In sport, a bye is the preferential status of a player or team that is automatically advanced to the next round of a tournament, without having to play an opponent in an early round.
In
knockout (elimination) tournaments they can be granted either to reward the highest ranked participant(s) or assigned randomly, to make a working
bracket
A bracket is either of two tall fore- or back-facing punctuation marks commonly used to isolate a segment of text or data from its surroundings. Typically deployed in symmetric pairs, an individual bracket may be identified as a 'left' or 'r ...
if the number of participants is not a
power of two
A power of two is a number of the form where is an integer, that is, the result of exponentiation with number two as the base and integer as the exponent.
In a context where only integers are considered, is restricted to non-negative ...
(e.g. 16 or 32).
In
round-robin tournaments, usually one competitor gets a bye in each round when there are an odd number of competitors, as it is impossible for all competitors to play in the same round. However, over the whole tournament, each plays the same number of games as well as sitting out for the same number of rounds. The "Berger Tables" used by
FIDE
The International Chess Federation or World Chess Federation, commonly referred to by its French acronym FIDE ( Fédération Internationale des Échecs), is an international organization based in Switzerland that connects the various national c ...
for chess tournaments, provide pairings for even numbered pools and simply state that "Where there is an odd number of players, the highest number counts as a bye."
Similar to the round-robin context, in league sports with weekly regular-season play such as
or
rugby
Rugby may refer to:
Sport
* Rugby football in many forms:
** Rugby league: 13 players per side
*** Masters Rugby League
*** Mod league
*** Rugby league nines
*** Rugby league sevens
*** Touch (sport)
*** Wheelchair rugby league
** Rugby union: 1 ...
, a team not scheduled to play on a given week or fixture (competition period) can be said to be on its "bye week". Byes are necessary if there is an odd number of teams, but may be used even with an even number of teams, such as to provide rest breaks as has been done in the
National Football League
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...
(NFL).
Elimination tournaments
In a standard
single-elimination tournament
A single-elimination, knockout, or sudden death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of each match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final matc ...
, each round has half the number of teams as the preceding round. Thus the finals will have two, the semi-finals will have four, the quarter finals will have eight, etc. Thus tournaments with competitors numbering a power of two can have a standard bracket in which all teams are paired up with the loser of each match eliminated and the winner moving on to the next round until only one champion remains.
However, if the number of teams is not a power of two, a simple elimination tournament would eventually produce a round with an odd number of teams (if the number is not odd to start with). For example, a tournament of nine teams could only have four matches in the first round, while a simple tournament of ten teams would produce a second round with five teams, meaning only two matches could occur.
Thus, if the number of participants is not a power of two (e.g. 16 or 32), to make a working
bracket
A bracket is either of two tall fore- or back-facing punctuation marks commonly used to isolate a segment of text or data from its surroundings. Typically deployed in symmetric pairs, an individual bracket may be identified as a 'left' or 'r ...
byes are provided to automatically move certain participants into a later round without requiring them to compete in an earlier one.
When participants are ranked, participants with the highest ranking going into the tournament are given a bye to the second round, as it is generally seen as an advantage to be assured entry into a later round. In the
NFL playoffs
The National Football League (NFL) playoffs are a single-elimination tournament held after the regular season to determine the NFL champion. Currently, seven teams from each of the league's two conferences qualify for the playoffs. A tie-breaki ...
, for example, as of , the division-leader with the best record in each conference is given a bye to the second round. The
Canadian Football League
The Canadian Football League (CFL; french: Ligue canadienne de football—LCF) is a professional sports league in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football. The league consists of nine teams, each located in a ci ...
(CFL) also grants a bye to its two division winners, directly to the division finals as four other teams compete in a semi-final week. In other tournaments where teams are unranked, random draw may be used to determine the byes.
The number of teams offered a bye is generally designed to ensure that the next round consists of a power-of-two number of teams so the tournament can proceed as a simple single-elimination tournament from that round onward.
If the byes are all single first-round byes into the second round of a tournament, the number of byes required is the difference between the number of teams and the next-highest power of two. For example, a 12-team tournament will require four byes (16−12) to ensure that instead of six teams in the second round, eight advance (as the four byes avoid two of the four teams being eliminated).
