- Athletic conference
-
An athletic conference is a collection of sports teams, playing competitively against each other at the professional, collegiate, or high school level. In many cases conferences are subdivided into smaller and smaller divisions, with the best teams competing at successively higher levels. Conferences often, but not always, include teams from a common geographic region.
Contents
United States
In the United States and Canada, the National Hockey League (NHL) and National Basketball Association (NBA) are divided into the western (NHL, NBA) and eastern (NHL, NBA) conferences, with three divisions within each conference. In both leagues, the winners of the three divisions in each conference automatically advance to the playoffs, with the 5 next best teams in each conference also going to the playoffs. In the NHL each of the three division winner is guaranteed one of the top three seeds (or ranks to determine who has home advantage and the matchups for each round of the playoffs, where the top ranked teams play lower ranked teams) in the NBA the top four seeds go to the three division winners and the next best team, based on record.
The National Football League has an American Football Conference (AFC) and a National Football Conference (NFC). Both conferences have 16 teams, and each conference is divided into 4 divisions of 4 teams each. Each of the 4 division winners is guaranteed one of the top 4 seeds in the playoffs.
Major League Baseball is divided into the American League with 14 teams and the National League with 16 teams. Even though they are called leagues, they act in exactly the same manner as conferences in the NFL, NBA, and NHL as listed above. Each league also has 3 divisions each, and each division winner is also guaranteed one of the top three seeds, even if their record is lower than the league's wildcard team.
In all four sports, the champion of one conference plays the champion of the other conference for the final round championship, this is guaranteed to occur because the rules for the playoffs require play to be exclusively wihtin the conference/league in all rounds before the final round, leaving only two teams for the finals (one from each conference/league) and the records of teams outside a conference/league are ignored, which can allow teams with inferior records to make the playoffs while teams in the other conference with better records do not get in. An extreme example of this occurred in the NFL in 2010 in regards to the Seattle Seahawks. Also, in each sport, teams play predominately within their own conference during the regular season, but play some games outside their conference (or league in baseball).
In college sports, individual leagues are usually called "conferences". In the organization of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, the largest organizing body in American collegiate sports, the conferences are independent associations of schools. Somewhat confusingly, the term "Division" can refer to both the level of play, and to smaller subdivisions of the conferences. Thus, in college football, the Southeastern Conference is part of NCAA Division I, but is itself also subdivided into an east and west division.
England and Wales
In English Association football, Conference National is one level below the The Football League. The second tier of which is divided into Conference North and Conference South. Although, this does not meet the above definition as Conference National is the fifth tier of the English football pyramid whilst Conferences North and South are the sixth.
Australia, New Zealand and South Africa
In Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, the highest level of provincial rugby union is Super Rugby. From the 2011 season, Super Rugby will work on a conference system. The competition will have one conference based in each country. The winner of each conference will receive a play-off spot, as will the three next best teams overall.
Philippines
In the Philippine Basketball Association where teams do not represent geographical entities, a conference is a tournament within a season.
See also
Categories:- High school sports conferences and leagues in the United States
- College athletics conferences
- Terms used in multiple sports
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
