Regular Season & Playoff Scoring In American Sports

In MLS, it's not hard to notice that usually there is less scoring in the playoffs, when every goal becomes more important. But how does soccer compare to the other four major sports in the USA? Is MLS unusual in that respect, or is it common? I touched on this last year, but now I'm back with a more detailed look. Rather than just look at the past few years, I've gone back and gathered data from the past forty or so years. I picked an appropriate time to start at for the four major sports, when each of them expanded their playoff system within a few years of one another: 1. MLB went to 4 divisions and 4 playoff teams in 1969. 2. The NBA expanded to 10 teams and 10 playoff teams in 1966-67. 3. The NFL merged with the AFL in 1970, expanding from 16 to 26 teams and doubling the playoff teams from 4 to 8. 4. The NHL doubled in size from 6 to 12 teams in 1967-68, and also doubled the size of its playoffs from 4 to 8. Regular Season Scoring vs Playoff Scoring Regular Playoffs Difference PCT Diff Years NFL 40.57 42.29 1.72 4.24% 1970-2006 NBA 207.68 201.57 -6.11 -2.94% 1966-2007 MLS 3.05 2.84 -0.21 -6.90% 1996-2006 NHL 6.47 6.01 -0.46 -7.08% 1967-2007 MLB 8.93 8.16 -0.77 -8.60% 1969-2006 This is determined by taking the total number of games and goals/points/runs from the time periods listed. The NFL is the only league which has an increase in scoring during its playoffs. The other four see a decrease, even basketball. I suppose much of that is due to the worst teams not making the playoffs; the more even teams are, the less scoring there is. In baseball, not only do is there that factor but there's also the best pitchers starting more often. So MLS is pretty much in line with the others. Somebody suggested last year that it would be interesting to check the regular season averages using only the games between teams that made the playoffs. That would certainly be interesting, though a lot of work for every sport except MLS and the NFL. I may look into that in the future. What if instead of counting all years at once, I were to take the average percent difference? Then you'd have this: PCT Diff Years NFL 3.43% 1970-2006 NBA -3.07% 1966-2007 NHL -7.46% 1967-2007 MLS -7.70% 1996-2006 MLB -8.42% 1969-2006 Slightly lower across the board, except for MLB. Here MLS is fourth, behind the NHL. They've had fewer years for big swings to balance out. So you should expect scoring in this year's MLS playoffs to be around 7.0% below the regular season total, which is currently 2.70 goals per game. So there should be around 2.50 goals a game in the playoffs. However, there's a lot of room for error, since the average number of goals in soccer is low. The difference between 2.50 and 2.70 is only 2-3 goals over 11 games. Bonus Yearly Stats Here's some of the stats that I compiled while figuring this out. You would think it would be easy to find out