Examples from Gaelic football
In the Provincial Championships of
Gaelic football
Gaelic football ( ga, Peil Ghaelach; short name '), commonly known as simply Gaelic, GAA or Football is an Irish team sport. It is played between two teams of 15 players on a rectangular grass pitch. The objective of the sport is to score by kic ...
, some teams receive a bye due to the irregular number of teams competing in each province. The different numbers resulted in different byes alignments in each Provincial Championship.
For example, below is an assessment of the 2012 Provincial Championships, and their use of the "bye".
Seven teams contested the
2012 Connacht Senior Football Championship
The 2012 Connacht Senior Football Championship was that year's installment of the annual Connacht Senior Football Championship held under the auspices of the Connacht GAA. It was won by Mayo who defeated Sligo in the final. This was Mayo's 43rd Con ...
, so a quarter-final was not played by
Mayo Mayo often refers to:
* Mayonnaise, often shortened to "mayo"
* Mayo Clinic, a medical center in Rochester, Minnesota, United States
Mayo may also refer to:
Places
Antarctica
* Mayo Peak, Marie Byrd Land
Australia
* Division of Mayo, an Aust ...
. Mayo therefore advanced directly to the semi-final to await the winner of the game between
Leitrim and
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
.
Eleven teams contested the
2012 Leinster Senior Football Championship
The 2012 Leinster Senior Football Championship was that year's installment of the annual Leinster Senior Football Championship held under the auspices of the Leinster GAA. It was won by Dublin who defeated Meath in the final. The winning Dublin te ...
, so five teams were given first round byes. Three teams (
Carlow
Carlow ( ; ) is the county town of County Carlow, in the south-east of Ireland, from Dublin. At the 2016 census, it had a combined urban and rural population of 24,272.
The River Barrow flows through the town and forms the historic bounda ...
,
Dublin
Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...
and
Wexford
Wexford () is the county town of County Wexford, Ireland. Wexford lies on the south side of Wexford Harbour, the estuary of the River Slaney near the southeastern corner of the island of Ireland. The town is linked to Dublin by the M11/N11 N ...
) played winners of the three preliminary matches, while the other two played each other in the quarter-finals without playing a game in the preliminary round.
Six teams contested the
2012 Munster Senior Football Championship
The 2012 Munster Senior Football Championship was that year's installment of the annual Munster Senior Football Championship held under the auspices of the Munster GAA. It was won by Cork who defeated Clare in the final. It was Cork's 37th title. ...
, so two teams (
Clare Clare may refer to:
Places Antarctica
* Clare Range, a mountain range in Victoria Land
Australia
* Clare, South Australia, a town in the Clare Valley
* Clare Valley, South Australia
Canada
* Clare (electoral district), an electoral district
* Cl ...
and
Cork
Cork or CORK may refer to:
Materials
* Cork (material), an impermeable buoyant plant product
** Cork (plug), a cylindrical or conical object used to seal a container
***Wine cork
Places Ireland
* Cork (city)
** Metropolitan Cork, also known as G ...
) were permitted to advance to the semi-finals without playing a game in the quarter-finals.
Nine teams contested the
2012 Ulster Senior Football Championship
The 2012 Ulster Senior Football Championship was the 124th installment of the annual Ulster Senior Football Championship held under the auspices of the Ulster GAA. It was won by Donegal who defeated Down in the final to retain the title they won ...
, so only
Cavan
Cavan ( ; ) is the county town of County Cavan in Ireland. The town lies in Ulster, near the border with County Fermanagh in Northern Ireland. The town is bypassed by the main N3 road that links Dublin (to the south) with Enniskillen, Bally ...
and
Donegal Donegal may refer to:
County Donegal, Ireland
* County Donegal, a county in the Republic of Ireland, part of the province of Ulster
* Donegal (town), a town in County Donegal in Ulster, Ireland
* Donegal Bay, an inlet in the northwest of Ireland b ...
played in the preliminary round, while the other seven advanced via bye to the quarter-finals without playing a game in the preliminary round.
"Double byes"
While less common, byes can be offered for multiple rounds (e.g. a "double bye" directly into the third round), or starting in a later round (e.g. the top-ranked team in the first round is given a bye straight to the third round). A bye granted in a later round of the tournament eliminates the need for two byes in the previous round.
