A wild card (also wildcard or wild-card and also known as an at-large berth or at-large bid) is a
tournament
A tournament is a competition involving at least three competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses:
# One or more competitions held at a single venue and concentr ...
or playoff berth awarded to an individual or team that fails to qualify in the normal way; for example, by having a high ranking or winning a qualifying stage. In some events, wildcards are chosen freely by the organizers. Other events have fixed rules. Some North American professional sports leagues compare the records of teams which did not qualify directly by winning a
division
Division or divider may refer to:
Mathematics
*Division (mathematics), the inverse of multiplication
*Division algorithm, a method for computing the result of mathematical division
Military
*Division (military), a formation typically consisting ...
or
conference.
International sports
In international sports, the term is perhaps best known in reference to two sporting traditions: team wildcards distributed among countries at the
Olympic Games
The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a vari ...
and individual wildcards given to some
tennis
Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...
players at every professional tournament (both smaller events and the major ones such as
Wimbledon). Tennis players may even ask for a wildcard and get one if they want to enter a tournament on short notice.
In Olympics, countries that fail to produce athletes who meet qualification standards are granted "wildcards", which allow them to enter competitors whose proven abilities are below the standard otherwise required. In some instances, wildcards are given to the host nation in order to boost its chances. In Olympic and World Championship competitions in
track and field
Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping eve ...
and
swimming
Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, or other liquid, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Locomotion is achieved through coordinated movement of the limbs and the body to achieve hydrodynamic thrust that r ...
, however, nations are automatically allowed to enter two competitors, so these instances are technically not wildcards. In some other Olympic sports, such as judo, archery, and badminton, wildcards are in use, and they are granted by the respective sport federations.
On rare occasions, a competitor who had gained entry by wildcard succeeds in winning a medal or the championship. For example,
Kye Sun-Hui won gold in
judo at the 1996 Summer Olympics
This page shows the final results of the '' Judo Competition'' at the ''1996 Summer Olympics'' in Atlanta.
Medal table
Medal summary Men's events
Women's events
Participating nations
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
...
,
Ding Junhui
Ding Junhui (; born 1 April 1987) is a Chinese professional snooker player. He is the most successful Asian player in the history of the sport. Throughout his career, he has won 14 major ranking titles, including three UK Championships (200 ...
won the
2005 China Open snooker championship,
Goran Ivanišević
Goran Ivanišević (; born 13 September 1971) is a Croatian former professional tennis player and current coach. He is the only player to win a Wimbledon singles title as a wildcard. He achieved this in 2001 while ranked world No. 125, after ...
won the
2001 Wimbledon Championships
The 2001 Wimbledon Championships was a tennis tournament played on grass courts at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon, London in the United Kingdom, held from 25 June to 9 July 2001. It was the 115th edition of the Wimbled ...
,
Kim Clijsters
Kim Antonie Lode Clijsters (; born 8 June 1983) is a Belgian former professional tennis player. Clijsters reached the world No. 1 ranking in both singles and doubles, having held both rankings simultaneously in 2003. She won six major titles, ...
won the
2009 US Open, and
Lin Dan
Lin Dan (born 14 October 1983) is a Chinese former professional badminton player. He is a two-time Olympic champion, five-time World champion, as well as a six-time All England champion. Widely regarded as the greatest badminton player of a ...
won the
2013 BWF World Championships
The 2013 BWF World Championships was a badminton tournament which was held from 5 to 11 August 2013 at the Tianhe Sports Center in Guangzhou, China.
Host city selection
Copenhagen, Guangzhou, and Macau submitted bids for this edition of champions ...
.
North America
In North American professional sports leagues, "wild card" refers to a team that qualifies for the championship playoffs without winning their specific conference or division outright. The number of wild card teams varies. In most cases, the rules of the league call for the wild card team to survive an extra round or to play the majority of their postseason games away from home. Although the exact rules among the leagues differ, they all generally agree that the wild card team (or teams, as in MLB, NFL, and NHL) are the ones with the best records among the teams that did not win their divisions; these teams usually finish as the runner-up to their division winners.
The term "wild card" does not apply to postseason formats where a set number of teams per division qualify. Former examples include: the
American Football League's 1969 playoffs (qualifying the top two finishers from each division), the
National Basketball Association
The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United St ...
's 1967-through-1970 playoffs (top four finishers from each division) and 1971–1972 playoffs (top two finishers in each division), and the
National Hockey League
The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...