the yearly scoring averages for the regular seasons of each sport, but it's not. Oh sure, you can find individual team averages, but the total averages were scarce. And for the historical playoff points, forget about it. For example, to find out the basketball playoff points I had to export a list of individual playoff stats into excel, then add them up to find the total. One season at a time, too. I used the following sites to help me out: NFL.com, Baseball-Reference, Basketball-Reference, Hockey DB, MLSnet, and Outside the Garden. Also ESPN and Wikipedia to doublecheck a few things. Yearly Regular Season Scoring Averages (runs per game, goals per game, points per game) MLB MLS NBA NFL NHL 1967 234.90 1968 233.21 5.58 1969 8.14 224.63 5.96 1970 8.68 233.39 38.52 5.81 1971 7.78 224.82 38.73 6.24 1972 7.37 220.38 40.51 6.13 1973 8.43 215.18 38.91 6.55 1974 8.25 211.48 36.36 6.39 1975 8.43 205.26 41.18 6.85 1976 7.99 208.69 38.31 6.82 1977 8.94 212.94 34.35 6.64 1978 8.21 216.92 36.67 6.59 1979 8.92 220.68 40.13 7.00 1980 8.58 218.67 40.97 7.03 1981 8.00 216.21 41.35 7.69 1982 8.59 217.15 40.32 8.03 1983 8.62 217.03 43.66 7.73 1984 8.51 220.22 42.42 7.89 1985 8.66 221.68 43.06 7.77 1986 8.82 220.44 41.04 7.94 1987 9.45 219.87 43.20 7.34 1988 8.28 216.32 40.51 7.43 1989 8.26 218.34 41.21 7.48 1990 8.51 213.99 40.25 7.37 1991 8.62 212.62 37.97 6.91 1992 8.23 210.62 37.46 6.96 1993 9.19 210.54 37.40 7.25 1994 9.85 203.01 40.51 6.48 1995 9.69 202.82 42.98 5.97 1996 10.07 3.37 199.01 40.85 6.29 1997 9.53 3.26 193.80 41.49 5.83 1998 9.58 3.57 191.14 42.56 5.28 1999 10.17 2.86 183.16 41.63 5.27 2000 10.28 3.19 194.94 41.35 5.49 2001 9.55 3.28 189.62 40.42 5.51 2002 9.24 3.01 190.95 43.35 5.24 2003 9.46 2.89 190.16 41.66 5.31 2004 9.63 2.61 186.79 42.97 5.14 2005 9.18 2.87 194.40 41.23 2006 9.72 2.62 194.02 41.32 6.05 2007 197.48 5.76 Yearly Playoff Scoring Averages (runs per game, goals per game, points per game) MLB MLS NBA NFL NHL 1967 231.61 1968 224.05 5.60 1969 7.91 209.00 5.67 1970 9.27 223.20 26.86 6.06 1971 7.71 207.05 30.71 6.12 1972 5.53 213.70 31.29 6.03 1973 6.24 205.00 41.71 6.34 1974 5.77 196.27 36.57 5.76 1975 8.46 201.00 42.00 6.14 1976 8.92 207.16 42.00 5.79 1977 8.87 210.81 41.57 6.39 1978 9.50 214.04 40.56 5.78 1979 8.50 209.43 35.89 6.18 1980 7.79 207.88 41.11 6.60 1981 5.97 200.62 52.22 7.94 1982 9.33 211.04 44.60 7.21 1983 5.62 214.79 46.11 7.53 1984 8.00 215.24 39.33 6.31 1985 7.20 229.38 35.33 7.49 1986 8.40 221.43 41.00 6.50 1987 8.26 220.82 49.78 6.28 1988 7.56 208.64 36.22 7.57 1989 10.36 209.73 47.78 6.54 1990 6.36 211.04 39.73 6.65 1991 6.84 208.34 38.64 6.59 1992 8.47 206.51 43.27 6.43 1993 10.33 199.04 48.36 6.84 1994 188.01 46.64 5.72 1995 8.61 198.52 52.18 6.36 1996 8.41 3.12 187.47 44.27 5.88 1997 8.41 2.77 188.04 37.45 5.35 1998 7.23 3.14 182.46 45.64 5.05 1999 9.16 3.06 175.24 42.91 5.12 2000 8.29 2.94 183.68 35.36 4.67 2001 7.11 2.72 187.23 43.27 4.80 