In the English
FA Cup
The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football competi ...
, the football clubs in the top two
league divisions receive two-round byes and enter in the third round "proper" (of eight); the two next-highest divisions' teams will have entered in the first round. Another example is the
UEFA Europa League
The UEFA Europa League (abbreviated as UEL, or sometimes, UEFA EL), formerly the UEFA Cup, is an annual football club competition organised since 1971 by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) for eligible European football clubs. It ...
, where teams from the
highest-ranked nations enter the group stage directly without having to go through qualification.
The
WNBA, from 2016 to 2021, had granted double byes to the league's top two seeds, while the next two seeds got first-round byes for their
playoffs
The playoffs, play-offs, postseason or finals of a sports league are a competition played after the regular season by the top competitors to determine the league champion or a similar accolade. Depending on the league, the playoffs may be eithe ...
.
In
NCAA Division I
NCAA Division I (D-I) is the highest level of College athletics, intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States, which accepts players globally. D-I schools include the major ...
basketball, the
2009 Big East men's basketball tournament introduced "double byes", as the conference invited all 16 members to participate for the first time (previously only the top twelve were invited). To limit the number of games each round to four, the four highest seeded teams were advanced to the third round of competition, the 5th-8th seeded teams given byes to the second round, and the bottom eight competed the first day.
Due to the
realignment of major conferences, "double byes" were no longer needed by the Big East after 2013, but were added by the
Southeastern Conference in 2013, the
Atlantic Coast and
Atlantic 10
The Atlantic 10 Conference (A-10) is a collegiate athletic conference whose schools compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) Division I. The A-10's member schools are located in states mostly on the United States Eastern ...
conferences in 2014, and the
Big Ten in 2015 as each expanded beyond 12 teams. Various other conferences such as the
WCC and the
MAC offer a double bye to the semifinals for their top two teams.
Hidden byes (play-in games)
In certain tournaments, the byes are somewhat disguised. When more teams are given first-round byes than actually compete in the first round, these first games may be referred to as "play-in" games and might not be a formally labelled as a tournament round.
From 2012–2019 and 2021, the
Major League Baseball playoffs
The Major League Baseball postseason is an elimination tournament held after the conclusion of the Major League Baseball (MLB) regular season. Starting in 2022, the playoffs for each league—American and National—consist of two best-of-three ...
has included ten teams consisting of six division winners and four wild card teams (the top-ranked non-division-winners). The first round of the playoffs consists two
wild-card games: single-game matches in which the four wild-card teams are reduced to two. The winners move on to the Divisional series with the six division winners for an eight-team, three-round tournament. Although this is billed as adding two extra "one-game showdowns" to the post-season, it could also be viewed as adding a fourth round to the ten-team tournament with six byes for the division winners.
The
FA Cup
The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football competi ...
also has certain teams compete in up to 6 preliminary rounds to qualify for the first round "proper".
Another example is the
NCAA basketball tournament, which since 2011 has had 68 teams, effectively granting 60 byes, while eight teams compete in the "First Four" games for remaining four spots in the round of 64. From 2011 to 2015, the "First Four" was considered the first round, the round of 64 played on Thursday and Friday, was called the "second round"; the round of 32 was then called the "third round", consisting of games played on Saturday and Sunday. In 2016, the naming reverted to the round of 64 being the "first round" once again, and the round of 32 being the "second round", though the play-in round and all eight of those teams are officially part of the tournament.
Bye weeks in football leagues
Certain professional
rugby
Rugby may refer to:
Sport
* Rugby football in many forms:
** Rugby league: 13 players per side
*** Masters Rugby League
*** Mod league
*** Rugby league nines
*** Rugby league sevens
*** Touch (sport)
*** Wheelchair rugby league
** Rugby union: 1 ...
and
gridiron football leagues use the term "bye week" for any week during the regular season in which a team does not play a game. (School teams may also have non-competing weeks, but these are scheduled by individual schools and more commonly termed "open dates".)