's 1968–1974 and 1982–1993 playoffs (top four finishers from each division) are not true wild card formats. When a wild card playoff format is used, the number of teams in a division that qualify is not fixed; the divisional champion automatically qualifies, but non-division winners qualify, based either on league record or conference record.
Major League Baseball
In
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 (AL), ...
(MLB), the
wild card teams are the three teams in each of the two leagues (
American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
and
National
National may refer to:
Common uses
* Nation or country
** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen
Places in the United States
* National, Maryland, c ...
) that have qualified for the
postseason
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 ...
despite failing to win their
division
Division or divider may refer to:
Mathematics
*Division (mathematics), the inverse of multiplication
*Division algorithm, a method for computing the result of mathematical division
Military
*Division (military), a formation typically consisting ...
. Those teams in each league possess the three best
winning percentage
In sports, a winning percentage is the fraction of games or matches a team or individual has won. The statistic is commonly used in standings or rankings to compare teams or individuals. It is defined as wins divided by the total number of match ...
s in their league after the three
division winners. The wild card was first instituted in MLB in 1994, with one wild card team per league advancing to the
Division Series
The Division Series is the quarterfinal round of the Major League Baseball playoffs. Four series are played in this round, two each for both the American League and the National League.
1981 season
The first use of the term "Division Series" date ...
in the postseason to face a division winner.
In 2012, the system was modified to add a second wild card team per league and pit each league's wild card teams against each other in a
– the
MLB Wild Card Game – the winner of which would then advance to the Division Series and play the team with the best record. The two teams with the best records outside of the division champions advanced to the wild card game. The two wild card teams could come out of the same division so there was no guarantee a team that came in second place in their division would make the playoffs.
The system was changed in to add a third wild card team from each league, along with replacing the play-in game with two three-game series in each league.
wild card World Series champions
*
1997
File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; '' Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of ...
Florida Marlins
The Miami Marlins are an American professional baseball team based in Miami. The Marlins compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) East division. The club's home ballpark is LoanDepot Park.
The fran ...
*
2002 Anaheim Angels
The Los Angeles Angels are an American professional baseball team based in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The Angels compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) West division. Since 1966, the team h ...
*
2003 Florida Marlins
The Miami Marlins are an American professional baseball team based in Miami. The Marlins compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) East division. The club's home ballpark is LoanDepot Park.
The fran ...
*
2004 Boston Red Sox
The Boston Red Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Boston. The Red Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. Founded in as one of the American League's eigh ...
*
2011 St. Louis Cardinals
The St. Louis Cardinals are an American professional baseball team based in St. Louis. The Cardinals compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) Central division. Since the 2006 season, the Cardinals ha ...
*
2014
File:2014 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Stocking up supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) for the Western African Ebola virus epidemic; Citizens examining the ruins after the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping; Bundles of wat ...
San Francisco Giants
The San Francisco Giants are an American professional baseball team based in San Francisco, California. The Giants compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West division. Founded in 1883 as the New Y ...
*
2019
File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...
Washington Nationals
The Washington Nationals are an American professional baseball team based in Washington, D.C.. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member of the National League (NL) East division. From 2005 to 2007, the team played in RFK Stadiu ...
Other wild card World Series participants
*
2000
File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from S ...
New York Mets
The New York Mets are an American professional baseball team based in the New York City borough of Queens. The Mets compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member of the National League (NL) East division. They are one of two major league ...
*
2002 San Francisco Giants
The San Francisco Giants are an American professional baseball team based in San Francisco, California. The Giants compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West division. Founded in 1883 as the New Y ...
*
2005 Houston Astros
*
2006 Detroit Tigers
*
2007 Colorado Rockies
*
2014
File:2014 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Stocking up supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) for the Western African Ebola virus epidemic; Citizens examining the ruins after the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping; Bundles of wat ...
Kansas City Royals
*
2022
File:2022 collage V1.png, Clockwise, from top left: Road junction at Yamato-Saidaiji Station several hours after the assassination of Shinzo Abe; Anti-government protest in Sri Lanka in front of the Presidential Secretariat; The global monkeypo ...
