A perfect season is a sports
season
A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and pol ...
, including any requisite
playoff
The playoffs, play-offs, postseason or finals of a sports league are a competition played after the regular season by the top competitors to determine the league champion or a similar accolade. Depending on the league, the playoffs may be eithe ...
portion, in which a team remains and finishes undefeated and untied. The feat is extremely rare at the professional level of any team sport, and has occurred more commonly at the collegiate and scholastic levels in the United States. A perfect regular season (known by other names outside the United States) is a season ''excluding'' any playoffs, where a team remains undefeated and untied; it is less rare than a complete perfect season but still exceptional.
A perfect season may be part of a multi-season
winning streak
A winning streak, also known as a win streak or hot streak, is an uninterrupted sequence of success in games or competitions, commonly measured by at least 4 wins that are uninterrupted by losses or ties/draws. Although sometimes claimed as a ...
, or even a streak of perfect seasons.
Exhibition games
An exhibition game (also known as a friendly, a scrimmage, a demonstration, a preseason game, a warmup match, or a preparation match, depending at least in part on the sport) is a sporting event whose prize money and impact on the player's or ...
are generally not counted toward standings, for or against. For example, the 1972 Miami Dolphins (below) lost three of their preseason ("exhibition" games in 1972 NFL vernacular) games but are considered to have had a perfect season.
Perfect season in fantasy sports is defined as follows: The league will declare a franchise to achieve the elite status of a “Perfect Season” when the following criteria have been met during the course of one season:
- The team wins all their head to head regular season matchups and is declared regular season champion.
- The team wins all their playoff matchups and is declared playoff champion.
The feat is extremely rare in high level fantasy sports, and considered almost impossible in fantasy NBA.
Basketball
Basketball leagues outside the
NBA tend to be shorter than the NBA's 82-game season, thus making a perfect season more achievable.
Khimik won the
2014–15 Ukrainian Basketball SuperLeague by winning all 30 regular season games, and winning all playoff games, for a 36–0 overall record.
Cricket
County cricket
English
first-class county cricket has existed as the top tier of d