified for the play offs and lost it loses something for me.

[Deuce]

I like the idea in isolation, but I just wouldn't swap total fairness for entertainment.

 

The entertainment would drop instead, imho.

38 games that count more or less as much as a league cup first round.

Boring as fuck for 9 months, tbh.

 

In other sports the best team wins in 99% of the cases, in football this percentage is already much lower and there's no need to add an extra factor to make it drop further.

 

That's not at all true though. There have been 5 different champions of the PL in 21 years. Sorry for keeping this U.S.-centric, but over that same time frame, 11 different teams have won the World Series, 13 teams have won the Super Bowl, 8 teams have won the NBA Championship, and 13 different teams have won the Stanley Cup (NHL). And very seldom do the teams with the best regular season records win the championship, as Mike will attest to (being the scumbag Yankees fan that he is).

 

It's not as if clubs could piss away the PL regular season like they do the League Cup. And they wouldn't.

[Deuce]

I like the idea in isolation, but I just wouldn't swap total fairness for entertainment.

 

Difference in sporting cultures obviously, but I still think playoffs would be far more exciting than what the PL currently offers in an average season, in terms of finishes.

 

And the league is hardly "totally fair" as is.

 

I think it'd also be more exciting if they banned Man United from winning it for a while after 20 titles but I couldn't begin to justify it. I just can't get over how ridiculously unfair it is that a team who won the league doesn't win the league. If Newcastle won the league, and then fucking 8th-placed West Brom won a play-off, nobody could tell me we didn't win the league. I'd buy my own fucking trophy if necessary.

 

That's the thing, "winning the league" wouldn't mean what it does now. It would mean winning the regular season AND winning the playoffs. And if 1st place Newcastle couldn't beat West Brom in a two-game playoff played in Newcastle, they honestly wouldn't deserve to win the league.

[SEMTEX]

http://img607.imageshack.us/img607/9153/696398be966a478cb721fc7.png

 

Which is the best team, here?

 

 

http://i.imgur.com/T02rbBD.jpg The regular season is a terrible way to determine a champion.

 

 

 

Mike is single handedly giving Scandinavia a run for it's money.

 

I don't know what this means, but I assume it's an incredible way of calling me an asshole.

 

They're not the best team. Being the best team means being consistently the best over a long period of time, against all types of opponents.

 

Right. They were the best team for a month. Why have the other 6 months then? Anything can happen in a month, someone could get hurt or a player could catch fire for a few weeks (Quick in the Kings case)

 

Because it's more exciting to put the top teams in a high pressure situation and see the reaction to the pressure/injuries than it is to watch the same four teams win the same title and play the same European matches vs the same continental teams year in and year out.

 

It might be more exciting, but it'd not be the best team winning. It would be the form team winning.

 

And even though it'd be more exciting for that moment, it's still a lot more hollow, and it makes the regular season feel pointless. No-one really gives a shit if teams lose regular season games over here man. It's about 10 seconds of "damn", and then off home. NFL being the only exception because of how short the season is & how few teams get into the playoffs.

[pedro111]

I actually like the idea, Mike. You're alright after all.

[Deuce]

Say they added playoffs, scrapped the League Cup, and added a few more regular season games to the PL schedule (say 42 games) to make each game slightly more "hollow." Top 6 qualify for playoffs (keeping the playoffs rather exclusive). Top 2 clubs earn first-round byes, home-field advantage, playoffs over in 2 weeks.

 

[Mike]

http://img607.imageshack.us/img607/9153/696398be966a478cb721fc7.png

 

Which is the best team, here?

 

 

http://i.imgur.com/T02rbBD.jpg The regular season is a terrible way to determine a champion.

 

 

 

Mike is single handedly giving Scandinavia a run for it's money.

 

I don't know what this means, but I assume it's an incredible way of calling me an asshole.

 

They're not the best team. Being the best team means being consistently the best over a long period of time, against all types of opponents.

 

Right. They were the best team for a month. Why have the other 6 months then? Anything can happen in a month, someone could get hurt or a player could catch fire for a few weeks (Quick in the Kings case)

 

Because it's more exciting to put the top teams in a high pressure situation and see the reaction to the pressure/injuries than it is to watch the same four teams win the same title and play the same European matches vs the same continental teams year in and year out.

