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

Co-authored by Kevin Wang

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.

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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]
X
Research source} The answer after this, will give you your games back for your lower winning team and (should be) higher loss-record team.

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Question

How do I calculate my win and lose percentage?

Kevin Wang
Math Tutor
Kevin Wang is a Math Tutor based in New York, New York. Kevin has been tutoring math for over 10 years, and specializes in K-12 math topics and standardized tests, such as SAT and ACT. Kevin has an economics background and a career in both finance and marketing analytics. His interest in tutoring goes back even longer than his career. He discovered tutoring at the start of his university career and enjoys it as a way to stay sharp with fundamental skills and remain up to date with trends in our education system. Kevin received a BS in Economics from Duke University.

Kevin Wang

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Expert Answer

First, you need to divide your number of wins by the total number of games you've played. So, if you have played 10 games and have won 5 of these, then your win-loss ratio would be 5/10, which reduces to 1/2. This shows that out of all the games you played, half were won by you. Multiply the fraction by 100 to get a percent. In this case, 1/2 x 100 = 50%, so you have won 50% of your games.

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

Donagan

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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.

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

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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.

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Tips

For those sports, where ties are involved and overtime has not decided a clear winner, count these games as 1/2 a win AND 1/2 a loss.

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Remember: a win for one team, is a loss for another.

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Things You'll Need

2 sports teams (minimum)
pencil/pen
paper
a history of the scores of each team involved

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