My Ranking of the Six Major North American Sports Playoffs

So tonight, March Madness wraps up, which marks the end of many people's favourite sports tournament. For me, this kind of kicks off a fresh cycle of the sports season.

March Madness is the unofficial start of spring for me, which is playoff season in a lot of sports. The NHL and NBA will kick off their postseason over the next couple of weekends. Then once those seasons end, we get into the meat of the baseball season and the postseason push there. Then the NFL begins, where every game is important.

March Madness ending and the NHL and NBA playoffs getting underway soon made me realize that I wanted to rank the six major North American sports playoff formats. That includes college football and NCAA basketball, as well as the four major professional leagues: the NHL, NBA, NFL, and MLB postseason.

So with that in mind, here’s my ranking of the six major North American postseasons, from my least favourite to my favourite

6: College Football Playoff

Starting off in the number six spot will be the College Football Playoff. I’m just going to be honest; I love football… Professional football, though. College football, sure, the games are exciting, but I just don’t know who a majority of these players are, and I don’t really have a favourite team.

I become aware of these players once they start to get near Bowl season and the NFL Draft, so while the 12-team College Football Playoff has made it a bit more interesting, as we get an important game every week, I’m just not as invested as I would be in the professional football playoffs.

5: March Madness

At number five, I would have to go with March Madness, the NCAA men’s basketball tournament specifically. I used to love this tournament a lot more. I just don’t know, like the College Football Playoff, who a lot of these players are nowadays until March Madness starts.

With NIL, I feel like it’s really affected March Madness in a way where we don’t see the Cinderellas anymore. Personally, I don’t like Cinderellas getting all the way to the Final Four, but I do like to see them get to at least around the Sweet 16, and I just feel like over the past few years, the tournament has been fairly chalky. It’s become a lot more predictable than what it used to be.

So while for me it does, in a way, kick off a fresh start to the year and show me that we’re getting close to the postseasons, it’s just not my favourite like it used to be, and it doesn’t rank among the best like it used to for me.

4: NBA Playoffs

At number four, I have the NBA postseason. Listen, I love the NBA, and I love basketball, but again, it just feels fairly chalky to me.

Also, I want to see something different. Aside from last season, when the Indiana Pacers made it all the way to the NBA Finals, I feel like the NBA doesn’t really sell hope to many fans, as every year we seemingly get two of the preseason favourites in the Finals.

This year, we’re looking at teams like the Oklahoma City Thunder back in the mix as the reigning champions. Last year, we went into the year thinking the Boston Celtics were just going to dominate their way through, and while they lost, a lot of that can be marked up due to injury.

So while the NBA postseason is extremely better than the regular season, for me it just comes in as the least interesting playoffs of the four North American professional sports.

3: NFL Playoffs

At number three will be the NFL playoffs. Listen, the Super Bowl is my favourite day of the sports year. It’s a night where we all get together with my friends, we have people over, and even people who don’t really watch football or aren’t that interested in it come out to watch it. Specifically, this past Super Bowl was pretty special for me because we saw my favourite team, the Seattle Seahawks, win it all.

But as far as the entire postseason goes, Wild Card weekend always feels like a dud, and we have to wait until the Divisional Round for the true contenders to get going, and it's usually the best weekend of the year, as the conference championship games can sometimes be a dud as well.

Then we kind of lose the momentum because of the break before the Super Bowl, with that gap between the conference title games and the championship game for the whole league.

So while it does have that mystique of being the only North American professional sport where it’s one and done, I just love these next two a lot more.

2: MLB Postseason

Then at number two, the MLB postseason, as there’s not much better in sports than October baseball.

It’s ironic because a lot of people consider baseball a fairly boring sport, like not much is going on and it feels like they’re just going through the motions. But when you get to October, the tension between every pitch, just waiting to see what your favourite team can do at the plate or trying to get that last out to survive the inning and move on.

Even the camera work they do adds to it. The camera work in postseason baseball just builds the tension even more and makes it feel cinematic. That’s what I think baseball does better than any of these sports. They make their postseason feel cinematic in a way the others don’t.

That said, there is one more that I like just a bit more, because I feel like the intensity rises even higher in the number one spot. But as far as regular season product to postseason product, I don’t think much gets better than the MLB.

1: Stanley Cup Playoffs

And then at number one, no doubt about it, for me, it’s the Stanley Cup Playoffs. It’s a two-month war of attrition to be the last team standing and raise that Cup.

While I don’t love the format, when I’m just thinking about the intensity, what these guys are putting on the line with their bodies, and how much they’re willing to pour into getting a chance to lift the Cup, the greatest trophy in sports, it’s second to none.

The intensity, the rage that gets built up between two teams in a series, and and the rivalries we see carry on throughout a series, into the following season, and into potential rematches, it's just different. The fans getting involved, the players, everything just goes from zero to 100 in the NHL playoffs.

The intensity, the rivalries, the drama, the action, I just think it’s the best thing you can ask for in a sports playoff. Not to mention the Stanley Cup being the best trophy in all of sports, like I said earlier, makes it even better