United States
Each
NFL
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the major ...
team has one "bye week" during a normal season; this is placed on the team's schedule, usually falling between Week 4 and Week 12 inclusive (except that if
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is a national holiday celebrated on various dates in the United States, Canada, Grenada, Saint Lucia, Liberia, and unofficially in countries like Brazil and Philippines. It is also observed in the Netherlander town of Leiden and ...
falls during Week 12, the
Dallas Cowboys
The Dallas Cowboys are a professional American football team based in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. The Cowboys compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East divisi ...
and
Detroit Lions
The Detroit Lions are a professional American football team based in Detroit. The Lions compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) North Division. The team play their home games at Ford ...
may not have a bye during Week 12).
During
1960
It is also known as the "Year of Africa" because of major events—particularly the independence of seventeen African nations—that focused global attention on the continent and intensified feelings of Pan-Africanism.
Events
January
* Ja ...
and
1966
Events January
* January 1 – In a coup, Colonel Jean-Bédel Bokassa takes over as military ruler of the Central African Republic, ousting President David Dacko.
* January 3 – 1966 Upper Voltan coup d'état: President Maurice Yaméogo i ...
, the league had an odd number of teams due to expansion. Each week during those seasons, one team had a bye, including one team each in the first and last week of the season: thus, because they had to play all their games with no break in the middle, those two teams effectively had ''no'' byes. The
American Football League
The American Football League (AFL) was a major professional American football league that operated for ten seasons from 1960 until 1970, when it merged with the older National Football League (NFL), and became the American Football Conference. ...
(which at the time was a completely separate league, but later became the
American Football Conference
The American Football Conference (AFC) is one of the two conferences of the National Football League (NFL), the highest professional level of American football in the United States. The AFC and its counterpart, the National Football Conference ...
) also had an odd number of teams in
1966
Events January
* January 1 – In a coup, Colonel Jean-Bédel Bokassa takes over as military ruler of the Central African Republic, ousting President David Dacko.
* January 3 – 1966 Upper Voltan coup d'état: President Maurice Yaméogo i ...
and
1967
Events
January
* January 1 – Canada begins a year-long celebration of the 100th anniversary of Confederation, featuring the Expo 67 World's Fair.
* January 5
** Spain and Romania sign an agreement in Paris, establishing full consular and ...
following the addition of the
Miami Dolphins
The Miami Dolphins are a professional American football team based in the Miami metropolitan area. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member team of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division. The team pla ...
, leaving each team with two bye weeks. Again, from
1999
File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shootin ...
and
2001
The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a Participants in ...
, the NFL had an odd number of teams (31) as a result of the
Cleveland Browns
The Cleveland Browns are a professional American football team based in Cleveland. Named after original coach and co-founder Paul Brown, they compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference ( ...
re-entering the league. Each week during these three seasons featured at least one team with its bye week, but the 2001 season also added an additional impromptu league-wide bye the weekend after the
September 11 attacks
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...
. The league returned to having an even number of teams (32) in the
2002 season with the addition of the
Houston Texans
The Houston Texans are a professional American football team based in Houston. The Texans compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC South, South division, and play their home ga ...
, and implemented the current bye week system.
The NFL returned to the use of the bye week in so as to extend the 16-game regular season schedule to span 17 weeks to increase the number of viewable games for television contracts. The season spanned 18 weeks with each team having 2 bye weeks. It went back to 17 weeks with a bye week the next season through . Since , it's 18 weeks long with a bye week.
In the rare case of a game postponement that cannot be made up within the same week, the NFL may revise bye weeks assignments in order to reschedule the delayed game, making the postponement week those teams' new "bye week":
* Due to
Hurricane Ike
Hurricane Ike () was a powerful tropical cyclone that swept through portions of the Greater Antilles and Northern America in September 2008, wreaking havoc on infrastructure and agriculture, particularly in Cuba and Texas. Ike took a sim ...
in
2008
File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...
, the
Baltimore Ravens
The Baltimore Ravens are a professional American football team based in Baltimore, Maryland. The Ravens compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference (AFC) North division. The team plays its ...
' and the
Houston Texans
The Houston Texans are a professional American football team based in Houston. The Texans compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC South, South division, and play their home ga ...
' Week 2 matchup in Houston was postponed, which also impacted the
Cincinnati Bengals
The Cincinnati Bengals are a professional American football team based in Cincinnati. The Bengals compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) AFC North, North division. The c ...
