Nippon Professional Baseball playoffs

With their first two playoff systems abolished, the Pacific League returned to simply advancing their regular-season champion directly to the Japan Series.

Again fighting for its survival as its popularity faded, the PL board of directors agreed to reintroduce a playoff system to be used in the 2004 season to potentially create more regular-season excitement.

In 2006, encouraged by the success of the PL's postseason system, CL officials announced their intention to introduce playoffs for the 2007 season to help boost declining attendance.

The two leagues also agreed that neither regular-season champion should receive a one-game advantage in the Final Stage of the Climax Series.

The Hawks won the game, giving them sole claim to Pacific League title and the right to represent the PL in the Japan Series.

[3] Playoff games under the split-season format were commercially successful and often played to sold-out crowds, a rare occurrence during the Pacific League's regular season.

[4] Furthermore, it allowed a team with only the third-best winning percentage for the full season to reach the playoffs and the Japan Series.

[5] The Seibu Lions' manager during the split-season format's final season, Tatsuro Hirooka, heavily criticized the playoff system for this reason.

[4] Another problem specific to the split-season format is that the playoff series was cancelled if one team won both half seasons.

[8] From the mid-1980s to the early-1990s, the PL's Seibu Lions entered their "Golden Age", winning six Japan Series titles in seven seasons.

[10] In an attempt to rectify this problem and increase the league's overall popularity, the PL board of directors agreed to reintroduce a playoff system to be used in the 2004 season to potentially create more regular-season excitement.

In the First Stage, the teams that finished the newly shortened, 135-game regular season with the second- and third-best records played each other in a best-of-three series.

[12] The winner of the playoff series was named the Pacific League champion instead of the team that finished the regular season in first place.

[8] Originally, the first-place team at the end of the season was only supposed to receive home-field advantage throughout the Second Stage's best-of-five series.

[15] As a result, the PL removed the five-game lead requirement for the 2006 playoffs in favor of automatically awarding the first-place team the one-win advantage.

[20] Citing the Hanshin Tigers' poor Japan Series performance, he speculated that the CL's lack of postseason play was a disadvantage.

The first two years of the Pacific League Playoffs both saw the second-seeded team winning both Stages and advancing on to the Japan Series.

[20] In March 2006, encouraged by the success of the PL's postseason system, CL officials announced their intention to introduce playoffs for the 2007 season to help boost declining attendance.

[26] During meetings held later that year, PL and CL officials disagreed over proposed plans detailing the new playoff system.

[13] The PL disapproved of the CL's intentions to continue awarding their league title to the first-place finisher in the regular season while using the playoffs to determine which team would compete against in the Japan Series.

[28] The two leagues also agreed that neither regular-season champion should receive a one-game advantage in the Final Stage of the Climax Series, claiming that it was unnecessary from a business point of view.