League-Wide Wild Card Format Example 1

Here is an example of the former concept for setting which bracket teams in odd-numbered Divisions enter, and one that has only 30 teams involved:
Since this format does not need Divisions to have as close to an equal number of teams as possible, Colorado is moved to the Pacific Division to be with the other Mountain time zone teams, creating an 8-6-8-8 split. To have equal playoff odds in each Division and a competitive range of teams that can make the playoffs, each 8-team Division has the top 3 teams earn automatic playoff spots, and up to 2 Wild Card spots can be earned.
The 6-team Central only has 2 automatic spots, plus up to 2 Wild Cards as well. This makes the within-Division odds 50% for each Division (3-5/8 or 2-4/6).

With this in mind, the automatic playoff spots are highlighted in blue.
Since only 11 automatic spots are earned, there are 5 Wild Card spots available. These go to the 5 teams with the next best records, as long as the number of allowed Wild Card spots per Division is not exceeded (in this case, it is 2 each per Division). The Wild Card teams are highlighted here in green. The remaining teams miss the playoffs (faded):
To handle the necessary crossovers in this format, Divisions with odd numbers of teams cross over with each other. If all 4 have an odd number, the 2 crossovers would be within-Conference. However, in this scenario, only 2 Divisions have an odd number of teams, and it is the Pacific and Metro Divisions.
The team from either Division with the best record draws the team with the lowest, continuing until either a crossover matchup occurs, or only 1 team from each Division remains. If the crossover occurs with teams remaining in each Division, the remaining teams draw an opponent from their own Division only:
The same process occurs in the second round: since Los Angeles won the crossover series, the same scenario occurs, with the Pacific and Metro Divisions having an odd number. However, this time Los Angeles draws a Division rival, and Colorado crosses over instead, since they and Pittsburgh are the lowest and highest remaining seeds between the two groups:
In the third round, there is now one Division fully eliminated and one Division with two teams left. These two teams draw each other, as this is an even number, and the other two teams (each from one other Division) play a crossover series:
The format prioritizes simplicity and rivalries by keeping the crossovers restricted to pairing odd-numbered groups with each other, but fairness suffers for this reason. A more fair format would need to enforce teams only crossing over with adjacent Division groups, making it similar to the Time Zone Group format, but the drawback would be the much greater complexity that this entails.
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