Rankings

Standings or rankings are listings which compare sports teams or individuals, institutions, nations, companies, or other entities by ranking them in order of ability or achievement. A table or chart (such as a league table, a ladder or a leaderboard) may be employed to display such listings. A league table may list several related statistics, but they are generally sorted by the primary one that determines the rankings. Many industries and institutions may compete in league tables in order to help bring in new customers and clients. Those tables ranking sports teams are generally used to help determine who may advance to the playoffs or another tournament, who gets promoted or relegated, or who gets a higher draft pick.

In sport, league tables group teams of similar abilities in a chart to show the current standing of the participants (teams or individuals) in a sports league or competition. These lists are generally published in newspapers and other media, as well as the official web sites of the sports leagues and competitions.

At the very least, a league table will show the names of the teams and their points total or winning percentage (depending on the sport), sorted in order of points or percentage. However, many league tables show further statistics; these may include:

Usually, if a league is divided into conferences and divisions, the league table will also be. Often, a less specific table is also included. For example, National Hockey League tables will normally have a detailed table for each division, plus a table for each conference showing just the points totals.

As an example, below is the league table for the Northeast Division of the National Hockey League, as of March 31, 2004:

In the above table, an "x" placed before a team's name shows that the team has qualified for playoff position; other letters may be used to show that a team is guaranteed first place, has been eliminated from contention and so forth. From this table, we can see that Boston, Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal are all guaranteed playoff positions; the absence of a "y" shows that the division championship is still to play for. Meanwhile, because Buffalo has no symbol at all, they are not out of playoff contention, but have yet to clinch a playoff position. The following day, a new league table would appear in newspapers, updated based on the previous night's games. Of course, the above table would also be accompanied by those of the other 5 divisions in the league.

...
Wikipedia