What does the acronym PPD stand for in Sports?
PPD is an acronym that stands for postponed in sports. Different sports get postponed for different reasons. The most common reason a game will be assigned a designation of PPD is for inclement weather conditions.
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Which Pro sport gets postponed the most?
A Baseball game has the greatest chance of receiving the PPD designation. That’s because postponed games are the most common in the sport.
Rainouts happen all of the time in Major League Baseball. One, because there are 162 games per season, giving it the most actual chances of any of the four major professional sports leagues in the United States. And two, baseball games don’t get played during heavy rains, lightning storms, hurricanes, or any other major weather event.
One interesting thing to note about baseball is that a game can acquire PPD status after it has started. A baseball game needs to go 5+ innings to be considered complete. If, for example, the Boston Red Sox are playing the New York Yankees and a torrential rainstorm breaks out in the middle of the third inning that lasts for several hours, that game could get called and moved to the next day.
The acronym PPD will show up in the box score and play will resume from where the game left off at the earliest convenience of both teams.
Do NBA games get postponed?
Rarely will you see the abbreviation pop up next to the NBA game schedule. That’s because professional basketball gets played in a highly controlled environment indoors. If pro hoops were played outside, it would get slapped with the PPD tag as often as baseball.
Could you imagine a team in the North, say, the Philadelphia 76ers, heading outdoors in January to play an official game?
Do NFL games get postponed?
NFL games hardly ever get postponed. Football gets played in all but the harshest weather environments. A catastrophic hurricane (Ian) that caused $50 billion+ of damage to the United States made landfall just South of Tampa and the Bucs still played that weekend at home.
The most amount of games designated as PPD came during the COVID-19 pandemic, not because of inclement weather. COVID surges knocked out three games in Week 15 of the 2021 season. That’s just not something that happens for some regular bad weather.
When it comes to the NFL, the letters PPD may show up in other circumstances, like major lighting/power failures at the stadium. This is amazingly rare.
So, from New York to San Diego, if a NFL game is scheduled, it’s probably happening.
Do NHL games get postponed?
Like the NBA, NHL games get played in controlled environments. There is one exception, which is the NHL Winter Classic which gets played outdoors.
Funny (and true) story, the NHL actually had to postpone the 2021 match between the Colorado Avalanche and Vegas Golden Knights in Lake Tahoe due to good weather. Yes, you read that correctly, the Sun was shining strong that day, melting the ice and creating terrible skating conditions for the hockey players.
Why does PPD matter for Fantasy Sports?
PPD, the acronym, will show up in your app or fantasy sports website next to a player’s name when their game has been moved to a later date. The PPD status matters because that player will not qualify for points for the matchup that you’re playing that day. While not always, this tends to have a negative affect on your team and could prevent you from winning.
For example, in Fantasy Football, excluding interceptions and fumbles, a player’s points almost always go up. So, a player slot that is locked in with a PPD designation will not be scoring your team any points that week.
On the flipside, your postponed MLB player might have acquired the golden sombrero (four strikeouts) that day had he played, so your team was better off suffering through the bad weather and cancellations.
The best Fantasy managers pay close attention to their lineups. As the old GOAT Tom Brady likes to say, the best ability is availability. That’s certainly true when it comes to filling out those rotisserie lineups. This is especially true in Fantasy Baseball depending on how your league treats doubleheaders.
What does PPD mean for Amateur Sports?
Unlike their pro counterparts, college, high school, and especially youth sports games get postponed all of the time for a variety of reasons. And that includes playoff games.
The meaning of PPD changes at the youth level because there aren’t billions of dollars riding on those games being played at prescribed times.
PPD in the Pandemic
Other than baseball, the Coronavirus was most responsible for cancellations in athletics in recent years at all levels. Millions of lost innings, periods, and quarters racked up as athletics became a secondary thought to the health and safety of athletes everywhere.