Debate: What's the best way to crown a league champion?

ByMIGUEL DELANEY AND JIM CAPLE
April 28, 2016, 12:05 PM

— -- The NBA and NHL playoffs are just picking up steam. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, Leicester City is on the brink of clinching one of the most improbable league championships in sports history with three weeks remaining in the Premier League round-robin season. At the same time, the league's bottom-dwelling clubs are battling to avoid relegation.

So who gets it right? What is the better way to crown a champion?

We asked U.K.-based Miguel Delaney and U.S.-based Jim Caple to state their cases. At the end of the debate, you have a chance to vote for the winner.

Delaney: Highs are higher, champions more pure in EPL

It's hard to deny that, in terms of drama and excitement, the Premier League's system of round-robin champions and relegation can lack the crescendo of a playoff system.

At the same time, playoffs very rarely live up to the type of climax that the Premier League saw in 2011-12, when Sergio Aguero won the title for Manchester City with one of the last kicks of the season. Moments like that have become storied in soccer.

One of the reasons they are so sensational is because of their rarity value. It takes many stars to align for a league to go right to the wire like that. Precisely because of that, it feels worth more as an event when it does happen.

There's also the fact that it is literally worth more in sporting terms. This is the real key. It is more meritorious.

This is why competitions like the NBA and NHL should go with a round-robin relegation system. Their winners and losers would be more pure. The rings would mean more.

Before you react, let's just lay it out.

The reality is, with a playoff format a team doesn't even have to be that good for that long. Luck and form -- rather than deeper inherent quality -- play much more of a part.

There's also the problem that it renders a whole year's work irrelevant, reducing an entire season to more isolated moments. What is the point of the competition before it in that context? It's a waste of everyone's time, little more than an extended preseason. Sure, the argument is that it extends the season -- but what exactly are we extending if everything that precedes it means close to nothing?

Similarly, people might respond that the playoffs ensure that a team has to rise to specific occasions in that epic way we associate with sport. But the problem is that those isolated occasions can be influenced by more than the team's mentality and application. A ball could bounce the wrong way, a call could go the wrong way, a player could get injured at the wrong time. Just look at the Golden State Warriors, who had the greatest regular season in NBA history but might see their championship hopes derailed by Stephen Curry's untimely injury. All of a sudden, for reasons beyond anyone's control, a campaign can go up in smoke.

In short, playoffs can often mean the best team doesn't win -- and that should be contrary to the idea of deciding a champion. That doesn't happen with a full round-robin season.

Regarding the relegation side of the debate, one positive is that it injects more fixtures in a round-robin with significance. There are consequently things to play for right through the table. What's more, the relegation battles of the Premier League have offered some of the most dramatic moments sport can offer. Look at Leicester City, who stand one win from clinching the Premier League championship. The Foxes improbably survived last year after going on a "great escape" and winning a scarcely believable seven of their last nine games. That was drama to match anything in a playoff -- and arguably supersede it given the stakes.

"The simplicity, fairness and integrity of a league played of purely home and away fixtures is something that is compelling to fans and broadcasters, especially in a competitive league like ours," Premier League director of communications Dan Johnson said. "The other major issue is that the football calendar is extremely congested, making more complicated formats difficult to schedule."

But there are also other longer-term benefits to a round-robin competition.

The threat of relegation forces clubs to be proactive and innovative -- and it brings variety and refreshment to the competition.

Look at Aston Villa this season. They effectively got complacent, thinking that their size and resources would insulate them from relegation. The system has ended up punishing them for that lazy mindset, while allowing a club that hasn't suffered stagnation to replace them. It also might prevent further stagnation at Villa. The doomsday will force them to be more dynamic.

It has happened with even bigger clubs who have suffered relegation in the last few decades, from Juventus to Manchester United.

This system may not guarantee the dramatics of a playoff, but it does guarantee more meaning to it all.

Miguel Delaney is a London-based correspondent for ESPN FC and also writes for the Irish Examiner and others. Follow him on Twitter @MiguelDelaney.

Caple: Playoffs serve fans with more games, more thrills

The Premier League system is intriguing.

Imagine if fans had spent the final weeks of the season focused not on Kobe Bryant's retirement but on whether the Los Angeles Lakers, one of the most successful franchises in NBA history, would be demoted to the D-League because their won-loss record had buried them in the bottom four of the standings. Good Lord, Jack Nicholson would have been charging the court and shouting at Byron Scott to insert himself in the lineup to help the team win.

Lakers fans would have been riveted to the standings, while non-Lakers fans -- and isn't that pretty much everyone? -- would have been delighted to see the team leave the NBA. The EPL system also would be good for the Warriors, because with their record 73-win season they clearly deserve to be NBA champions without having to play another two months of games against lesser opponents, any of whom could get lucky and knock out a Dubs team now playing without the injured Curry.

All that said, however, our North American playoff system is clearly the way to go.

The EPL system may justifiably crown a deserving champion while preventing a team with a significantly worse regular-season record from getting lucky over a couple weeks and taking the crown away. But that very possibility of an upset, the chance of an underdog toppling the favorite, of David slaying Goliath, is what makes playoff systems work. It adds to the intrigue. It adds to the rivalries. It adds to the excitement.

And most importantly, it extends the season.

Fans love sports. Fans love their teams. And fans want to watch their teams play as long as possible, especially when they are battling for a possible championship rather than playing some meaningless "friendly'' somewhere.

Granted, the end portion of the regular season can be dull for the worst teams' fans when little is at stake (and there is no relegation to fear). But the draft lottery adds a layer of interest. And overall, the end of a regular season that will be followed by playoffs remains just as captivating as the EPL season. While an EPL champion can be decided before the end of the wire, we bite our nails wondering until the very last day who will advance to the playoffs. And whom those teams will play based on their records. And how they will fare once the postseason starts.

And who is truly the best team when everything is on the line and pressure is at its highest possible level and the entire world is watching.

The only problem with a playoff system is when leagues allow too many teams into the postseason, simply to generate more money via the turnstile and television revenue. There are 30 teams each in the NBA and NHL, and more than half (16) make the playoffs in each league. In the 1987-88 NBA season, the San Antonio Spurs made the playoffs with a 31-51 record. Still, that's better than the NHL's 1937-38 Chicago Blackhawks, who went 14-25-9 in the regular season but made the playoffs and won the Stanley Cup.

But even subpar teams making the postseason can be compelling. After all, were it not for Major League Baseball's wild-card system, the Red Sox would not have ended their 86-year World Series championship drought in 2004. (Just don't get Seattle basketball fans started on their 63-19 first-place SuperSonics losing in the first round of the 1994 playoffs to the 42-40 Denver Nuggets.)

Look at it this way. Without the playoffs, our NBA and NHL seasons already would be over. Rather than wondering whether LeBron James can finally deliver a championship to the long-suffering city of Cleveland or whether Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals can lift the Stanley Cup for the first time, fans would be home on their couches counting down the days to the next season (more than six months!) while watching the latest episode of "Game of Thrones."

And that's the beauty of the playoff system. It adds length and drama to the season. We get to see who will sit atop the throne after watching our teams knock off their enemies in exciting game after exciting game after exciting game. That is far better than just ending the season in April and sending everyone home.

Although it wouldn't be bad to see the Lakers relegated.

Senior writer Jim Caple covers baseball, the Olympics and more for ESPN.com. Follow him on Twitter at @jimcaple.