A long regular season and a knockout postseason answer different questions

Two structures, two different measurements

An extended regular season with many games produces a reliable ordering, because the volume of fixtures allows underlying quality to separate teams clearly. A postseason bracket then discards most of that ordering, retaining only a seeding advantage, and decides the title through elimination instead. The two structures are not in conflict so much as answering separate questions about which team is best and which team wins when it matters.

A competition that wanted only the first answer would award the title to the regular-season leader and dispense with the postseason entirely. A competition that wanted only the second would shorten the regular season drastically and expand the bracket to include far more teams.

Why the regular season survives at length

The primary reason is revenue, since a long season delivers a large number of home dates and a continuous broadcast product across many months. It also builds the narrative that makes the postseason meaningful, because a bracket between unfamiliar teams would carry far less weight. Rivalries, storylines and the identity of each team are established across the regular season and then paid off in the postseason.

A short season would produce a bracket with no context, which is a considerably weaker product regardless of its competitive purity. The length therefore serves the postseason rather than competing with it, which is often missed in arguments about shortening the calendar.

Why the postseason cannot be replaced

A season that simply ended with a table has no climax, and the final weeks would be anticlimactic for every team already secure in its position. The postseason supplies a definite conclusion at a scheduled time, which is what an audience and a broadcaster both require. It also creates the possibility of a team peaking at the right moment, which produces the narratives that sustain interest between seasons.

Awarding the title on regular-season record would be more accurate and would generate a fraction of the attention. The choice was made long ago in favour of the occasion, and no major league has seriously proposed reversing it.

Managing the load across both

Playing a long season and then a demanding postseason requires teams to arrive at the bracket with their best players available and functional. That has made load management a central practice, with teams resting players during the regular season to protect them for the postseason. The practice is rational for a team and damaging for the league, since spectators attending a given fixture may not see the players they came for.

Leagues respond with participation requirements tied to individual awards or to national broadcast dates, which limits the practice without removing the incentive. The tension is structural, arising directly from a format that makes the regular season long and the postseason decisive.

What the combination produces

The champion of such a structure is a team that was good enough across a long season to earn position and good enough in a short window to survive elimination. That is a demanding double requirement, and it explains why champions in these leagues are rarely surprising despite the presence of a bracket. The best-of-seven format reinforces this, since it removes most of the randomness that would otherwise allow a lesser team to advance.

The result is a competition that delivers the drama of elimination while still producing a champion the ordering would broadly have predicted. That combination is difficult to achieve and it is the main reason the structure has proved so durable across different sports.