 

It might be more exciting, but it'd not be the best team winning. It would be the form team winning.

 

And even though it'd be more exciting for that moment, it's still a lot more hollow, and it makes the regular season feel pointless. No-one really gives a shit if teams lose regular season games over here man. It's about 10 seconds of "damn", and then off home. NFL being the only exception because of how short the season is & how few teams get into the playoffs.

 

Had to get the percentage calculator out, but 12 is 37 percent of 32, and 8 is 40 percent of 20. I feel like that's a push.

 

Even if the in form team wins, knowing how to maintain regular season form or reverse poor form going into the playoffs gives any postseason win significance. Three games, every team putting out their best 11 and going 100 percent for the win. Whichever team comes out the other side of that is absolutely the best team that year.

[Doctor Zaius]

But this would just lead to even more meaningless games. So you only have to finish in the top 8 to make the play off? Man u, man city etc had that sewn up before Christmas. They'd have months of pointless games until the play offs got underway.

 

 

 

This. This is why it wouldnt work, too many meaningless games could kill the league.

 

However, I must admit, we stand absolutely no chance of winning the league without major investment, that if anything, is absolutely shit. Playoff's is probably not the way to go but fuck me the current system is boring as fuck.

[Mike]

I actually like the idea, Mike. You're alright after all.

 

Took dozens of years, but I won Pedro over.

[Deuce]

But this would just lead to even more meaningless games. So you only have to finish in the top 8 to make the play off? Man u, man city etc had that sewn up before Christmas. They'd have months of pointless games until the play offs got underway.

 

 

 

This. This is why it wouldnt work, too many meaningless games could kill the league.

 

However, I must admit, we stand absolutely no chance of winning the league without major investment, that if anything, is absolutely shit. Playoff's is probably not the way to go but fuck me the current system is boring as fuck.

 

Why playoffs in conjunction with a salary cap would do the league a world of good. 

 

Not that either stands a great chance of implementation currently. Oh well, I love the league regardless and will continue to follow no matter what.

[Roke]

I mean, what sport has suffered because they added playoffs? Get rid of the league cup that no one cares about, move the league fixtures into those old LC spots. You only need three matches if you go one and done.

 

Top eight teams like in NBA/NHL make it. One and done. No legs, no agg. Final top eight standings determined by winner, 2nd place, winner of 3rd, loser of 3rd place playoff. Then 4-8 could be GD.

 

Gives every team something to play for all year. Midtable teams pushing for that 8th spot, get a chance to compete for the trophy.

 

Best team isn't always the team in first.

 

I'll f*** off. I'm just saying, is all.

 

Though the best team may not be in first place at the end of the season the team in first is much more likely to be the best team in the league than the team that wins the playoffs.

 

Bringing in playoffs brings in three things things: More games to attend/more money for the owners, More drama (though nothing like the title last season), and More randomness.  Each round of the NFL (http://www.footballperspective.com/are-nfl-playoff-outcomes-getting-more-random/), baseball (http://thesportswatchers.com/mlb/the-baseball-playoffs-and-the-randomness-of-it-all-4592), and hockey (http://www2.macleans.ca/2013/02/02/randumbness-the-new-nhl-is-less-predictable-than-you-think/ - about luck in a shortened regular season which is still more than the maximum 28 playoff games).  Hockey is the sport I follow closely and the conventional analytic wisdom is that the best team wins the Stanley Cup about 24% of the time but I can't find the article where that was shown.

 

Sports outcomes, especially in North America where the leagues conspire to achieve "parity", are basically weighted coin flips.  You're more likely to see figure out who the best team is over the longer period of games.  Playoffs are great for drama, a boon for sportswriters crafting narratives, and tremendous for mythmaking about clutch performances and rising to the occasion but they don't get the job done when deciding who the best team in a league.  You also devalue the "regular season" tremendously. 

[Doctor Zaius]

Why are we that bothered about settling who's the best team in the league anyway? It's not as if they're only the best team in the league because they've essentially cheated with money. Being against the play offs because it doesnt rightly justify who's best suggests some kind of 'sporting morality' as opposed to excitement. Some kind of need to decipher who's truely the best because thats what its all about at the end of the day. Why bother? All of that left the game when money started to decide who's best.

