High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! A sports rating system is a system that analyzes the results of sports competitions to provide objective ratings for each team or player. Rankings are then derived by sorting each team`s ratings and assigning an ordinal rank to each team starting with the highest rated team earning the #1 rank. Ratings systems provide an alternative to traditional sports standings which are based on win-loss-tie ratios, or to polls which are a subjective rating of the teams in a league.