' schedule. The Bengals–Texans game was moved to Week 8, which was the originally scheduled bye week for both of those teams. This allowed the Ravens–Texans game (and the Bengals' bye week) to be rescheduled in Week 10, the Ravens' original bye Week.
* Due to
Hurricane Irma
Hurricane Irma was an extremely powerful Cape Verde hurricane that caused widespread destruction across its path in September 2017. Irma was the first Category 5 hurricane to strike the Leeward Islands on record, followed by Maria two ...
in
2017
File:2017 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The War Against ISIS at the Battle of Mosul (2016-2017); aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing; The Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 ("Great American Eclipse"); North Korea tests a ser ...
, the
Miami Dolphins
The Miami Dolphins are a professional American football team based in the Miami metropolitan area. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member team of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division. The team pla ...
and
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are a professional American football team based in Tampa, Florida. The Buccaneers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) NFC South, South divisio ...
Week 1 game was rescheduled to Week 11, the originally scheduled bye week for both teams.
* Due to the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
, several postponements occurred during the
2020 season. The first one that saw the league move games during bye weeks involved the Week 4 matchup between the
Pittsburgh Steelers
The Pittsburgh Steelers are a professional American football team based in Pittsburgh. The Steelers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference (AFC) North division. Founded in , the Steel ...
and
Tennessee Titans
The Tennessee Titans are a professional American football team based in Nashville, Tennessee. The Titans compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference (AFC) South division, and play their h ...
, which also impacted the
Baltimore Ravens
The Baltimore Ravens are a professional American football team based in Baltimore, Maryland. The Ravens compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference (AFC) North division. The team plays its ...
' schedule. The Steelers-Titans
game
A game is a structured form of play (activity), play, usually undertaken for enjoyment, entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool. Many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator s ...
was moved to Week 7 (the Titans' original bye week) due to a rash of
COVID-19
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...
cases among the Titans organization. The Steelers
matchup with the Ravens (their original Week 7 opponent) was moved to Week 8 when they both had scheduled byes and would allow the Steelers and Titans to make up their matchup; the Ravens bye week was moved to Week 7. Ravens head coach
John Harbaugh
John William Harbaugh (born September 23, 1962) is an American football coach who is the head coach of the Baltimore Ravens of the National Football League (NFL). Previously, he coached the defensive backs for the Philadelphia Eagles and served ...
, when asked about the schedule change, referenced the aforementioned changes with the Texans and Bengals in 2008 (his first year as Ravens head coach) and did not expect the changes to affect his team's planning.
The media may also sarcastically refer to a team having a "bye week" or a "second bye" if that team is playing an especially poor team, and is all but assured of a win.
Canada
Traditionally, the
CFL
The Canadian Football League (CFL; french: Ligue canadienne de football—LCF) is a professional sports league in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football. The league consists of nine teams, each located in a ci ...
has had nine teams and required bye weeks. Beginning 2018, each team has three bye weeks and 18 games over a 21-week regular season.
In most seasons, (from 2014 to 2017 and prior to 2007), each team has two bye weeks during the 20 week 18-game regular season. When the league had only 8 teams, the league usually had no bye weeks. However between 2007 and 2013, the league had one bye per team over in two weeks in August (4 teams would have a bye during week 6 and the other 4 teams would have a bye on week 7). Preseason have 3 weeks
Australia
In Australia's
National Rugby League
The National Rugby League (NRL) is an Australasian rugby league club competition which contains clubs from New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory and New Zealand. The NRL formed in 1998 as a joint partnership ...
(NRL), each team has three byes each season. With the competition expanding to an odd number of teams from the
2023 NRL season
The 2023 NRL season is the 116th season of professional rugby league in Australia and the 26th season run by the National Rugby League.
Teams
For the 2023 season, the number of teams in the NRL has increased from sixteen to seventeen with the ...
, one club is required to have a bye each round; during the representative period of the season (such as the
State of Origin
A State of Origin competition is a type of sporting event between players representing their state or territory. State of Origin began in Australian rules football on 8 October 1977 between Western Australia (WA) and Victoria, at Subiaco Oval ...
