Designing an Equitable Points System for Ranking Sports Teams in Tournaments

[Pfeff]

I'm not sure if this is the right forum to post this in, but I'll give it a shot.

I help administer a team sports organization that has propped up a points system for the purpose of rating the teams for an end of the year tournament. Teams accumulate points by playing in our events and the higher they place the more points they receive. Right now our points system is the following...

1st = 700
2nd = 600
3rd = 500
4th = 400
5th/6th = 300
All other teams = 150

In my opinion, this formula is greatly flawed. It doesn't account for how many teams are entered in the tournament. For example, you could win a four team tournament and get 700 points. Another team could win a 64 team tournament at get the same 700 points.

The team winning a 4 team double elimination tournament could play a minimum of 3 games and a maximum of 4 games.

The team winning a 64 team double elimination tournament could play a minimum of 7 games and a maximum of 12 games.

So to me it seems obvious that winning a tournament with a greater amount of teams entered is deserving of more points.

What I am looking for is a formula that rewards teams with points based upon where they placed and how many teams are entered. I'd like to stick with whole numbers and keep it simple.

To begin with I will be tracking the points system in Excel but would like to migrate the whole deal into mySQL so teams/players can get up to date team standings with less resistance.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Again I apologize is this is the wrong forum or community to be asking in. This just seems like one of the more active ones and I figured I would be able to get the best help here.

Thanks in advance!

Dan

 

[Office_Shredder]

I would just give teams points for winning games... maybe decrease all the point awards for the tournament a bit (the winning point awards get lowered more than the losing ones, because the winners will win more games to make up for it), and award points based on game wins. So perhaps take 50 points off the last place teams' scores, and increase the difference to 125 points for the first place team (scaling the scores of the other teams appropriately), and give 25 points for winning a game.

Or something like that

 

[Pfeff]

I'd like somehow to apply a formula to the results of a tournament that I could apply repeatedly, instead of cooking up some points system. I suspect it would have to be based on amount of teams and place/finish. I don't think I can do games come to think of it because some tournament directors run more than double elim tournaments which would give those playing an unfair advantage.