Philadelphia Phillies
National Football League
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), since , each of the two conferences sends three wild card teams along with four division champions to its postseason. The first round of the playoffs is called the "wild card Round". In this round, each conference's division champion with the best regular-season record is awarded a first-round bye and granted automatic berth in the "Divisional Round". The four division champions are seeded from #1 through #4, while the three wild card teams are seeded #5 to #7; within these separations, seeding is by regular-season record. In the "wild card Round", the #7 team plays the #2 team, #6 plays #3, and #5 plays #4. In the "Divisional Round", the lowest-remaining seed plays the #1 seeded team, while the other two wild card winners face-off against each other, with the higher seed hosting. The higher-seeded teams have home-field advantage in both rounds and the "Conference Championships".
Background
The NFL was the first league ever to use the wild card format. The decision to implement a wild card coincided with the completion of the
AFL-NFL merger in 1970. Prior to the merger, the right to compete in the postseason for the NFL title was restricted to division/conference champions. Until 1967, a tiebreaker game was played to resolve a deadlock for first place in either of the two conferences. When the league expanded to 16 teams, it realigned into four divisions and expanded the playoffs to two rounds. Tiebreaker games were eliminated in favor of the use of performance-based criteria to determine division champions. The rival
American Football League (AFL), which reached a final size of ten teams in two divisions, also restricted its postseason to division winners until the 1969 season (the AFL's last as a separate league) when it expanded the playoffs to include division runners-up. The runners-up played the winners of the opposite divisions for the right to contest the AFL Championship Game.
Following AFL upsets in the last two Super Bowls prior to the merger, the merged league realigned into two conferences of thirteen teams each, with three "old-line" NFL teams joining the AFL teams in the
American Football Conference (AFC), and the remaining NFL teams forming the
National Football Conference (NFC). The decision to make the conferences equal in size meant they could not feasibly align into anything except three divisions of four or five teams in each conference. This led to a debate as to how the postseason of the merged league should be structured. Both the NFL and AFL playoff formats of 1969 had attracted fierce critics. The NFL format was criticized for its ability to cause a team tied for first overall in the league to miss the playoffs (this happened once, in 1967, when the
Baltimore Colts missed the postseason despite a .917 winning percentage after losing a tiebreaker to the
Los Angeles Rams). The AFL's 1969 playoffs were criticized by NFL purists for breaking with longstanding tradition, also, due to the fact that they allowed runners-up to qualify no matter how much disparity existed between the divisions, the AFL playoff structure could allow a mediocre team to qualify - this did occur when the
Houston Oilers
The Houston Oilers were a professional American football team that played in Houston from its founding in 1960 to 1996 before relocating to Memphis, and later Nashville, Tennessee becoming the Tennessee Titans. The Oilers began play in 1960 a ...
, a .500 team, finished second in the Eastern Division - the Oilers were throttled in the playoffs 56-7 by the Western champion
Oakland Raiders. The Raiders went on to lose the AFL title game to the Western runner-up (and eventual
Super Bowl IV champion)
Kansas City Chiefs
The Kansas City Chiefs are a professional American football team based in Kansas City, Missouri. The Chiefs compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) West division.
The ...
.
Despite Kansas City's win, some purists argued for the tradition of having only division champions contest the playoffs to continue. Had they prevailed, the post-merger NFL playoffs would have consisted of six teams and might have eventually evolved to closely resemble the playoffs of the modern
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 ...
, with the regular season champion of each conference earning the right to host the championship game against the winner of a game between the champions of the other two divisions. However, the old-line NFL owners, who still expected their teams to dominate the merged league for at least the first half of the 1970s, thought a repeat of the 1967 Colts-Rams fiasco would be very likely under the new alignment combined with a six team format. Furthermore, the modern principle that home field advantage and byes should be awarded to the teams with the best records had still not yet been firmly established - tradition at the time dictated that home field advantage rotate between divisions and/or conferences regardless of record. In any event, most owners in both conferences wanted to keep the even four-team playoff field in each conference. This was established by having the three division champions in each conference joined by the best second-place finisher in the conference.
History
As with much of the NFL's nomenclature, the "wild card" was not initially referred to as such and was instead referred as the "Best Second-Place Team" (or sometimes simply as the "Fourth Qualifier"). The media, however, began referring to the qualifying teams as "wild cards". Eventually, the NFL officially adopted the term.
For the
1969 AFL playoffs, a "crossover" format was used such that the division winners played the runners up in the opposite division. This was done in part because division rivals had already played each other twice in the regular season and also in part because the AFL did not want the playoff games to be confused as "division championship games" - by keeping division rivals separate in the opening playoff round, the league left fans in no doubt that the regular season division winners were the only true division champions, even if a runner-up eventually won the league title. The NFL kept this principle in place by stipulating that a wild card team could never face its own division champion in the divisional round.
