One-game playoff

One-game playoffs are currently used in Major League Baseball (MLB). When two or more MLB teams are tied for a division championship or the wild card playoff berth (1995–2011, or starting in 2012, the second only) at the end of the regular season, a one-game playoff is used to determine the winner.

If a tie were (from 1995 to 2011) a two-way tie for a division championship and both tied teams' have records higher than those records of the second-place teams in the other divisions, or (from 2012) between the two division non-champions with the untied best record, there is no one-game playoff. In this scenario, the winner of the season series between the two teams is deemed to win the tie for purposes of playoff seeding.[1] Through the 2008 season, home-field advantage for one-game playoffs was determined by a coin flip, but effective in 2009, home advantage is based on a set of performance criteria, with the first tiebreaker being head-to-head record.[2]

For statistical purposes, one-game playoffs are considered part of the regular season. The result of the playoff is included in the regular season standings and individual player statistics are included along with the statistics for the rest of the season. One significant playoff-like deviation from normal regular season games in force as of 2007 is that six-man umpire crews are used (as opposed to the four-man crews of the regular season).[3] Also, television broadcasting rights for all are negotiated by MLB - since 2012, the network owning the rights to the Wild Card Game for a particular league has also had the rights to any tiebreaker(s) that might occur in that league.

Current MLB scheduling practices stipulate a break of at least one day between the scheduled end of the regular season and the start of the postseason. The schedule is designed to maximize the probability that tiebreakers can take place on the day after the scheduled end of the regular season with no alterations to the postseason schedule needing to be made as a result. Nevertheless, the schedule can be disrupted if rain-outs or other such events disrupt the schedule near the end of the season or on the day set aside for tiebreakers, and the tie-breaking procedure and scheduling would become more complicated if three or more teams tie.[1] This would require a series of one-game playoffs, taking more than one day. A series of one-game playoffs would also be necessary if teams tied for their division title also tied for the second wild card – in such a case, the division title would be settled first, with the loser of that game then contesting a tiebreaker for the wild card berth. There have been several occasions where such scenarios were possible as late as the last game of the season, but it has not yet happened. To provide some additional flexibility in case of make-up games and/or complicated playoff scenarios, an additional break of one day is always scheduled between the wild card game and the start of the Division Series in each league.

Starting in 2012, with the Wild Card game between the top two teams who did not win their division, if two teams tie for a division title and would both be in the playoffs, a one-game playoff would be held because it would determine which team receives the bye in the playoff, and if the winning percentage of the losing team is still enough to be a #1 or #2 wild card, the loser would be play in the wild card game. When two teams tie for the top two wild card positions, an extra game is not held - performance-based criteria is used in that case to determine the home team for the Wild Card Game.

Finally, although tiebreaker games count in the regular season standings, they do not count for the purposes of determining subsequent postseason qualification, seeding, and home-field advantage. For example, should two teams tie for their division title and also tie with the runner-up of another division for the wild card, the loser of the division tiebreaker can still host the team tied for the wild card (whether in another tiebreaker for the second wild card or in the Wild Card Game itself) based on performance-based criteria, even though in that scenario though they will have technically lost one more regular season game and therefore be a half game behind in the standings. However, if a team in such a scenario were to lose a divisional tiebreaker and then win a tiebreaker for the second wild card, it would actually finish a half game behind the division winner and a half game ahead of third place in the wild card standings.

Avoiding any confusion with the term "Playoffs" as the often used but unofficial name of MLB's post-season tournament, the term "Tiebreaker" is MLB's preferred term for a one-game playoff.

The National Football League now has an elaborate formula for breaking ties in the qualification for its playoffs, and in the highly unlikely event that two teams are tied in all relevant statistical criteria, the rules stipulate that a coin toss settles the tie, meaning one game playoffs are no longer possible.

