PHILADELPHIA -- Please don’t change a thing.

That’s the message San Francisco Shock DPS Jay “sinatraa” Won has for the execs in the Overwatch League office about the playoff format for 2020.

“I think next year’s should be the exact same format,” sinatraa said Friday at the OWL press day ahead of Sunday’s Grand Finals. “This year’s format is perfect.”

San Francisco Shock and Vancouver Titans were the best two teams in OWL in 2020, and they will face off in the 2019 OWL Grand Finals on Sunday at the Wells Fargo Center. But to keep that format for next year, there are hurdles the league must clear, and perhaps concessions to make. More on that in a bit.

It’s every league’s dream to have No. 1 vs. No. 2 in the championship, right? This year’s playoffs also introduced double elimination for the first time, which meant the Shock could rebound from a first-round loss to Atlanta, run through their opposition in the loser’s bracket and clinch a spot in the title match.

“It’s objectively the two best teams all season going head to head,” OWL commissioner Pete Vlastelica said.

Pacific vs. Atlantic? No thanks

Matchups of the teams with the best regular-season records is rare in traditional North American professional sports. In the last 20 years, it’s happened seven times in the big four -- four in the NFL, but only one apiece for MLB, NBA and NHL.

One thing that makes it so difficult in those leagues is titles are decided between teams from opposing conferences or leagues.

During the 2015-16 NBA season, the Warriors and Spurs had the best regular-season records. But since they both were in the Western Conference, they couldn’t meet in the NBA Finals.

In the current OWL format -- 20 teams divided into two geographic divisions -- alignment guarantees that the winners of both divisions will secure the top two seeds, but it ensures that the team with the best regular-season record will always be on the other side of the bracket from the second best.

Vancouver, the No. 1 overall seed, was 25-3. San Francisco had the second-best record (23-5) but was seeded third, behind Atlantic Division champion New York.

“I think that most people would agree that us and Vancouver are the best two Overwatch teams,” Matthew “super” DeLisi said. “If you couldn’t have two teams in the same (division) in the finals, then the highest you would have seen us is the conference finals.”

It's something league organizers have probably thought about ahead of 2020. The format for next year's postseason hasn't been announced yet. Earlier this summer, Jon Spector, OWL senior product developer, told The Dallas Morning News that the league wanted to gauge how this year's postseason played out before jumping into 2020's format.

"I'm super excited about 2020," Spector told The News last month, "but I know that there's going to be things where we look at it in six months from now or 12 months from now and say, 'yeah, we could do that a little bit differently.'"

This year’s style -- which started with a six-team play-in tournament to determine the final two sports in the eight-team, double-elimination playoff -- has been seen as a general success.

The format actually already changed from year one to two. In 2018, six of the 12 teams qualified for an NFL-style bracket, awarding byes to the top two seeds. Instead of double elimination, teams played a best-of-three, five-game match instead of this year’s best-of-seven series with a loser’s bracket.

“I think it it is significantly better than last year’s,” Titans assistant coach Harsha "Harsha" Bandi said. “Just having more matches is cool in its own way, but also this format where it’s best of seven trather than best of five.”

Harsha also appreciated the reward for teams that finished top six, getting extra time to rest and practice instead of competing in the play-in tournament.

“If you finished 12th,” Harsha said, “you shouldn’t really be getting a super easy time because you didn’t do that well in the year.”

An added wrinkle

It’s a system that seemingly has the stamp of approval from players and coaches. But there will be a considerable wrinkle added in 2020 -- home matches.

With the exception of Sunday’s championship, all of the OWL playoff matches were played at Blizzard Arena in Burbank, Calif. Los Angeles was the home of every OWL team, so the only travel was a relatively short car ride to the arena.

In 2020, teams will relocate to their home markets. So while the regular season is set with homestand weekends (Dallas, Washington and Guangzhou all have five), the playoffs are still an unknown.

Because of worldwide travel -- three continents will host home matches next year -- home-stage advantage could be significant next season. Or it could be a costly burden that the league must carry.

“Crowd advantage is very big, actually,” sinatraa said, “because they’re cheering after every pick, after every kill.”

It could create logistical nightmares for teams if they don’t have enough time to organize additional homestand weekends to host playoff matches.

The Fuel, who host five homestands next year, have only announced venues for their first three. Since most teams will be sharing venues with other events or organizations, renting out those facilities months in advance if it looks like they might need to host a playoff match could be tricky.

So what is the best solution for next year? OWL organizers will want to reward teams for doing well in the regular season, but also avoid headaches for franchises.

If the league doesn’t change its approach next year, it could reward the top seeds with home weekends during the playoffs. Obviously that could put even more emphasis on a higher finish.

“If we’re the lowest seed and we have to go to China and then Paris or something,” super said, “that would be crazy.”

Said Harsha: “Right now if you finish high in the regular season, cool, but it’s not really that big of a deal,” he said. “... But finishing high in the regular season would mean a lot more if you have home-team advantage in the playoffs.”

Of course, that’s assuming that home teams get to host playoff matches, or even the equivalent of a regional tournament (ala the first round of the NCAA baseball tournament).. Mirroring this year’s format would mean four play-in matches before the start of the playoffs.

Where should those be played? A neutral site for the play-in tournament -- which could add more motivation to finish in a true playoff spot -- might make the most sense.

Neutral sites?

Where teams go from there, though, is still a challenge.

Before Sunday’s championship, there were 13 games played between eight teams in the double-elimination format. Matches were spread across two weekends, with a two-week break before the Grand Finals.

Again, those were all played at Blizzard Arena, which has the infrastructure -- and built-in reservations -- to host matches beyond the regular season.

Realistically, neutral sites might need to be tapped for the postseason -- similar to the men’s and women’s NCAA basketball tournaments.

“I’ve seen what goes into getting these (OWL) arenas ready,” Harsha said. “It looks pretty rough.”

If that’s the case, going with neutral sites might eliminate some of the logistical headaches, but also the home-town advantage that the league is trying to cultivate. And it also poses the question -- should teams compete for a spot in the championship among their respective divisions to limit far-away travel?

It’s an issue that can wait until after Sunday’s sold-out Grand Finals, where the Shock and Titans will battle for the title of OWL champions. But the clock starts ticking next week."

On Twitter: @TommyMagelssen