A play-in gameThe NBA is having real discussions about a playoffs play-in tournament (Feb 22, 2018) Retrieved Oct 10, 2018, from http://www.espn.com is a game, usually played at the beginning of a tournament or just prior to the tournament depending on how the tournament is defined. In a play-in, the lowest qualifiers and/or participants who have earned conditional qualification compete for qualification to the main portion of the tournament. This gives an added advantage to the higher or direct qualifiers, allowing them to rest and/or play non-elimination games, while the lower teams extend themselves by playing in elimination games. Further, teams that advance from a play-in must usually start the main tournament against the highest qualifier in the tournament and on the road. Having a play-in game allows for a tournament to have a number of teams that 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-negat ...
without having to grant byes in the main tournament. It also gives extra incentives for most if not all teams to play for, as better performing teams that would otherwise directly qualify relatively quickly instead have to try to continue winning, whether for the right to play a play-in qualifier and/or to avoid having to play in the extra game(s), while teams that would otherwise be eliminated from qualification just as quickly instead remain in contention for at least a play-in berth.
Examples
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Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (A ...
Wild Card series
The Wild Card Series (formerly known as Wild Card Game from 2012 to 2019 and in 2021) are games that serve as the opening round of the Major League Baseball (MLB) postseason. A single wild card game was first instituted in 2012; best-of-three ...
(played since the 2012 season)
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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 majo ...
Wild Card games
* Wild Card games at the start of the major Canadian curling championships (
Scotties Tournament of Hearts
The Scotties Tournament of Hearts (''french: Le Tournoi des Cœurs Scotties''; commonly referred to as the Scotties) is the annual Canadian women's curling championship, sanctioned by Curling Canada, formerly called the Canadian Curling Associa ...
and
Tim Hortons Brier
The Tim Hortons Brier, or simply (and more commonly) the Brier (''french: Le Brier''), is the annual Canadian men's curling championship, sanctioned by Curling Canada. The current event name refers to its main sponsor, the Tim Hortons coffee an ...
, played since 2018)
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NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament
The NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament, branded as NCAA March Madness and commonly called March Madness, is a single-elimination tournament played each spring in the United States, currently featuring 68 college basketball teams fro ...
MLS Cup playoffs
The MLS Cup Playoffs is the annual postseason elimination tournament of Major League Soccer. The final match of the tournament is the MLS Cup, the league's championship game. Under the current format adopted for the 2019 season, 14 teams qual ...
First Round
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Indian Premier League
The Indian Premier League (IPL), also known as TATA IPL for sponsorship reasons, is a men's T20 franchise cricket league of India. It is annually contested by ten teams based out of seven Indian cities and three Indian states. The leagu ...
Playoffs Eliminator
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NBA Play-In Tournament
The NBA Play-In Tournament is the preliminary National Basketball Association (NBA) postseason tournament. It determines the final two playoff seeds in the Eastern Conference and Western Conference and is played immediately prior to the NBA Pl ...
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Australia Cup
The Australia Cup, formerly known as the FFA Cup until the 2021 season, is the national football knockout cup competition in Australia. This annual competition is organised by Football Australia, formerly known as Football Federation Australi ...
: A-League teams are limited to 10 entrants in the Round of 32. The first 8 teams in the league qualify, with the last two places determined by two separate play-in games, held between 4th to last place against last place, then 2nd last and 3rd last against each other.
* NCAA Season 97 seniors' basketball tournament, one-off play-in tournament during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Philippines
See also
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One-game playoff
A one-game playoff, sometimes known as a pennant playoff, tiebreaker game or knockout game, is a tiebreaker in certain sports—usually but not always professional—to determine which of two teams, tied in the final standings, will qualify for a ...