Standings (sports)

In sports, standings, rankings, or league tables group teams of a particular league, conference, or division in a chart based on how well each is doing in a particular season of a sports league or competition. These lists are generally published in newspapers and other media, as well as the official web sites of the sports leagues and competitions.

Formulation
The standings shows where each team ranks in their conference or division.  Teams may be ranked in terms of simple winning percentage (the proportion of the games played to date which the team won), or based on total points, with differing numbers of points awarded for wins and ties (draws).  Many league tables show further statistics and may display:
 wins
 losses
 ties (draws)
 goal differential (Goals scored minus goals conceded)
 goals scored
 goals allowed (conceded)
 home/away win–loss records

Usually, if a league is divided into conferences and divisions, the league table will also be. Often, a less specific table is also included. For example, National Hockey League tables will normally have a detailed table for each division, plus a table for each conference showing just the points totals.

As an example, below is the league table for the Northeast Division of the National Hockey League, as of March 31, 2004:
 Team         GP   W   L   T  OL   GF   GA  Pts
 x-Boston     79  40  18  14   7  201  179  101
 x-Toronto    80  43  24  10   3  234  204   99
 x-Ottawa     79  41  22  10   6  254  178   98
 x-Montreal   79  40  28   7   4  201  182   91
 Buffalo      79  36  32   7   4  213  210   83
 
 x - clinched a playoff spot
 y - clinched the division championship

In the above table, an "X''" placed before a team's name shows that the team has qualified for playoff position; other letters may be used to show that a team is guaranteed first place, has been eliminated from contention and so forth. From this table, we can see that Boston, Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal are all guaranteed playoff positions; the absence of a " y'''" shows that the division championship is still to play for. Meanwhile, because Buffalo has no symbol at all, they are not out of playoff contention, but have yet to clinch a playoff position. The following day, a new league table would appear in newspapers, updated based on the previous night's games. Of course, the above table would also be accompanied by those of the other divisions in the league.

Instances
Applications include:
 In association football (soccer), national teams are ranked in the FIFA World Rankings, the Women's World Rankings and, unofficially, in the World Football Elo Ratings.
 In the Olympic Games, each member country (NOC) is ranked based upon gold, silver and bronze medal counts in the Olympic medal rankings.
 In basketball, national teams are ranked in the FIBA World Rankings and the Women's World Rankings.
 In baseball and softball, national teams are ranked in the WBSC World Rankings.
 In ice hockey, national teams are ranked in the IIHF World Ranking.
 In golf, the top male golfers are ranked using the Official World Golf Rankings, and the top female golfers are ranked using the Women's World Golf Rankings.
 In snooker, players are ranked using the Snooker world rankings.
 In tennis, male and female players are ranked using the ATP rankings and WTA rankings respectively, whilst the ITF rankings are used for national Davis Cup and Fed Cup teams.
 In road bicycle racing, male cyclists have been ranked using the UCI World Ranking from 2016, having previously been ranked using the UCI Road World Rankings from 1984 to 2004. Female cyclists have been ranked using the UCI Women's Road World Rankings since 1994.
 In track cycling riders and nations are ranked using the UCI Track Cycling World Ranking
 In chess, players are ranked using the FIDE world rankings.
 In sailing, boats are scored directly using the sum of the ranking.
 In bridge, matchpoint scoring uses fractional ranking to assign the score.

See also
 Games behind – in some sports, a common way to reflect the gap between teams
 Group tournament ranking system
 Magic number – in some sports, the number of wins needed to clinch a championship

References

Further reading
 School league tables for the CISCE examining board in India

External links
  Australian Football League ladder
 Canadian Football League standings
 National Basketball Association standings
 National Hockey League standings
 National Football League standings
 Major League Baseball standings
 Major League Soccer standings
 Premier League tables

Sports terminology
Rankings