Three Cycles of Standings: How the Table Actually Moved

Two standings sheets sit on file at the league's archive. One tracks the 2015 and 2016 cycle, last updated March 15, 2018. The other covers 2017/18. They do not list the same fourteen managers. The names changed because the commitment did: three seasons, one calendar year, and not everyone stays for the full ride.

Photo: Ranger John, CC BY-SA 3.0 · source file

What the two sheets are

The league maintains standings at lgofleagues.com/standings/, and the record shows two distinct documents. The earlier sheet covers 2015 and 2016, with a final timestamp of March 15, 2018. The later sheet covers 2017/18. Each represents a complete scoring cycle under the rules published at lgofleagues.com/rules/.

A cycle runs one calendar year across three sports: NFL, NBA, and MLB. The highest combined total after those three seasons wins. The sheets are printed as filed, meaning they capture the membership at that moment. Between the 2015-2016 cycle and 2017/18, the league changed hands. The names on the page turned over accordingly.

How three seasons become one number

Each sport's final table converts to league points on a fixed scale. The champion receives 14 points. The last-placed team receives 1. The remaining twelve positions fill the gap between. Run this conversion three times—once per sport—and sum the results. The maximum possible score is 42 points, achieved only by winning all three seasons outright.

This is not a weighted average or a power ranking. It is a straight additive system: 14 for first, 1 for last, add across NFL, NBA, and MLB. A manager who finishes second in all three seasons collects 13 + 13 + 13 = 39 points. A manager who wins one sport and collapses in the other two might finish with 14 + 2 + 3 = 19. The same total can arise from radically different shapes of performance.

Where the table ties

The 2017/18 sheet contains repeated totals that would not occur in a single-sport table. Two managers finished with 18 points. Two others finished with 28. These ties are structural, not accidental. When three independent season scores collapse into one number, collision becomes inevitable.

In a single league, ties are broken by head-to-head, points differential, or playoff seeding. In the combined table, no such mechanism exists. The 18-point managers might have arrived there through entirely different routes—perhaps 14 + 3 + 1 versus 6 + 6 + 6. The sheet does not distinguish. The number stands alone, stripped of its constituent seasons.

The repeated 28 points suggest the same compression at the top. Two managers each scored enough to threaten the title, yet landed on the same line. The tie does not resolve. It simply sits there, a reminder that three seasons of detail have been folded into one integer.

Why the names move

The 2015-2016 sheet and the 2017/18 sheet do not list identical managers. The league experienced turnover between cycles, and the printed records reflect this. A three-sport commitment spanning twelve months filters participants differently than a single-season league would.

Some managers exit after one bad sport. Others stay through a full cycle and do not return. The sheets capture neither entry nor exit mid-stream—only the final roster as of the update date. The March 15, 2018 timestamp on the earlier sheet suggests a filing lag, possibly capturing late adjustments or disputed results. The 2017/18 sheet stands as its own snapshot, with its own membership.

This churn is visible only by comparing the two documents. Neither sheet comments on its predecessor. The league does not publish continuity data. A manager who appears in 2015-2016 and disappears by 2017/18 leaves no trace in the later record, and the later sheet offers no acknowledgment of the gap.

What a total does not tell you

A 28-point total in 2017/18 could mean a manager who won one sport, placed second in another, and scraped seventh in the third: 14 + 13 + 1. It could mean three solid fifth-place finishes: 10 + 9 + 9. The sheet shows 28. The shape is lost.

This matters for reading the table. A manager sitting at 18 points might be recovering from a disaster, climbing from a 1-point MLB finish with strong NFL and NBA showings. Or they might be consistently mediocre, never above eighth place in any sport. The combined table treats both histories as identical. The tie at 18 points in the 2017/18 sheet pairs two managers whose seasons likely looked nothing alike in the watching, but whose final sums happened to match.

The cost of scoring three sports on one line is exactly this: compression, collision, and the erasure of narrative. The table moves. The names change. The numbers stay flat.