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In Italian rugby you can be promoted from III division (Serie A girone B) directly to I division (Eccellenza), and you can be relegated from II division (Serie A girone A) directly to IV division (Serie B).
Which are the benefits of such an odd format?
Is this format really odd, or is it somewhat widespread in team sports?
Possibly the most extreme system comes from Chess, and the McMahon competition format.
The idea behind big drops in those instances are to ensure that competitors are, as often as possible, meeting evenly matched competitors.
How often large adjustments in seeding, ranking and match-pairing are made in team sports, I cannot say.
rugbytag. Since you were going broader, I did not feelitalywas appropriate for either question. Thanks for the clarification. – user527 Mar 10 '14 at 13:19international-sportsto include other team sports broadly. – user527 Mar 10 '14 at 14:05