An athletic conference is a collection of sports teams, playing competitively against each other at the collegiate or high school level. In many cases conferences are subdivided into smaller and smaller divisions, with the best teams competing at successively higher levels.
List of Conferences
The NHL and NBA are divided into the western and eastern conferences, with three divisions within each conference. In both leagues, the winners of the three divisions in each conference automatically advance to the playoffs, with the 5 next best teams in each conference also going to the playoffs. In the NHL each of the three division winner is guaranteed one of the top three seeds (or ranks to determine who has home advantage and the matchups for each round of the playoffs, where the top ranked teams play lower ranked teams) in the NBA the top four seeds go to the three division winners and the next best team, based on record.
The NFL has an American Conference and a National Conference. Both conferences have 16 teams, and each conference is divided into 4 divisions of 4 teams each. Each of the 4 division winners is guaranteed one of the top 4 seeds in the playoffs.
MLB is divided into the American League and the National league. Even though they are called leagues, they act in the exact same manner as conferences in the NFL, NBA, and NHL as listed above. Each league also has 3 teams each, and each division winner is also guarenteed one of the top three seeds, even if their record is lower than the league's wildcard team.
In all four sports, the champion of one conference plays the champion of the other conference for the final round championship. Also, in each sport, teams play predominately within their own conference during the regular season, but play some games outside their conference (or league in baseball).
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