Data notes · where the numbers come from, and every place they deserve an asterisk
Every chart on this site is built from a league's own data feed (or, for
the NFL, the community-maintained nflverse data), not from scraped websites
or record books. That choice has a consequence: when a league's feed and
the printed books disagree, this site sides with the league. Complete
seasons are validated against each league's own official standings before
publishing, and the handful of places where history needed repair or
judgment are all listed here.
MLB 1901 to today · MLB Stats API
Layouts are shown as they existed: before 1969 there were no
divisions, so those charts show the two league pennant races. East and
West arrive in 1969, the Central in 1994.
The wild card cutoff line appears from the format's birth in 1994:
one spot through 2011, two from 2012, three from 2022. It tracks the
team holding the last spot each day, ranked by winning percentage;
the league's official tiebreaker procedures are not applied to
day-by-day ties, so on tied days the line can sit a team off from the
official playoff picture.
1994 keeps its wild card race even though the strike cancelled the
postseason and no wild card was ever awarded. The race was real while
the season ran.
A few seasons before 1963 differ from the Elias record books by a
game or two. MLB's own feed counts ties, replayed games, and tiebreaker
playoffs slightly differently than the books do. Nine team-seasons out
of roughly 2,800 are affected.
Tiebreaker playoff games count in the regular season, matching the
feed: the 1962 Giants finish 103-62 here, including their three-game
playoff over the Dodgers, where some books stop at the scheduled 162.
Tie games (called for darkness in the years before ballpark lights)
are not counted. They were replayed and the replay counts, which is how
the official records treat them too. The 1927 Yankees are 110-44 here,
as they should be.
Charts show AL and NL play only. The Negro Leagues, which MLB
recognizes as major leagues, keep their statistics in a separate part of
MLB's data that this site does not yet chart.
A suspended game counts on its original date once it finishes, so a
day or two of recent history can quietly correct itself.
Interrupted seasons appear exactly as they happened: 1981 shows its
mid-season strike gap, 1994 simply ends on August 11, and 2020 is 60
games long.
NHL 1917-18 to today · NHL API
Points and records come from the league's own day-by-day standings,
so every era's point rules (two for a win, one for a tie, the
overtime-loss point after 1999, no ties after 2004) are the league's own
arithmetic, not ours.
Division and conference layouts are shown as they existed each
season, from no divisions at all, to Canadian and American, to Adams and
Patrick and Norris and Smythe, to today's four. The 2020-21 season's
sponsor-branded division names appear here without the sponsors.
The wild card cutoff line traces the pace of the team holding the
last wild card spot in each conference, and exists only for seasons
that used the format (2013-14 onward). 2020-21 has none: that season's
playoffs took the top four from each division, so there was no wild
card race to draw.
2004-05 does not exist. The whole season was lost to the lockout.
The Montreal Wanderers' line in 1917-18 goes flat after six games:
their arena burned down and the team folded. Lines that stop moving
usually mean a franchise died mid-season.
2019-20 keeps its wild card races even though the league replaced
that postseason with a 24-team format after the March stoppage. The
races were real while the season ran.
NBA 1946-47 to today · NBA stats platform
The NBA counts its BAA years (1946-1949) as its own history, and so
does this site. The NBL, the other half of the 1949 merger, exists in no
open data source and is not charted.
The playoff cutoff line marks the pace of each conference's eighth
seed, the final playoff spot of the sixteen-team era that began in
1983-84. Earlier seasons have no cutoff line, and in today's play-in
years the line still tracks the eighth seed.
A few early-era division tiebreaker games (1948-1957) appear in the
league's game log but not in official standings. They are excluded here
so final records match the official books exactly.
The Baltimore Bullets folded fourteen games into the 1954-55 season,
and the league struck those games from the record. This site follows the
league: 1954-55 shows no Baltimore line at all.
The 1953-54 season includes a forfeit (Milwaukee over Baltimore) that
has no box score. It is credited at season's end, keeping the final
records exact.
The NBA Cup championship game does not count toward standings and is
not charted. Cup group-stage games count, and are.
