sport Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, ...

, a championship is a

competition Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is a zero-sum game). Competition can arise between entities such as organisms, ind ...

in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the

champion A champion (from the late Latin ''campio'') is the victor in a challenge, contest or competition. There can be a territorial pyramid of championships, e.g. local, regional / provincial, state, national, continental and world championships, a ...

Championship systems

Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship.

Title match system

In this system, a competitor has to challenge the current champion to win the championship. A competitor (called ''number 1 contender'') can challenge the current champion after defeating other challengers. This form of championship is used in individual head-to-head competitions and is particularly associated with combat sports such as

wrestling Wrestling is a series of combat sports involving grappling-type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. Wrestling techniques have been incorporated into martial arts, combat s ...

boxing Boxing (also known as "Western boxing" or "pugilism") is a combat sport in which two people, usually wearing protective gloves and other protective equipment such as hand wraps and mouthguards, throw punches at each other for a predetermined ...

and

mixed martial arts Mixed martial arts (MMA), sometimes referred to as cage fighting, no holds barred (NHB), and ultimate fighting, and originally referred to as Vale Tudo is a full-contact combat sport based on striking, grappling and ground fighting, incor ...

Tournament system

The term championships (in the plural) is often used to refer to tournament competitions, either using a knockout format, such as at Wimbledon and other championships in

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball cov ...

, or a mixed format with a group stage followed by knockout rounds, such as used in the

European Football Championships The UEFA European Football Championship, less formally the European Championship and informally the Euro, is the primary association football tournament organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA). The competition is conte ...

. A variation of the knockout format is the "best-of-X" or series format where two teams face each 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.

League system

Championships in various sports, including

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In it ...

and

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

use a

league system A league system is a hierarchy of leagues in a sport. They are often called pyramids, due to their tendency to split into an increasing number of regional divisions further down the system. League systems of some sort are used in many sports in ...

in which all competitors in the league play each other, either once or a number of times. This is also known as a round robin system.

Hybrid systems

Some competitions use a hybrid system that combines traits of two or more of these systems.

Tournament of Champions system

The game show ''

Jeopardy! ''Jeopardy!'' is an American game show created by Merv Griffin. The show is a quiz competition that reverses the traditional question-and-answer format of many quiz shows. Rather than being given questions, contestants are instead given genera ...

'' uses a title match system during regular play, then holds a Tournament of Champions with the longest-running champions under the title match system that operates on a tournament system to determine that season's "Grand Champion." This type of system works best in competitions with numerous competitions in a short period of time (game shows such as ''Jeopardy!'', in particular, fit this description, since there are five new title matches every week).

Playoff system

In many sport leagues, a playoff system is used to determine a championship winner. Teams compete in a

regular season In an organized sports league, a typical season is the portion of one year in which regulated games of the sport are in session: for example, in Major League Baseball the season lasts approximately from the last week of March to the last week of ...

of varying formats and a limited number of teams qualify for

playoffs The playoffs, play-offs, postseason or finals of a sports league are a competition played after the regular season by the top competitors to determine the league champion or a similar accolade. Depending on the league, the playoffs may be eit ...

. Although this system is mostly identified with the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

and

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...

, it is frequently found in other

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and th ...

n 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 soccer. The playoffs (known in some countries, notably

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

, 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 The Super Bowl is the annual final playoff game of the National Football League (NFL) to determine the league champion. It has served as the final game of every NFL season since 1966, replacing the NFL Championship Game. Since 2022, the gam ...

Stanley Cup Final The Stanley Cup Finals in ice hockey (also known as the Stanley Cup Final among various media, french: Finale de la Coupe Stanley) is the National Hockey League's (NHL) championship series to determine the winner of the Stanley Cup, North America ...

NBA Finals The NBA Finals is the annual championship series of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The Eastern and Western Conference champions play a best-of-seven game series to determine the league champion. The team that wins the series is a ...

World Series The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, contested since 1903 between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The winner of the Worl ...

, 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 (

NFC Championship Game The NFC Championship Game is the annual championship game of the National Football Conference (NFC) and one of the two semi-final playoff games of the National Football League (NFL), the largest professional American football league in the world ...

) and

AFC AFC may stand for: Organizations * Action for Children, a UK children's charity * AFC Enterprises, the franchisor of Popeye's Chicken and Biscuits * Africa Finance Corporation, a pan-African multilateral development finance institution * A ...

(

AFC Championship Game The AFC Championship Game is the annual championship game of the American Football Conference (AFC) and one of the two semi-final playoff games of the National Football League (NFL), the largest professional American football league in the world. ...

