Championship is a term used in sport to refer to various forms of competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion.
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Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship.
In this system, a competitor has to challenge the current champion to win the championship. This form of championship is used in wrestling, boxing, and other combat sports.
The term championship is often used to refer to tournament competitions, either using a knockout format, such as at Wimbledon and other championships in tennis, or a mixed format with a group stage followed by knockout rounds, such as used in the European Football Championship.
A variation of the knockout format is the "best-of-X" or series format where two teams face other for a specified number of times until one team wins the majority of specified games, most of the time the remaining games are not played anymore; only then is the losing team eliminated from contention and the winning team advances to the next level. This format is predominant in American sports such as baseball, ice hockey and basketball, and on test cricket.
Championships in various sports, including rugby union and association football (soccer) use a league system in which all competitors in the league play each other, either once or a number of times.
In many sport leagues, a playoff system is used to determine a championship winner. Teams compete in a regular season of varying formats and a limited number of teams qualify for playoffs. Although this system is mostly identified with the United States and Canada, it is frequently found in other North American countries, and is also standard in sports influenced by North America (e.g. basketball, baseball, ice hockey) as well as most football codes other than association football (soccer). The playoffs (known in some countries, notably Australia, as the "finals series") are a tournament where teams play head-to-head in knockout competition. The championship is often considered the final of the playoffs (e.g., Super Bowl, Stanley Cup Final, NBA Finals, World Series, etc.). The playoff system can be seen as a hybrid between the league system and tournament system, where a league is used to determine qualifiers for the tournament.
In the NFL, the term "Championship game" is used to refer to the matches which decide the champions of each of the two conferences, the NFC and AFC. These games are effectively semi-finals as they determine the two competitors in the Super Bowl.
In English football, since the 2004-2005 season, The Championship has been used to refer to the second level of league football, properly called the Football League Championship. The Championship is one division below the FA Premier League and a division above Football League One. It had previously been known as the Football League First Division.
The championship may refer to :