Following the implementation of the
AFL–NFL merger
The AFL–NFL merger was the merger of the two major professional American football leagues in the United States at the time: the National Football League (NFL) and the American Football League (AFL). It paved the way for the combined league, w ...
prior to the 1970 season, from
1970
Events
January
* January 1 – Unix time epoch reached at 00:00:00 UTC.
* January 5 – The 7.1 Tonghai earthquake shakes Tonghai County, Yunnan province, China, with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (''Extreme''). Between 10,000 and ...
to 1974 the NFL used a rotation to determine which teams hosted playoff games, and which teams played which other teams.
From
1975
It was also declared the ''International Women's Year'' by the United Nations and the European Architectural Heritage Year by the Council of Europe.
Events
January
* January 1 - Watergate scandal (United States): John N. Mitchell, H. R. ...
to 1977, the divisional playoffs featured the #1 seed hosting the "wild card" team, and the #2 seed hosting the #3 seed unless the #1 seed and wild card team were divisional rivals; in that case, the #1 seed hosted the #3 seed and the #2 seed hosted the wild card team. The "wild card" team in each conference was the team with the best record in its conference excluding the #1–3 seeds.
The number of wild card qualifiers was expanded to two per conference in
1978 – the divisional winners were granted a
bye week
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 eit ...
while the wild card teams, seeded #4 and #5, played each other in a "wild card game" with the #4 seed having home field advantage. Since there were two wild card games, one per conference, the phrase "wild card round" came into use. During this time, the #1 seed hosted the winner of the #4 vs #5 wild card game, while the #2 seed played the #3 seed. However, the rule that teams from the same division could not play each other in the divisional round continued, so if the #1 seed and the winner of the #4 vs #5 wild card game were in the same division, then the #1 seed played the #3 seed, while the #2 seed played the #4 vs #5 winner.
To address the oddity of one wild card team per conference hosting a playoff game (albeit in an earlier round) while one division winner per conference did not automatically have the right to host a playoff game, the playoffs were expanded again to three wild cards per conference in
1990
File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of humanity on Earth, astrophysicist ...
(for 12 teams total) with the lowest-ranked divisional winner losing its bye but gaining the right to host a playoff game. Following the addition of the
Houston Texans in 2002, the league added a fourth division to each conference. The league decided not to change the number of playoff teams, and thus the number of wild card qualifiers was reduced to two per conference. In
2020
2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global social and economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of events, worldwide lockdowns and the largest economic recession since the Great Depression in t ...
, the playoffs returned to three wild cards per conference, or 14 teams total. The term "wild card Round" continues to be used for the opening round of the playoffs, even though this round has involved both division winners and wild card teams since 1990.
As of the
2021–22 playoffs, there has never been a meeting of two wild card teams in the
Super Bowl; the closest that came to happening was in the
2010–11 playoffs, when the Green Bay Packers and New York Jets went on Cinderella runs after finishing as the second wild card team in each of their conferences (the NFC and AFC, respectively); the Packers won the NFC Championship Game and went on to win the Super Bowl, while the Jets'
Cinderella story
In sports, the terms Cinderella, "Cinderella story", and Cinderella team are used to refer to situations in which competitors achieve far greater success than would reasonably have been best expected. Cinderella stories tend to gain much media and ...
ended with a one-score loss to the Steelers in the AFC Championship Game.
From
2002 to 2019, the only way a wild card team could host a playoff game within their respective conference (
Super Bowls are considered neutral site games regardless of home venue) would be for both wild card teams to reach the Conference Championship Game by each winning two road playoff games:
* The No. 5 seeded wild card wins @ the No. 4 seeded division winner in the wild card Round and wins @ the No. 2 seeded division winner in the Divisional Round
* The No. 6 seeded wild card wins @ the No. 3 seeded division winner in the wild card Round and wins @ the No. 1 seeded division winner in the Divisional Round
The No. 5 seeded wild card would host the No. 6 seeded wild card in the Championship Game.
Since
2020
2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global social and economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of events, worldwide lockdowns and the largest economic recession since the Great Depression in t ...
