Sports league

A league is a competition or even league in team sports. The term division is used for this purpose from the English-speaking world. It is in various sports, a regional summary of a fixed number of teams.

Etymology

Originally, the word comes from the Latin and means covenant or alliance (verb ligare = bind, tie ). In the 15th century it was ligar bind with similar meaning, combine or unite.

Basics

For the usually annual cycle ( " season " or " season " ), a Schedule is specified, which governs the temporal sequence of encounters. In most leagues, each team occurs in the course of a season twice against all other participants in the league. In some sports, such as ice hockey or basketball, each team plays during the season four times against any opponent. The number of home and one away game is evenly distributed for the sake of fairness to all teams.

From the game results give the league table that reflects the placement of teams in a league. At the end of a season this ranking decides the championship ( league leaders ) and, if a promotion and relegation in the next higher or next - lower division level. If a league due to high number of participants or large distances between venues in several groups (seasons ) divided, one speaks of a multi-pronged league. In this case, follow the regular round often playoffs. To determine the master are called " finals " or " play-offs ".

To determine the up and relegated ( the number of promoted and relegated is necessarily always the same size ) are held relegation matches. The mode used is different and depends on the respective applicable league system. The North American professional leagues with teams from the U.S. and Canada are usually organized as a franchise system in which there is no Movers and Losers. In addition, the teams draw occasionally in other cities and there may be new teams " buy " in the league or other excrete, thus the number of participants over the years can vary widely, such as in the NBA.

Divisions in North America

A division is the smallest grouping in various U.S. sports. It contains depending on the sport and league between four and six teams and, together with one or more other divisions, a Conference, two Conferences form the league.

Divisions are not static, but their team may be moved among themselves, when new teams or played under the new system. The number of division in a conference does not always remain the same, however, the two Conferences always contain the same number of divisions. Examples of this are, firstly, the National Hockey League, founded by recording a new team, the Nashville Predators, two new divisions, similar to the National Basketball Association by the increase in the league from 29 to 30 teams ( by joining the Charlotte Bobcats ) the number of divisions increased from 4 to 6.