How Many Baseball Games Are In A Season?
How many baseball games are in a season? The answer may surprise you. The average MLB season is 162 games long. However, there are a few factors that can affect the length of a season.
Introduction
A baseball season consists of 162 games for each of the 30 teams in Major League Baseball (MLB). Each team plays 162 games because this provides a fair, balanced schedule that gives every team the same opportunity to win.
The schedule is designed so that each team plays 19 games against each of its four divisional opponents, six or seven games against each of ten other teams in their league, and 20 interleague games. Interleague play is when teams from the National League (NL) and American League (AL) compete against each other.
The regular season usually starts in early April and ends in late September or early October. At the end of the regular season, eight teams from each league advance to the MLB postseason playoffs.
The Regular Season
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization, the oldest of the four major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada. A total of 30 teams play in the National League (NL) and American League (AL), with 15 teams in each league. The NL and AL were formed as separate legal entities in 1876 and 1901 respectively. After cooperating but remaining legally separate entities beginning in 1903, the leagues merged into a single organization led by the Commissioner of Baseball in 2000. The organization also oversees Minor League Baseball, which comprises about 240 teams affiliated with the Major League clubs. With the World Baseball Softball Confederation, MLB manages the international World Baseball Classic tournament.
Baseball broadcasts are aired on television, radio, and the Internet throughout North America and in several other countries throughout the world. MLB has the highest season attendance of any sports league in the world with more than 74 million spectators in 2015.
The Postseason
The postseason is when things really count in baseball. The best teams in each league face off in a best-of-seven series to determine who will advance to the World Series, the championship of Major League Baseball.
In recent years, baseball has expanded the playoffs to include more teams. Now, 5 teams from each league (10 total) make the playoffs. The postseason starts with the Wild Card games. These are single-elimination games between the two teams with the best records who did not win their division. The winner of each Wild Card game moves on to the Divisional Series.
The Divisional Series is a best-of-five series between the division winners and the Wild Card winners. The two winners of the Divisional Series move on to the League Championship Series, or LCS. The LCS is also a best-of-seven series, and the winner of each LCS (one from the American League and one from the National League) moves on to play in the World Series.
So, in total, there are four rounds of playoffs: the Wild Card games, the Divisional Series, the League Championship Series, and finally, the World Series. The entire postseason runs from early October until November (sometimes into December if there are rain delays).
Conclusion
The answer to this question depends on the level of baseball being played. Major League Baseball (MLB) plays 162 games in a season, while Minor League Baseball (MiLB) has a 144 game season. The playoffs and World Series add additional games for MLB teams, but not for MiLB teams.