), multiple byes are scheduled to the clubs that are expected to have the most players involved in the representative match, in the round preceding the representative fixture, to allow those clubs to sufficiently rest those players and prevent them from fielding a weakened side. On the competition ladder, teams are awarded two points (equivalent to a win) during their bye week except for the
Melbourne Storm
The Melbourne Storm are a rugby league club based in Melbourne, Victoria in Australia that participates in the National Rugby League. The first fully professional rugby league team based in the state, the Storm entered the competition in 1998. ...
in 2010, who were barred from receiving premiership points for the remainder of the season as a punishment for
gross long-term breaches of the salary cap.
The
Australian Football League
The Australian Football League (AFL) is the only fully professional competition of Australian rules football. Through the AFL Commission, the AFL also serves as the sport's governing body and is responsible for controlling the laws of the gam ...
, which comprises an even number of clubs, gives each club a bye week in mid-season, as well as a bye the week before the
finals
Final, Finals or The Final may refer to:
*Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which decides a winner for an event
** Another term for playoffs, describing a sequence of cont ...
. In
1915
Events
Below, the events of World War I have the "WWI" prefix.
January
* January – British physicist Sir Joseph Larmor publishes his observations on "The Influence of Local Atmospheric Cooling on Astronomical Refraction".
*January 1 ...
,
1919
Events
January
* January 1
** The Czechoslovak Legions occupy much of the self-proclaimed "free city" of Pressburg (now Bratislava), enforcing its incorporation into the new republic of Czechoslovakia.
** HMY ''Iolaire'' sinks off the c ...
to 1924,
1942
Events
Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix.
January
* January 1 – WWII: The Declaration by United Nations is signed by China, the United Kingdom, the United States, the Soviet Union, and 22 other nations, in wh ...
and 1943,
1991
File:1991 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Boris Yeltsin, elected as Russia's first president, waves the new flag of Russia after the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, orchestrated by Soviet hardliners; Mount Pinatubo erupts in the Phil ...
to 1994 and
2011
File:2011 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: a protester partaking in Occupy Wall Street heralds the beginning of the Occupy movement; protests against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed that October; a young man celebrate ...
, when there were an odd number of clubs competing, each club was given two byes.
In both leagues, and under many other professional and amateur sports leagues in Australia, higher placed teams don't earn byes during
finals
Final, Finals or The Final may refer to:
*Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which decides a winner for an event
** Another term for playoffs, describing a sequence of cont ...
, but instead the opportunity not to be eliminated by losing their first-round match (also called a double chance). This practice is common in Australia, but it is not used in most other countries, to earn an easier passage to the Grand Final as reward for finishing higher on the ladder. This is different from a double elimination format, in which a team has to lose both in the tournament and the repechage to be eliminated.
Gymnastics
In a variation of the round-robin case, at certain high-level competitions in
artistic gymnastics
Artistic gymnastics is a discipline of gymnastics in which athletes perform short routines on different apparatuses. The sport is governed by the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique (FIG), which designs the Code of Points and regulates ...
, teams cycle through the apparatuses in an "Olympic Order" with scheduled byes in between.
As an example, the
NCAA Women's Gymnastics Championships
The NCAA women's gymnastics championships are an annual gymnastics competition to determine the best collegiate women's gymnastics team in the country. Unlike most NCAA sports, the women's gymnastics championship is not separated into divisions a ...
has 36 teams with six teams apiece at six regional sites, with 12 advancing to two semifinal rounds of six that decide participants for the final "Super Six". In each of these nine sextets, each team competes during four of six "rotations" with the other two as byesscheduled before the uneven bars and the floor exercise. For example, Semifinal II of the 2018 championships operated as follows
Swiss system tournaments
In a
Swiss-system tournament
A Swiss-system tournament is a non-eliminating tournament format that features a fixed number of rounds of competition, but considerably fewer than for a round-robin tournament; thus each competitor (team or individual) does not play all the other ...
with an odd number of players, one player gets a bye in each round, but not all players will get a bye (as there are fewer rounds than there are players).
FIDE
The International Chess Federation or World Chess Federation, commonly referred to by its French acronym FIDE ( Fédération Internationale des Échecs), is an international organization based in Switzerland that connects the various national c ...
specifies that "pairing-allocated" byes in their sanctioned chess tournaments may not be awarded multiple times to the same participant. Contrasting use in some single-elimination brackets, the byes are to be allocated to the lowest-rated eligible player in the pool.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bye (Sports)
Sports terminology