[Mike]

I maintain that the regular season in the EPL (can't sink any further, right?) is mostly about damage control for more teams than it is about winning. You've got more teams trying to avoid relegation than trying to win the league.

 

Even if playoffs break down to be just coin flips and the outcome can be broken down to seem completely random, is that worse than knowing that the next 5 PL titles will go to either Manchester United, Chelsea, or City? What's the incentive for the fan of a midtable team? What wakes a Fulham fan up in the morning?

 

Playoffs are great for drama, a boon for sportswriters crafting narratives, and tremendous for mythmaking about clutch performances and rising to the occasion but they don't get the job done when deciding who the best team in a league.  You also devalue the "regular season" tremendously. 

 

Is it wrong to think that if the team from the reg season flames out in the playoffs, they were nowhere near the best? The best team is the one that's left standing when the playoffs are done.

 

I also disagree that the reg season gets devalued, especially one as tight at the EPL season. It's not as solid as the NFL, but it's not as bad as the MLB. It's in that Goldilocks Zone. In your opinion, are the playoffs in the lower leagues a bad thing?

[Deuce]

Why are we that bothered about settling who's the best team in the league anyway? It's not as if they're only the best team in the league because they've essentially cheated with money. Being against the play offs because it doesnt rightly justify who's best suggests some kind of 'sporting morality' as opposed to excitement. Some kind of need to decipher who's truely the best because thats what its all about at the end of the day. Why bother? All of that left the game when money started to decide who's best.

 

And playoffs are one way of helping negate the influence of money. It all starts with the belief that what teams like City and Chelsea do, in terms of their spending, is inherently unfair. If a team like Everton can stick with the big dogs through an entire season, despite a pitiful budget, they absolutely deserve the chance to compete for the league title.

 

I think we can all agree that City (and Chelsea to some extent) would be absolutely nothing without their billionaire owners. Mancini is a horribly average manager and Chelsea would've died a long time ago if they tried this manager merry-go-round on half their budget. ManU and Arsenal at least have achieved consistent success through winning and excellent managing. Neither the Glazers nor Kroeneke have the kind of money into their respective clubs as have the Qataris and Abramovich...their funding has come from their on-field success primarily (in addition to wildly successful global marketing campaigns).

[Guest ItalianMagpie]

I like the idea in isolation, but I just wouldn't swap total fairness for entertainment.

 

The entertainment would drop instead, imho.

38 games that count more or less as much as a league cup first round.

Boring as f*** for 9 months, tbh.

 

In other sports the best team wins in 99% of the cases, in football this percentage is already much lower and there's no need to add an extra factor to make it drop further.

 

That's not at all true though. There have been 5 different champions of the PL in 21 years. Sorry for keeping this U.S.-centric, but over that same time frame, 11 different teams have won the World Series, 13 teams have won the Super Bowl, 8 teams have won the NBA Championship, and 13 different teams have won the Stanley Cup (NHL). And very seldom do the teams with the best regular season records win the championship, as Mike will attest to (being the scumbag Yankees fan that he is).

 

 

Yes, but that's because in US sports the values of the teams change completely and pretty often, and you can be the champion one year and finish rock bottom the next one. Many different winners, but they were most probably the best in the league when they won, no matter how crap they were the previous or the following season.

The system is different and that doesn't happen in football, and certainly not because there are no playoffs.

 

Then the sport culture is different, I have the impression that american fans don't care that much about the results of their team as long as the game is entertaining. They begin to care about the results too when the playoffs start.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if I'm not in Europe such a perspective would never work.

[Doctor Zaius]

Why are we that bothered about settling who's the best team in the league anyway? It's not as if they're only the best team in the league because they've essentially cheated with money. Being against the play offs because it doesnt rightly justify who's best suggests some kind of 'sporting morality' as opposed to excitement. Some kind of need to decipher who's truely the best because thats what its all about at the end of the day. Why bother? All of that left the game when money started to decide who's best.

 

And playoffs are one way of helping negate the influence of money. It all starts with the belief that what teams like City and Chelsea do, in terms of their spending, is inherently unfair. If a team like Everton can stick with the big dogs through an entire season, despite a pitiful budget, they absolutely deserve the chance to compete for the league title.

 

Yep. The only issue for me is the pointless games. A Champions league play off between 4th to 7th would be class though.