Best-of-three playoff

Best-of-three playoff was a sport event, formerly used in some American team sports, which consists of a competition between two teams head-to-head which must win two games to win the series. Two is chosen as it would constitute a majority of the games played; if one team wins both of the first two games, the third game is omitted.

The first use of the best-of-three playoff was in baseball; the National League authorized such a playoff to be held if two teams ended the season in a tie for first place; the American League used a single game in this situation. Since 1969 both leagues have used only a one-game playoff (and starting in 1995 also to break ties for the wild card as well as for first place in any of the divisions both leagues now have).

Both the NBA and NHL once used best-of-three playoffs (often referred to as "mini-series"), but today neither league does: Pro basketball first adopted the best-of-three playoff for first-round play starting with its inception as the Basketball Association of America in 1946 (changing its name to the NBA three years later) and retaining it through the 1959-1960 season; the league resumed its use of the best-of-three first-round series in 1974-1975, but abolished it again in 1983-1984 when the number of teams qualifying for its postseason tournament was increased to 16 (ten teams had qualified during the first two years of the aforementioned period, this number being expanded to twelve in 1976-1977; in both instances some of the highest-ranking teams did not participate in the best-of-three round, drawing byes and automatically advancing to the second round, which was best-of-seven, as were all subsequent rounds).

Like the NBA, the NHL also implemented best-of-three first-round playoffs beginning with the 1974-1975 season; at that time, the number of NHL playoff teams had been increased to twelve from the previous eight. The format which then took effect called for the first three finishers in each of the league's four divisions to enter the postseason, but the first-place teams drew byes and did not play any best-of-three series; the postseason then proceeded as the NBA's did, with the second and all later rounds being best-of-seven. This remained the case until the 1979-1980 season, when the NHL expanded its playoff field to 16 after absorbing four teams from the defunct World Hockey Association in a semi-merger, whereupon the byes were abolished and all 16 qualifying teams participated in the first round, which was lengthened to best-of-five.

In both the NBA and NHL, the team with the higher finish during the regular season played the first and (if necessary) the third games of the series at home, with the lower-ranked team hosting the second game.

Recently, there has been talk of Major League Baseball possibly adding a second wild card playoff berth in each league, then having the two wild cards in each league play each other in a best-of-three series to start the postseason, with the six division winners drawing byes. Its prospects for passage by the sport's club owners, however, appear remote.

See also:

Best-of-five playoff
Best-of-seven playoff
Best-of-nine playoff