Guest Article: Premiership Playoffs? By Ben Procter.

That’s the idea Ben Procter is analysing… bringing back fond memories of Swindon’s 1992/3 play-off final victory over Leicester.

Here is his argument (incidentally, the Man Utd game we linked to earlier was a 5-3 thriller with 6 goals in the last 17 minutes…)

Watching a late night session of American Football and thinking about their playoff system, I realised top-flight football is one of the only sports they don’t feature in.

Recently, Rugby Union and Rugby League have moved to a playoff format, Tennis has the Masters Series for the top eight players, and American Football, Basketball, Ice Hockey and Baseball have been using playoffs for years.

That playoffs, culminating in a final, add excitement to these sports is undoubted – just look at the number of people who don’t follow American Football yet watch the Superbowl. In 2008 it was broadcast to a worldwide audience of 148.3 million viewers.

The lower leagues use the playoff system to determine the third promoted side. The finals are a great spectacle and draw season-high crowds both at the games and on television. Would this system be a good idea for the Premiership to add some extra excitement at the end of the season?

You can be certain that the ‘Big Four’ managers would talk about player burn-out and the already congested fixture list. However, I’m sure that the players of the teams finishing from 5th to 8th in the league would have no such problems if it gave them a chance to lift the title. It would give more for the teams who finish the season in mid-table mediocrity to play for at the end of the season, but may result in a team running away with the league and not being named champions.

There would also be the opportunity to bring the game to a wider audience. There has been talk of a 39th game each season (to be played at overseas venues) – running playoffs at the end of the season would be a perfect opportunity to try this out.

So what conclusions can we draw?

It may create an extra buzz at the end of the season with teams having more to play for, and create opportunities to expand the game to a more worldwide audience.

However, football doesn’t lack for excitement at the end of the season – relegation, european places and titles are often decided on the final day. Add to that the possibility of player burn-out and maybe even the degrading of the FA Cup and I don’t think playoffs shouild come to the Premiership. It’s one bandwagon I can’t see football jumping on.