The Belt
What if our sports leagues worked a bit more like boxing or wrestling? One belt to rule them all. To become the champion, you have to beat the champion.
The Concept
The lineal championship (a.k.a. Regular-Season Championship Belt) applies the logic of king of the hill to our favorite sports leagues. The result? Hilarity, of course. The Belt adds a little sizzle to meaningless regular season games, where any old Tuesday could be a title bout and bottom-feeding teams have their opportunity to shine.
How It Works
Season Start
The previous year's Finals champion begins the season holding the belt.
Title Defenses
Every regular season game the belt holder plays is a title defense. Win, and you keep the belt. But…
Belt Changes
Lose a game, lose the belt. The winner becomes the new lineal champion and must defend it.
Season Reset
At the start of each new season, the belt resets to the actual Finals champion, from the year before.
Questions
Why only regular season games?▾
What happens if the belt holder misses the playoffs?▾
How far back does the data go?▾
We track the belt from the WNBA's inaugural 1997 season to present day. For 1997 we gave the belt to the winner of the league's very first game (the New York Liberty). As the winner of the league's first championship, the Houston Comets started the 1998 season with the belt.
For the NBA, we track the belt from the NBA-ABA merger in 1976 to present day. The belt starts with the Boston Celtics, who won the 1975-1976 NBA championship.
For the NHL, we track the belt beginning with the beginning of the Original Six era, the 1942-1943 season. As the winner of the 1942 Stanley Cup Final, the Toronto Maple Leafs start with the belt.
For the PWHL, we track the belt from the league's inaugural 2023-24 season to present day. The belt starts with the New York Sirens, who won the league's very first game.
Where does your data come from?▾
Game Data: NBA scores and schedules come from the official NBA Stats API. WNBA and NHL data come from Sports-Reference.com. PWHL data comes from the HockeyTech API.
Team Logos: Current team logos are from the official NBA, WNBA, NHL, and PWHL websites. Historical team logos are from Wikimedia Commons, Loodibee.com, and SportsLogos.net.
All team logos are trademarks of their respective organizations. Data and logos are used under fair use for non-commercial, educational purposes. Huge thanks to all these sources for making their data available!
When do you update the data?▾
We automatically update our data every night around 3:30 AM Pacific in winter (4:30 AM Pacific during summer). This timing ensures we capture all of the previous night's games, even when there are delays or overtimes, while still being early enough for most users. Occasionally, the nightly update fails to capture a game—it will usually catch up the following night, but if you notice an issue, please reach out via our Feedback link.
Which leagues are covered? Will you bring this to other leagues?▾
We started with the WNBA because it deserves the same obsessive treatment as every other league and it's a close cousin to the NBA. We then expanded to the NBA since it was the genesis of the idea in the first place, and finally to Ice Hockey (NHL, PWHL) because the schedule and game frequency felt like a natural fit.
For now we intend to stick to just these four leagues but if the people demand it we could expand The Belt to further reaches of the sports universe.
What happens if there's a tie?▾
Ties only apply to the NHL, where games can end in overtime or shootout ties (though shootout losses are recorded as regulation ties in some eras). We go by however the NHL decided to record wins vs. losses vs. ties for the era. For eras with ties, if the belt holder ties a game, they retain the belt—you have to actually beat the champion to take it. For stats tracking purposes we do include ties from belt bouts as ties, regardless of whether or not the team held the belt or was the challenger.
If it sounds confusing, that's because it is. Blame Canada.
Where did this idea come from?▾
The lineal championship concept was conceived in a Reddit thread and popularized by Grantland, the late, great sports and pop culture website founded by Bill Simmons.
When Grantland shut down in 2015, the belt tracker went with it. Occasionally someone pops up and calculates who owns the belt across various leagues but no one has done it consistently...until now.