2002 10.29 3.00 188.46 50.91 4.77 2003 8.05 3.00 192.05 44.73 4.71 2004 10.38 2.55 176.06 47.27 4.40 2005 8.73 2.09 194.17 38.00 2006 7.60 2.45 195.58 46.09 5.65 2007 188.48 4.95 PCT Differential of Playoff Scoring Compared to Regular Season Scoring MLB MLS NBA NFL NHL 1967 -1.40% -30.27% 1968 -3.93% -20.69% 0.42% 1969 -2.90% -6.96% -22.76% -4.93% 1970 6.79% -4.37% 7.22% 4.30% 1971 -0.80% -7.91% 0.57% -2.04% 1972 -25.00% -3.03% 1.99% -1.70% 1973 -26.02% -4.73% 9.64% -3.19% 1974 -30.07% -7.19% 21.02% -9.85% 1975 0.43% -2.08% 10.61% -10.41% 1976 11.60% -0.73% -10.57% -15.12% 1977 -0.83% -1.00% 0.34% -3.86% 1978 15.77% -1.33% 26.30% -12.37% 1979 -4.70% -5.10% 10.62% -11.69% 1980 -9.22% -4.94% 5.62% -6.11% 1981 -25.36% -7.21% -7.28% 3.31% 1982 8.59% -2.81% -17.94% -10.14% 1983 -34.82% -1.03% -0.10% -2.58% 1984 -6.03% -2.26% 15.24% -19.96% 1985 -16.88% 3.48% -10.59% -3.71% 1986 -4.74% 0.45% 15.93% -18.10% 1987 -12.52% 0.43% -1.29% -14.49% 1988 -8.62% -3.55% 1.75% 1.90% 1989 25.32% -3.94% 15.52% -12.65% 1990 -25.32% -1.38% 29.32% -9.78% 1991 -20.58% -2.01% 15.11% -4.68% 1992 2.91% -1.95% 21.42% -7.58% 1993 12.39% -5.46% 8.37% -5.76% 1994 -7.39% -9.72% -11.75% 1995 -11.16% -2.12% 7.22% 6.45% 1996 -16.53% -7.45% -5.80% 3.07% -6.40% 1997 -11.77% -15.12% -2.97% -14.47% -8.19% 1998 -24.49% -11.91% -4.54% 7.06% -4.30% 1999 -9.90% 7.10% -4.32% 17.44% -2.87% 2000 -19.35% -7.84% -5.78% 7.35% -14.90% 2001 -25.51% -17.13% -1.26% 10.02% -12.90% 2002 11.45% -0.24% -1.30% -7.84% -8.99% 2003 -14.84% 3.93% 0.99% 11.56% -11.32% 2004 7.84% -2.60% -5.75% -14.25% 2005 -4.90% -27.14% -0.12% 2006 -21.77% -6.31% 0.81% -6.62% 2007 -4.56% -14.02% Number of Playoff Games as a Percentage of Regular Season Games MLB MLS NBA NFL NHL 1967 7.65% 1968 8.13% 9.01% 1969 0.57% 6.79% 7.24% 1970 0.57% 6.97% 3.85% 7.46% 1971 0.72% 5.74% 3.85% 7.88% 1972 0.91% 5.31% 3.85% 6.59% 1973 0.87% 5.88% 3.85% 6.09% 1974 0.67% 5.88% 3.85% 6.09% 1975 0.67% 6.37% 3.85% 7.08% 1976 0.62% 6.78% 3.57% 6.67% 1977 0.71% 5.88% 3.57% 6.11% 1978 0.67% 5.65% 4.02% 6.25% 1979 0.67% 5.88% 4.02% 6.62% 1980 0.67% 5.32% 4.02% 7.98% 1981 2.30% 5.62% 4.02% 8.10% 1982 0.71% 4.98% 11.90% 8.45% 1983 0.62% 4.56% 4.02% 7.86% 1984 0.62% 8.38% 4.02% 8.33% 1985 0.95% 7.21% 4.02% 8.33% 1986 0.95% 7.21% 4.02% 8.57% 1987 0.90% 7.53% 4.29% 10.36% 1988 0.76% 8.48% 4.02% 9.88% 1989 0.66% 6.05% 4.02% 9.76% 1990 0.67% 6.50% 4.91% 10.12% 1991 0.90% 6.14% 4.91% 10.95% 1992 0.90% 6.59% 4.91% 9.77% 1993 0.79% 6.87% 4.91% 8.43% 1994 6.96% 4.91% 8.24% 1995 1.54% 6.59% 4.58% 12.98% 1996 1.41% 10.63% 5.72% 4.58% 8.07% 1997 1.50% 8.13% 6.06% 4.58% 7.69% 1998 1.23% 7.29% 5.97% 4.58% 7.69% 1999 1.28% 8.33% 9.10% 4.44% 7.77% 2000 1.28% 8.33% 6.31% 4.44% 7.23% 2001 1.44% 11.39% 5.97% 4.44% 6.99% 2002 1.40% 12.14% 5.97% 4.30% 7.32% 2003 1.56% 7.33% 7.40% 4.30% 7.24% 2004 1.40% 7.33% 6.90% 4.30% 7.24% 2005 1.23% 5.73% 6.83% 4.30% 2006 1.24% 5.73% 7.24% 4.30% 6.75% 2007 6.42% 6.59%