In a division of teams who all think they can get promoted, many with some justification, anyone who can sniff the play-offs will think they are in with a chance.
In Gijisi, where the sport has been practiced for at least 500 years, the traditional East/West divide is replaced with a division of teams into upriver and downriver.
The teams were split into two divisions of five teams, and each team played a round-robin with the other teams in its division.
Here is my marketing advice to fix major league baseball: expand from 30 to 32 teams, create eight divisions of four teams each, cut the regular season down to 154 games, have the top eight teams from both leagues make the playoffs, have three rounds of playoffs for each league, and keep the World Series the way it is.
The main features of the realignment are: The Eastern Conference will have two divisions of eight teams each, and the Western Conference two divisions of seven teams each.
In the 32 team scenario, MLB would go to eight divisions of four teams each.
For the divisions of seven teams, it is simple math: they would play each team in the division six times for a total of 36 games.
Rather than having two divisions of seven and eight teams in each conference when the Bobcats join, the league opted for six five-team divisions.
In 1992 Arkansas and South Carolina joined the conference, which was then organized into two divisions of six teams each, and with the additions of Missouri and Texas A&M in 2012, the divisions were expanded to seven teams.
The new N.F.L. will have eight divisions of four teams, including the newly created divisions N.F.C.
