So you think it’s better to lose Game 7 of the finals than to not even make the playoffs? Maybe you’re right. One game away from the goal everyone’s been sacrificing day-in and day-out since the end of last season to achieve. One win away from ultimate glory, only to be defeated. Heartbreaking, sure. But at least you got the chance. At season’s end, though, only one team will be fully satisfied with their results.
Choose one: the hang-your-head-in-shame-&-don’t-go-out-in-public beat down, or the we-were-this-close-to-ultimate-glory Game7, double-OT loss? The choice of which is worse has more of a subjective bend to it. Either can give the feel of a man adrift for days in the ocean, finally seeing a speedboat approach just as he’s about to give in to exhaustion. Only the boat doesn’t slow to his rescue. Instead, it runs him under its keel at full speed and shreds him with its propeller.
Many people would argue they’d rather lose in 7 games than be swept in 4 games. But who cares? Nobody remembers who finished 2nd anyway. The loser of the Stanley Cup Finals is just another team that didn’t hoist Lord Stanley’s Cup. Even if a team is blown out each game with a cumulative 37-0 scoreline—a complete embarrassment for players and fans alike—they still finished 2nd place out of dozens of squads.
There is one time when people remember who finished in 2nd place, though. That would be when you do it four years in a row. Any sports fan reading this knows exactly which team I’m referring to: the Buffalo Bills. It’s tough to reach the Super Bowl four years in a row. It might be even tougher to lose all four of those games. Four seasons of utter success up until that final commercial-ridden spectacle of each campaign. Always the butt of the jokes. Forever the infamous answer to a quiz question. Those Bills teams may even be better remembered than the teams that beat them in those Super Bowls. I sure can’t tell you who the victors were. Hell, I forgot the Buckeyes won the 2024 College Football Playoff National Championship before the next season started. And I have multiple OSU tattoos!
A professional sport’s season is a grind. Every win in the lengthy MLB regular season helps a team progress one step closer to a playoff berth and that anything-can-happen-now promise. A locker room celebration ensues after a playoff berth is clinched. Another celebration after sweeping the opening round series. Another series. Another win. Another celebration. Series. Win. Celebrate. Finally, the big one; the pinnacle of the sport. Four more victories and the World Series is theirs. Those previous champagne and beer baths with fellow teammates sporting matching Oakley ski googles are all in the past.
Alas, it was not your season to win. The best team you were not. Losers: 4 games to 3. Seated on the bench with tears in eyes, 200+ pound men (5 pounds of which is beard) watch as their opponents celebrate like they had after their series victory only weeks ago. This celebration, though, is exponentially more meaningful.
As is the pain of the loss.
Is the shedding of tears proof that this is the worst feeling they can experience in their sport? Is the distress elevated because of the proximity to their goal? Would a 4-2 series loss be less heartbreaking? 4-1 even less so? 4-0? If distance from the championship lessens the pain of loss, surely losing an earlier playoff round would be less devastating. Extending this thought process, not making the playoffs at all would be a blessing in disguise because any team’s chance of winning the Championship is a longshot—mathematically destined to sadden them by season’s end. Why bother winning any games? 0-162. 0-82. 0-17. Maybe these should be the goals.
If you never feel the joy of victory, you will never have the reference frame of loss as a comparator. Each celebration is a dichotomy of congratulatory appreciation and compensatory opportunity. But let’s be realistic here; you’d never trade in those celebrations with your brothers-in-pads for a guarantee to not suffer the future pains of defeat. The wins are what make the losses so hard. Depression overwhelms as the team in the opposite jerseys uncorks your champagne, drinks and sprays your beers around a plastic-covered locker room, and hoists your trophy to the sky for all to see. That guttural feeling is what makes sports so universal.
In a poker tournament, when you get down to the final two players, each is already guaranteed 2nd place prize money. Thus, the player who fails to win the tournament has only lost the opportunity to increase his winnings from 2nd place prize money to 1st place money. The 2nd place finisher can choose to view finishing in 2nd place as either winning nothing, or as winning 2nd place prize money. Objectively, these are the same. Subjectively, though, the choice of how to frame the outcome can have a huge psychological impact.
Unlike poker, losing in the NBA Finals, gives you only the benefit of experience for your 2nd place finish. As the saying goes, “Second place is the first loser.” If you lose in the finals, you get exactly what the team that finished bottom of the league receives: the opportunity to do it all over again next year (but with the detriment of a worse position in the draft order). Second place in the NBA, in many ways, is worse than finishing with the league’s worst record. The extra dozen or so games of the post-season further break down player’s bodies and shorten their recuperative off-season. Players gain valuable playoff experience, sure. But they also quickly realize how difficult the league can be and how taxing the journey to that point had been. And how taxing it will be again next season.
Players likely get bonus pay for playoff success, and the organization as a whole surely nets additional income during a playoff push. Those are financial positives for all involved. All except the fans. It’s the fans who bear the brunt of a championship loss. They invest their valuable time cheering on their squad, potentially shelling out hard-earned cash to support their team in person. And if they’re a warm-blooded, capitalistic American, they likely lost money backing their team at the online sportsbook. All those negatives, and they’re at a disadvantage for next season since they get screwed over in the draft order.
So you still think it’s better to lose the championship game than to fail to even qualify for the playoffs? So close you could almost feel the champagne bubbles tickle your nose as you take a celebratory chug. All that effort, with nothing to show for it. But at least your team was there with a shot at ultimate glory. Eventually you’ll forget who even won the title. But loyal fans will never forget who finished 2nd! So, I guess, yeah, come to think of it … You’re Probably Right.
[055] May 31, 2026