However, before the merger of the National Football League and the American Football League in 1970, it was possible to have a playoff game if two teams tied for a division title. The NFL had 9 of these playoffs occur between 1941 and 1965, and the AFL, whose records were fully integrated with the NFL's upon merger, had two such playoffs (in 1963 and 1968). The All-America Football Conference, which merged with the NFL after the 1949 season (with the NFL absorbing three of the AAFC's franchises – the Cleveland Browns, San Francisco 49ers, and the original Baltimore Colts) also held a playoff tiebreaker game in 1948, but unlike the AFL's playoff games, the AAFC's records are not recognized by the older league.

The Chicago Bears and the Portsmouth Spartans of the National Football League tied for first place at the end of the 1932 season, and as both their games ended in ties, they held an extra game to determine the champion. Unlike subsequent post-season playoffs, this game was considered part of the regular season, as per baseball tie-breaking playoff games described above.

The great interest generated by the 1932 playoff game led the NFL to split into two divisions in 1933, and began playing a single post-season NFL Championship game. If two teams in a single division tied for first place, the rules also provided for a one-game tie-breaking playoff to determine which team would advance to the league championship game.

The NFL did have at least one tiebreaker prior to this, one that came into play for determining the 1921 title; if two teams tied each other in the standings and played twice, each winning one, then the winner of the second game won the title. This was of no use in 1932 because the Bears and Spartans had tied each other in their two matchups that year, and the NFL abandoned it.

This was the practice from 1933 to 1966. Unlike the 1932 contest, these tiebreakers were not part of the regular season's standings.

The league's last one game playoff occurred in 1965; since 1967, when it was split into four divisions, the NFL has used a set of tiebreaking rules to break ties. The AFL did not adopt tiebreakers until its final season before the merger when it granted division runners-up a playoff berth, but since there were no ties for second place that year, the AFL tie-breakers were never used.

Today in the NFL, division winners and playoff qualifiers are technically determined by winning percentage and not by number of wins.

Prior to 1972, ties did not count for the purposes of this calculation. So, for example, one team finished 11-3 and another 10-2-2, there would have been no tiebreaker, as the team with two ties would have been deemed the outright division winners. This made tie games, a fairly common occurrence in football before overtime was introduced in 1974, somewhat more valuable to teams compared to the half-win they are considered today.

Today, two ties are of exactly equal strength to a win for the purpose of breaking ties since, unlike many other North American leagues, the current NFL tiebreaking criteria do not prioritize one win over two ties (or vice versa) in any way.

Both the NFL and AFL had provisions prior to their merger to allow for two weeks of one-game playoffs if three or four teams tied for a division title. Despite the relatively high probability of such a tie happening in a 12 or 14 game schedule compared to a longer season, this scenario never took place prior to the abolition of one-game playoffs.

The closest a three-way tie for a division came to happening was in 1957 when the Detroit Lions, San Francisco 49ers and Baltimore Colts all entered the final week of the season with identical 7-4 records. With none of those three teams playing each other in the last week, a three-way tie seemed likely until the Colts lost their final game, leaving the Lions and 49ers to contest the playoff between themselves; the Lions went on to win the NFL championship, their last as of 2018. A somewhat similar situation occurred in 1950, when there was a tie in both divisions, requiring two playoffs.

While there are no one-game playoffs in the NFL today, current scheduling practices (which include exclusively intradivisional matchups at the end of the season), combined with the NFL's short schedule, make it possible that the last week of the regular season will include a winner-take-all game between two teams, which has the effect and feel of a one-game playoff. Typically, such games will be scheduled for prime time under the NFL's flexible scheduling policy (provided their result does not carry potential playoff implications for other teams; the NFL's current scheduling rules dictate that Week 17 games with mutual playoff implications always start at the same time).

For example, the New York Giants and Dallas Cowboys entered the final week of the 2011 NFL season tied at 8-7 for first place in the NFC East. The teams, scheduled to play in Dallas, were both out of contention for a wild card berth, meaning the winner of the game would win the division, while the loser would miss the playoffs altogether. The Giants defeated the Cowboys and went on to win the Super Bowl.

