How do other sports resolve draws? (AKA: AFL madness)

[David O'Meara]

I am familiar with methods for tie-breaking in games such as Tennis and (international) Football, but how do other games resolve ties in grand finals?
I'm interested since last weekend Australia had the grand final for our local (Aussie rules) Football and due to the game ending in a tie the two teams have to front up and play all over again this weekend.
The spectacle is one of the major sporting events on the Australian calendar and as with many events of that type the game is only one part. There are parades, thousands of interstate visitors, breakfasts, tourist packages and a whole ceremony before, during and after the game. This weekend there will just be the game (to my knowledge) and I'm not sure if any of the interstate visitors will stick around, so the spectators will all be Melbourne locals. Not as large an issue since this year both teams are Melbourne based. The AFL will sell tickets t the second game and boost their coffers.

It seams a bit crazy and I feel for the players that had nothing left to offer after the first final, and are now required to do it all over again.

[fred rosenberger]

In the U.S.A.:

Baseball - they keep playing additional innings until there is a winner. A normal game is 9 innings (roughly 3 hours). I've heard of games that have gone 20+ innings. Where it gets interesting is that once a player is taken out of a baseball game, he can't go back in. That leads to some interesting things like a pitcher playing left field while a third base player pitches - usually with disastrous results. No baseball game ever ends in a tie.

American Football - there is one overtime period with sudden death. If it were the playoffs or the Superbowl (the championship), they would keep adding more sudden death overtime periods until someone won.

Basketball - There is an overtime period. To the best of my knowledge, they would keep adding overtime periods until one ended with a winner.

Hockey - (not sure about all this) there is a single overtime period that is sudden death. if it's still a tie, they have a shootout, where 5(?) players from each team take turns shooting 1-1 against the goalie. after each side has had their turn, either someone has won, or they have another shootout.

[Matthew Brown]

Most team sports use one or more of the following:

- fixed length extra time
- sudden-death extra time
- some form of shootout (e.g. penalties in football and some other sports)

A replay is quite a traditional approach (and liked by many purists), but it's not very common now. For instance, the FA Cup in England used to have them, but the last was in 1993 and they changed it after that (to extra-time followed by penalties).

I'm not sure what a penalty shootout would look like in AFL. Shooting from the half-way line?

[Paul Sturrock]

That do it all over again idea is fairly old school. The British Open Golf used to have playoffs over 18 holes and the Scottish FA Cup used to use replays (including the final) till there was a winner. It's not good for the competition as a spectator sport, though purists would say its the only really fair way.

[Bert Bates]

In the game of Go, the player who moves second gets an X.5 handicap. Depending on other factors X can be -6, 0 or 5 or 6, but the .5 assures that a tie can't happen.

[Matthew Brown]

Paul Sturrock wrote:That do it all over again idea is fairly old school. The British Open Golf used to have playoffs over 18 holes and the Scottish FA Cup used to use replays (including the final) till there was a winner. It's not good for the competition as a spectator sport, though purists would say its the only really fair way.

The US Open golf still does it that way. The British Open now has a four hole playoff (followed by sudden death if necessary) which seems a good compromise between that and the immediate sudden death that other tournaments use.

[Deepak Bala]

How do other sports resolve draws

Well first you take a clean sheet of paper and then you take a pencil and then... wait... ohhhh that draw. Got it

In cricket you either

1. Share the cup
2. Play a 'super over' where you get to play six balls and try to score the maximum number of runs

In table tennis you keep playing beyond 21 or 11 points (Depending on 3 or 5 point games) until one of the players has a 2 point lead. Example

31 - 31 - Deuce
31 - 32 - Advantage
31 - 33 - Win !

[Joanne Neal]

Deepak Bala wrote:In cricket you either

1. Share the cup
2. Play a 'super over' where you get to play six balls and try to score the maximum number of runs

In T20 in England it's decided by whoever lost the least wickets.
In the county championship it's decided by whoever won the most games over the season.

Of course, it is possible to just lose a final normally.

Not that we Somerset fans are bad losers or anything, but boy were we unlucky this season.

[Pat Farrell]

American College Football has some bizarre overtime rules. It is not sudden death. I don't claim to know all of them, but essentially:

In turn, each team gets the ball for "one possession" on the field, 25 yards from the goal. They can go for a touchdown or field goal whenever they want. After each team has had a possession, if one has the lead, they are the winner. If still tied, they go again.