WNBA 1997 to today · WNBA stats platform
Three games exist in official standings but have no box score in the
league's game log: awarded results in 2007 (New York over Connecticut)
and 2009 (Los Angeles over New York), and the only true forfeit in
league history, awarded to Washington in 2018 after the Aces' 26-hour
travel ordeal. Each is credited at season's end, so final records match
the official standings exactly, but those teams' daily lines run one
game light from the true date until then.
The playoff cutoff line follows the format of its era: the four
best records league-wide in 1997 and 1998, three per conference in
1999, four per conference from 2000 through 2015, and the top eight
league-wide since 2016.
2020 is the 22-game season played entirely in Bradenton, Florida.
The Commissioner's Cup final does not count toward standings and is
not charted. Cup group games count, and are.
NFL 1999 to today · nflverse open data
History starts at 1999 because that is where free, legitimate NFL
game data begins. Deeper history exists only in sources whose terms do
not allow a site like this one.
The chart moves one point per completed week, not per day, and a
week joins the chart only when all of its games are final. Bye weeks
show as flat line segments.
1999 through 2001 are charted as the league then stood: 31 teams in
six divisions, with Seattle in the AFC West and Arizona in the NFC
East, before the 2002 realignment.
The wild card cutoff line marks the last wild card spot in each
conference: three per conference through 2001, two from 2002 through
2019, three again since 2020. Teams are ranked by winning percentage
alone; the league's full tiebreakers are not applied, so in tied weeks
the line can sit a team off from the official playoff picture.
2001 shows its September 11 pause: the second week's games were
postponed and played in early January as Week 17, so the chart skips a
weekend after Week 1 and runs into January.
Ties count as half a win in the winning percentage, the NFL's own
method. The 2022 Bills-Bengals game, cancelled after Damar Hamlin's
collapse, was never played: both teams simply finished with 16 games,
exactly as the official standings record it.
Data comes from the community-maintained nflverse project, with
thanks.
MLS 1996 to today · MLS stats API
The 1996-1999 shootout era is charted with its real rules: no draws
existed, a regulation win paid three points, a shootout win paid one.
Shootout wins count as wins in the record, exactly as the league's own
tables show them (the 1996 Galaxy won 19 games but only 49 points; the
Mutiny won 20 and 58).
Three wounds in the league's feed were repaired here, each verified
against the official final table: a 2001 San Jose at New England game
abandoned in a storm and recorded as a draw, a 2008 Houston 0-0 D.C.
match missing from the feed entirely (the Hurricane Ike makeup), and
four 2015 games the feed stamps 0-0 that actually had winners.
Standings sort by points per game, the league's own method for
uneven schedules. It matters twice: 2001, which the league cut short
after September 11 with teams at different game counts, and 2020.
2020 follows the league's own accounting: the MLS is Back tournament
group games count toward standings, teams finished with anywhere from
18 to 23 games, and the chart shows two long flat stretches (the
four-month spring shutdown, and the tournament's knockout rounds, which
did not count).
The Supporters' Shield view shows the single-table, league-wide race
that decides the Shield.
All leagues
A day joins the chart only when every game that day has gone final,
so during a season a team's record here can briefly trail the league's
live table until the next update.
Charts update nightly, shortly after the last game goes final. The
NBA and WNBA update from a home machine in the very early morning
Pacific time, and on rare mornings can run a day behind.
Teams are followed across moves and renames as franchises: Brooklyn
flows into Los Angeles, the MetroStars into the Red Bulls, the
Philadelphia A's through Kansas City and Oakland to today's city-less
Athletics. Team names are shown as they were in each season.
Line colors are each team's brand color where possible, but
legibility wins ties: some teams wear an official alternate so rivals
sharing a chart stay tellable apart, a few franchises change color at an
era boundary (the Blackhawks wear black before 1994, the Jazz wear New
Orleans purple in the 1970s, the SuperSonics wear green), and teams
without a usable identity (the long-dead New York Americans, the
brand-new Toronto Tempo) wear colors chosen purely so their lines can
be followed. Modern palettes are validated for colorblind
distinguishability; in deep-history charts crowded with defunct teams,
the end-of-line labels and the hover readout carry the load.
Historical teams otherwise wear their franchise's modern colors: the
1902 Athletics play in today's gold, Brooklyn in Dodger blue.
Found something that looks wrong? It might be. The repairs on this
page all started as a number that refused to match.