Like in the NFL, one-game tiebreaking playoffs were a regular feature in the early years of the provincial competitions that were eventually consolidated into today's Canadian Football League in 1958. They were abandoned in the mid-1930s as Canadian football evolved from consisting of provincial leagues to two regional conferences (the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union and Western Interprovincial Football Union). Previously, the regional Eastern and Western champions that played in the Grey Cup were determined by playoffs between the winners of each region's leagues. These regional playoffs were sufficiently popular (and the teams were so dependent on gate receipts in the then-short season available to play football in Canada) that the regional conferences implemented a format that ensured playoffs were contested every season as opposed to only those where ties needed to be broken.

The current tiebreaking criteria are substantially different in the CFL compared to the NFL, although like the NFL it culminates in a coin toss in the highly unlikely event all specified performance-based criteria cannot break a tie at the end of the regular season. Also unlike the NFL (which determines its standings strictly by winning percentage only), the CFL and its antecedent competitions have always awarded "points" the standings in the same manner as is done in ice hockey (which is by far Canada's most popular sport) as well as other codes of football especially rugby from which the gridiron codes evolved. Teams receive two points for a win and one for a tie. Starting in 2000, the CFL also experimented with awarding a point for an overtime loss as is typically done in hockey today, but dropped the "OTL" point after only three seasons. A tie has therefore always effectively counted as a "half-win" in the standings in Canadian football, with the caveat that in all tie-breakers in force since the end of tiebreaking playoffs, the first tiebreaker (other than for determining a crossover team) has always been number of wins (same as in hockey) whereas, as mentioned earlier, number of wins compared to ties has never been a tiebreaking criterium in the NFL.

In its early years, the National Basketball Association held tie-breaker games at the end of the season, if necessary. The first two games (a three team playoff) were played during the 1947–48 season, the league's second year in existence, when it was still known as the Basketball Association of America. The second of these, however, was only used to determine the playoff seeding for the Chicago Stags and Baltimore Bullets. In fact, five of the eight one-game playoffs in NBA history were used for seeding purposes, and both teams advanced to the playoffs despite the outcome.

The American Basketball Association, which formed in 1967, did not hold a tie-breaker game in its first season, when the Kentucky Colonels and New Jersey Americans (later known as the New York Nets, New Jersey Nets, and currently as the Brooklyn Nets) tied for fourth place in the Eastern Division with a record of 36–42. A game was scheduled between the two teams in New Jersey, but the Americans' facility was booked and the replacement site picked by the team was in such poor condition that they were forced to forfeit the game by the league office. The Colonels were given the playoff spot despite going just 4–7 against the Americans during the regular season. The next time two teams finished tied for the final playoff spot in a division, the ABA did hold a tie-breaker game. The ABA would later merge with the NBA, with four teams from the ABA joining the NBA: the Denver Nuggets, Indiana Pacers, New York Nets and San Antonio Spurs.

Though the National Hockey League, currently the only major professional ice hockey league in North America, has never actually held a one-game playoff in its century long existence, its current playoff qualification rules explicitly allow for the possibility. Under current rules, a tie between two teams for a conference's final playoff berth (this being the second wild card seed of a conference under the current format) can only be broken by the first four tie-breakers – regulation and overtime wins (ROW), head-to-head results,[5] overall goal differential, and overall goals scored. Prior to the 2005 introduction of the shootout in the NHL, ROW was simply referred to as "wins" for tiebreaker purposes. The right to host such a game would be determined by a random draw.

Like in MLB, such a game in the NHL would be considered a regular season game for statistical purposes except that the points earned do not count for playoff seeding purposes – in other words, the winner would enter the playoffs as the second wild card even if the two points they earned nominally caused them to otherwise tie or overtake other qualifying teams in total points, and the loser would be eliminated even if they lost in overtime and the single point they earned nominally allowed them tie or overtake other qualifying teams in that same manner. The other main difference from an ordinary regular season game is that playoff overtime rules (that is, unlimited periods of 5-on-5 play with no shootout) would be used if necessary.

