Best-of-seven playoff
Best-of-seven playoff is a sport event which consists of a competition between two teams head-to-head which must win four games to win the series. Four is chosen as it would constitute a majority of games played; if one team has won four games before all seven games have been played, the games that remain are omitted. This format is currently used in the Major League Baseball, National Hockey League and National Basketball Association for their playoffs.
In the NHL the series is divided so that the first two games are played at the arena of the team higher in the standings, and the next two at the other team's rink. The fifth, sixth, and seventh then alternate with the fifth and seventh being played at the rink of the higher ranked team. The team that finishes higher in the standings thus has a good chance of playing more games at home and any seventh and deciding game would be played at their arena.
The NBA observes the same format as the NHL, except in the championship series, when the higher-ranked team hosts the first, second, sixth and seventh games instead of the first, second, fifth and seventh. This latter procedure also pertains in both the League Championship Series and the World Series in baseball. Some observers maintain that the advantage accruing to the higher-ranked team is greater if it has the first, second, fifth and seventh games at home rather than the first, second, sixth and seventh, since in the former case the higher-finishing team will have never played fewer home games than its opponent at any point in the series.
Since 2003, the winner of baseball's All Star Game has determined who has home field advantage in the World Series, an arrangement set to expire following the 2004 season. This means that whichever league wins the game has its champion host four out of the seven games in the World Series. Prior to 2003, the advantage alternated between the champions of the two leagues; there is considerable sentiment in favor of awarding the advantage to the league champion with the best regular-season record starting in 2005 (this argument made more persuasive by the fact that, due to the existence of interleague play, most pairs of teams not in the same league play at least one-third of their regular-season games against common opponents), with some advocates also seeking to add a stipulation that in no case can a wild card team obtain the advantage unless both wild cards make it to the World Series (this actually happened in 2002), in which event the one with the better record would host.
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