). These games are effectively

semi-finals A single-elimination, knockout, or sudden death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of each match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final matc ...

as they determine the two competitors in the Super Bowl. The quirk in naming stems from when the NFC and AFC were separate leagues (see:

American Football League The American Football League (AFL) was a major professional American football league that operated for ten seasons from 1960 until 1970, when it merged with the older National Football League (NFL), and became the American Football Conference. ...

) with a respective

NFL Championship Throughout its history, the National Football League (NFL) and other rival American football leagues have used several different formats to determine their league champions, including a period of inter-league matchups to determine a true national c ...

and AFL Championship, the winners of which would in the AFL's later years meet in the World Championship, now known as the

Season system

In sports such as motor racing, a season consists of a number of individual races, with points being awarded for finishing in the top positions. At the end of the season, the driver/team with the most points wins the championship. Examples include

Formula 1 Formula One (also known as Formula 1 or F1) is the highest class of international racing for open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The World Drivers' Championship, ...

and the World Rally Championship.

Competitions named "The Championship"

The championship may refer to: * The

EFL Championship The English Football League Championship (often referred to as the Championship for short or the Sky Bet Championship for sponsorship purposes) is the highest division of the English Football League (EFL) and second-highest overall in the E ...

, the second tier of English football. * The

FA Women's Championship The Women's Championship (formerly The FA Women's Championship) is the second-highest division of women's football in England. The division was established in 2014 as the FA Women's Super League 2 (WSL 2). WSL 2 replaced the previous level 2 ...

, the second tier of English women's football. * The

Scottish Championship The Scottish Championship, known as the cinch Championship for sponsorship reasons, is the second tier of the Scottish Professional Football League, the league competition for men's professional football clubs in Scotland. The Scottish Champio ...

, the second tier of Scottish football. * The NIFL Championship, the second tier of Northern Irish football. * The

RFL Championship The Championship, known as the Betfred Championship for sponsorship reasons, is a professional rugby league competition. It is the second-tier competition organised by the Rugby Football League, the governing body for the sport in England, a ...

the second tier of British rugby league. * The

RFU Championship The RFU Championship is an English rugby union competition comprising twelve clubs. It is the second level of men’s English rugby and is played by both professional and semi-professional players. The competition has existed since 1987, when ...

, the second tier of English rugby union. * The

WRU Championship WRU may refer to: * Welsh Rugby Union, sports association in Wales * Waikato Rugby Union, sports association in Waikato, New Zealand * Wesleyan Reform Union, Methodist church group in Britain * WRU, station code for West Ruislip station, Hillingd ...

, the second tier of Welsh rugby union. * The

Rugby Football League Championship The Rugby Football League Championship First Division was the top division of rugby league in England between 1895 and 1996, when it was replaced by the Super League. History 1895–1904: Foundations The first season of rugby league (189 ...

, England's pre-

Super League The Super League (officially known as the Betfred Super League due to sponsorship from Betfred and legally known as Super League Europe), is the top-level of the British rugby league system. At present the league consists of twelve teams, of w ...

competition. * The

Elite One Championship Elite 1 is the top level rugby league competition in France, sanctioned by the French Rugby League Federation. The season runs from September to April, which is in contrast to the majority of other major domestic rugby league competitions wor ...

and

Elite Two Championship Elite 2 (formerly the Elite Two Championship) is the second tier semi-professional rugby league competition in France below Elite 1, but above the National Division 1. The season runs from September to April. The clubs play each other hom ...

, tiers one and two of French rugby league *

The Rugby Championship The Rugby Championship is an international rugby union competition contested annually by Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. These are the four highest ranked national teams in the Southern Hemisphere; the Six Nations is a ...

, the name for the Southern Hemisphere rugby union competition known as the Tri Nations before Argentina's entry in 2012. * The

, a 2020 golf tournament. *

The Championships, Wimbledon The Wimbledon Championships, commonly known simply as Wimbledon, is the oldest tennis tournament in the world and is widely regarded as the most prestigious. It has been held at the All England Club in Wimbledon, London, since 1877 and is pla ...

, the oldest and most prestigious tennis tournament in the world. *

The Championship Course The Championship Course is a stretch of the River Thames between Mortlake and Putney in London, England. It is a well-established course for rowing races, particularly the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race. The course is on the tidal reaches of t ...

, the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race Thames course. *

The Championships at the Palisades The Championships at the Palisades is an event in the Outback Champions Series for senior tennis players. It was held from 2006 through 2009 in Charlotte, North Carolina Charlotte ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of North Caro ...

, an event in the Outback Champions Series for senior tennis players.