A one-game playoff would not be held simply to determine playoff seeding and/or draft lottery position for non-playoff teams; league rules in these cases mandate a more exhaustive set of tiebreakers culminating in a random drawing to determine playoff seeding and/or final regular season standing. The more exhaustive set of tiebreakers would also be used in the extremely unlikely event three or more teams in a conference tied in points, ROW, head-to-head results, and overall goal differential for one or two playoff berths. In this case the more exhaustive criteria would be used to determine the club(s) which would qualify (in case of two available berths) or not qualify (in case of one available berth) without playing a one-game playoff, which would then be held between the two remaining teams if and only if they were also tied between each other in ROW, head-to-head results, overall goal differential, and total goals scored. It is therefore not even remotely possible for there to be two or more one-game playoffs in a conference in a particular season.

In recent decades in U.S. college basketball, both men's and women's, most conferences have held tournaments to determine a winner who is awarded an automatic berth in the NCAA's postseason tournament. The Ivy League, however, was the last holdout in NCAA Division I—through the 2015–16 season, it continued to award its automatic NCAA tournament berth to the team with the best regular-season record in conference play. In case of a tie at the top of the standings, rules called for a one-game playoff, with the winner claiming the conference's automatic bid. If more than two teams were tied, a series of one-game playoffs was held. The Ivy League held its first postseason tournaments for both men and women at the end of the 2016–17 season, with the top four teams in the conference standings participating at a predetermined site.[8]

In men's basketball, nine seasons ended in such a playoff, with the last being the 2014–15 season in which Harvard and Yale finished tied.[9] The only time more than two teams finished tied atop the regular season standings was in the 2001–02 season, when Yale beat Princeton in the first one-game playoff, before losing to Penn.[9] The last three-way playoff in women's basketball was in the 2007–08 season, in which Cornell, Dartmouth, and Harvard all finished at 11–3 in league play. It was determined that Dartmouth would play Harvard in the first playoff game, with the winner facing Cornell. Dartmouth won the first playoff game, with Cornell winning the playoff final.

Tie-breaker games are the traditional method of resolving meaningful ties in round robin-style curling tournaments. This is a fairly common occurrence as such round robins rarely involve more than twelve games per team. However, unlike most other sports it is common for curling teams to play two or even (more rarely) three games in a day and tournaments are typically played in a single venue. Therefore, scheduling even multi-team tie-breakers is relatively easy to arrange in a typical bonspiel compared to many other league-based competitions.

In the Philippines, the one-game playoff is called a "knockout game". In all instances, all games are held in neutral venues, since the home-and-away system is not used.

A one-game playoff is at least theoretically possible in association football league competitions, where two teams competing for a significant prize are tied in all tie-breaking criteria. Most association football leagues only consider points, then goal difference and then goals scored when determining final standing.[10] A few leagues also consider such criteria as head-to-head records, but this is not the norm. One-game playoffs are typically held in a neutral venue, often a national stadium especially for playoffs involving teams with large fanbases. The games are not counted in the regular season tables. Historically, a drawn one-game playoff would often result in a replay a few days later, although there have been occasions (such as in Scotland in 1891) where a draw resulted in the participants being declared joint champions. Today, most league competitions will use extra time and/or a penalty shootout to settle drawn one-game playoffs if needed.

For example, the Premier League announced that there would be a one-game playoff for third place between Arsenal and Chelsea if the two teams had finished exactly level at the end of the 2012–13 season.[10] This would have been necessary because third place conferred automatic qualification for the group stage of the 2013–14 UEFA Champions League, whereas fourth place only led to a place in the final qualifying round of that competition.[10] Before tiebreak rules such as goal difference were utilised, the Scottish league championships in 1891 and 1905 were determined by one game playoffs.[11]

Until the 2004–05 season, the Italian Serie A had a one-game playoff called Spareggio, to determine the league champion if teams were tied in points at the end of the season.

Another example of a one-game playoff in association football would be a 2010 FIFA World Cup qualifying football match between Algeria and Egypt.

• Play-in game