Determining "True" Champions

An article by WhoDey    No Comments

This time of year, we always end up back into the same old tired argument about a college football “playoff”.  It’s not my intention here to drum that up once again; I’m sure you’ll get your fill of it from other outlets.  I want to broaden our horizons a little bit, and talk about what it means to be a “true” champion.  That’s the term that’s always thrown out when someone makes an argument for a playoff, and I’m not sure that’s valid.

I would argue that playoff systems don’t necessarily determine a true champion.  Take a game like baseball, where teams grind through a long 162 game season, then, with the advent of the wild card, turn around to face their first playoff opponent in a 5 game series.  Is the team that comes out of that first series clearly the better team?  I would say you learn a lot more about a team over the course of a 162 game season than you do if they happen to lose 3 games to a team that gets hot.

In both baseball and the NFL, we’ve seen the “last team in” make huge runs towards championships several times in the last decade.  These wild card teams have been fighting for their playoff lives for weeks and have gotten hot in a “do or die” mode.  Is the hot team a true champion?  Sure, that team got it done when it counted, but were they the best team?

Think of it this way – how often can you objectively look back on a sports season and say the best team won the championship?  Sure, it happens sometimes – I would say that this past year we saw the best of MLB, NFL, and NBA win their titles.  But I would argue that happens much less frequently than you would hope.  Let’s stay here in Indianapolis, for example – how many times have the Colts had what could very persuasively be argued as the best team in football, only to falter in a win-or-go-home playoff?  The line is not as definite as it could be, since teams do not play identical schedules (as they once did in baseball).  Still – watching a team in the regular season gives us a pretty good idea of who they are and who is the best.

I’m not advocating ridding ourselves of playoff systems.  Figuring out who is the “true” champion is not the only priority of the postseason.  We’re all fans, and it really should be all about our entertainment.  That’s why the wild card system has worked so well in baseball – it’s made what otherwise might have been meaningless September games a lot more interesting and exciting for those of us who watch, and that’s as important as anything.  Just don’t tell me it determines who the “true” champion is.