How to Calculate the Games Back Number for a Sports Teams Standings

Last Updated: February 29, 2020

Ever been looking into the sports paper, and notice your team is in second place or first place, and wonder how do they determine what place your team is in? This article will tell you how the newspapers and sports analysts determine the placement of a team by calculating the games back number.

Steps

1
Play the required games for the teams involved. Keep track.
2
Locate the Win-Loss record standings information. Whether this information is online or in a daily newspaper, make sure it has all the teams you're looking to obtain this number.

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3
Lay a piece of paper on a flat writing surface where you can figure out this statistic.
4
Determine the leader of the division, by finding the team with the most wins, and fewest losses.^{[1]
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5
Find out how many wins the teams have.
6
Find out how many losses the teams have.
7
Find the difference between the total wins for the two teams.^{[2]
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8
Find the difference between the total losses for the two teams involved.
9
Add these two difference totals.
10
Divide these items, by 2 (so you can get an average).^{[3]
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Research source} The answer after this, will give you your games back for your lower winning team and (should be) higher loss-record team.

Community Q&A

Question

What is a better record -- 8-5 or 7-4?

Donagan

Top Answerer

It is the "winning percentage" that determines who's ahead in the standings. A team with an 8-5 record has a winning percentage of .615. A team with a 7-4 record has a winning percentage of .636. The 7-4 team would be listed higher in the standings, even though they would be tied in terms of "games back" or "games behind" and thus considered tied for whatever place they occupy in the standings. Ultimately the question of who has the better record can be answered only if the teams have played the same number of games, in which case a question such as this would not arise.
Question

Who has a better record: 9-8-1 or 9-8-0?

Community Answer

It depends on the sport in question. In many sports, in terms of both winning percentage and "games back," ties don't count, and those records would be considered identical. However, in sports such as ice hockey and soccer/football where ties are common, wins are worth two points in the standings, and ties are worth one point. In such a sport, the case you cite would have the team with the tie holding the better record.
Question

Who determines if it is an error or a hit during a game?

Donagan

Top Answerer

Every high-level game has an "official scorer" in attendance. This person (often a sports writer) is responsible for making hit/error judgments on every play.