to this was MLB's World Series, which from 2003 to 2016, awarded home-field advantage to the team representing the league which won the All-Star Game that year, to help raise interest in the All-Star Game after a tie in 2002; before 2003, home-field advantage alternated each year between the National League and the American League. Starting in 2017, home-field advantage in the World Series is nowadays given to the team with the best regular season record. Home-ice advantage in the Stanley Cup Finals is given to the team with the best season record. The NBA is the only league that has home-court advantage based solely on which team has the best record (using various tiebreakers to settle the question should the teams finish with identical records). Rugby union's European Rugby Champions Cup also uses a seeding system to determine home advantage in the quarterfinals (though not in the semifinals, where the nominal "home" teams are determined by a blind draw). In many sports, playoffs consist of a 'series' of games played between two teams. These series are usually a best-of-5 or best-of-7 format, where the first team to win 3 or 4 games, respectively, wins the playoff. Since these best-of series always involve an odd number of games, it is impossible to guarantee that an equal number of games will be played at each team's home venue. As a result, the team with the better regular season record must be scheduled to have one more home game than the other. This team is said to have home-field advantage for that playoff series. During the course of these playoff series, however, sports announcers or columnists will sometimes mention a team "gaining" or "losing" home-field advantage. This can happen after a visiting team has just won a game in the series. In playoff series format, the home-field advantage is said to exist for whichever team would win the series if all remaining games in the series are won by the home team for that game. Therefore, it is possible for a visiting team to win a game and, hence, gain home-field advantage. This is somewhat similar to the concept of losing serve in tennis. As an example, in the 1982 NBA Finals, the Los Angeles Lakers played the Philadelphia 76ers, with the 76ers having earned home court advantage because of a better regular season record. Four games were scheduled to be played