Game Sevens in the MLB, NBA and NHL
by Jeff Zimmerman (TucsonRoyal) on Jun 16, 2009 2:05 AM EDT
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I am not a huge hockey fan, but last Friday night I watched the Pens beat the Red Wings for the Stanley Cup. My wife asked why I was watching hockey and I said it was a game 7 and I hadn't seen a game seven in a while. So that got me looking into the number of game sevens in the 3 sports that play a best of 7 series for their finals. Here are the results of the finals since 1947 (which is when baseball, basketball and hockey each played a best of seven series).
| Basketball | Baseball | Hockey | |
| Total Game 7s | 16 | 25 | 13 |
| Total Percent | 25.4% | 41.0% | 21.0% |
| Average Length of Series | 5.76 | 5.84 | 5.42 |
| Average Series Length Last 20 years | 5.45 | 5.3 | 5.6 |
| Average Series Length Last 10 years | 5.4 | 5.1 | 6.3 |
| Last time Game 7 Played | 2004-2005 | 2002 | 2008-2009 |
Hockey has been averaging between a 6 and 7 game series over the the last ten years, while baseball has just barely averaged over 5 games. These are contradictory to their historic trend where MLB has seen almost twice as many game sevens since 1947 as the NHL. The NBA Finals have maintain a constant ~5.5 game series over the 3 time frames examined.
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I wonder how much difference the structure of the games makes. The NBA and MLB both play 2-3-2 (home games). The NHL plays 2-2-1-1-1.
You and I are gonna live forever
by Original Six on Jun 18, 2009 2:51 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs
Also, MLB
has 5 game first round series and I thought the NBA used to, of course…I don’t really watch the NBA much…so I’m not sure.
by stlfan on Jun 18, 2009 11:11 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs
I only looked at the final series in this analysis
Jeff Zimmerman - Protecting the world from RBI's and Wins from my mom's guest house.
by Jeff Zimmerman (TucsonRoyal) on Jun 18, 2009 12:05 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
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