, it has been possible for a wild card team to host a Divisional Round playoff game. This requires that all three wild card teams (seeded 5–7) win their wild card games on the road since teams are re-seeded. The matchups in the Divisional Round would be:
* The No. 7 seeded wild card @ the No. 1 seeded division winner
* The No. 6 seeded wild card @ the No. 5 seeded wild card
wild card Super Bowl champions
*
1980–81 Oakland Raiders–
Super Bowl XV
*
1997–98 Denver Broncos
The Denver Broncos are a professional American football franchise based in Denver. The Broncos compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) West division. The team is headquar ...
–
Super Bowl XXXII
*
2000–01 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 it ...
–
Super Bowl XXXV
Super Bowl XXXV was an American football game between the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Baltimore Ravens and the National Football Conference (NFC) champion New York Giants to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion for ...
*
2005–06:
Pittsburgh Steelers–
Super Bowl XL
Super Bowl XL was an American football game between the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Seattle Seahawks and the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Pittsburgh Steelers to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion f ...
*
2007–08:
New York Giants–
Super Bowl XLII
*
2010–11
1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1. ...
:
Green Bay Packers–
Super Bowl XLV
Super Bowl XLV was an American football game between the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Pittsburgh Steelers and the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Green Bay Packers to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion ...
*
2020–21
The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...
:
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) South division. The cl ...
–
Super Bowl LV
Other wild card Super Bowl participants
*
1985–86:
New England Patriots–
Super Bowl XX
*
1992–93
Year 199 ( CXCIX) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was sometimes known as year 952 '' Ab urbe condita''. The denomination 199 for this year has been used since t ...
:
Buffalo Bills–
Super Bowl XXVII
*
1999–2000:
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 hom ...
–
Super Bowl XXXIV
Super Bowl XXXIV was an American football game played at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta on January 30, 2000, to determine the National Football League (NFL) champion for the 1999 season. The National Football Conference (NFC) champion St. Louis ...
The 1980 Raiders, 2005 Steelers, and 1992 Bills tied for first in their division but lost a tiebreaker.
While not a wild card team, the
1969
This year is notable for Apollo 11's first landing on the moon.
Events January
* January 4 – The Government of Spain hands over Ifni to Morocco.
* January 5
**Ariana Afghan Airlines Flight 701 crashes into a house on its approach to ...
Kansas City Chiefs
The Kansas City Chiefs are a professional American football team based in Kansas City, Missouri. The Chiefs compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) West division.
The ...
were the first
non-division winner to win the
Super Bowl. They finished second in the Western Division of the
American Football League, and in that season, the last before the merger, the AFL went from having its two division winners meeting for the league title to adding a second round in which the second place team in each division qualified for the post-season. These teams played cross-division in the semifinal round. Thus the Chiefs, who finished second in the West, defeated the East Division champion
New York Jets in the AFL semifinals and then defeated the West Division champion
Oakland Raiders to advance to
Super Bowl IV, where they beat the
Minnesota Vikings
The Minnesota Vikings are a professional American football team based in Minneapolis. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the National Football Conference (NFC) North division. Founded in 1960 as an expansi ...
. Because the term "wild card" was not instituted until the following year, the Chiefs are not included in the above list, but are recognized as the first team to win the Super Bowl without winning a division title.
National Basketball Association
Although the
National Basketball Association
The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United St ...
(NBA) includes wild card teams in their playoff structures, the term "wild card" is seldom used; instead, each playoff team is most commonly denoted by its seeding position within the conference.
In the NBA, division champions within each conference were given the #1-3 seeds based on their regular-season records. The next five best teams are awarded seeds #4-8, also based on their regular-season records. In the NBA playoffs, home court advantage is determined strictly by regular-season record, without regard to seeding.
Before the
2006–07 NBA season
The 2006–07 NBA season was the 61st season of the National Basketball Association. The San Antonio Spurs were crowned the champions after sweeping the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA Finals.
Notable occurrences
*The first NBA draft under the ne ...
, the NBA seeded its teams in the same manner as the NHL. Until 2015, the NBA seeded the three division winners and the wild card team with the best record by regular-season record. This means that the wild card with the best record got a seed as high as #2 (if that team is in the same division as the team with the best record in the conference); however, the next four wild card teams will still be limited to the #5 through #8 seeds. This change was made to ensure that the two best teams in each conference cannot meet until the conference final, and also (allegedly) to try and eliminate incentives for a playoff-bound team to
deliberately lose games at the end of the regular season in order to "choose" a higher-seeded team that has won fewer games (and, due to the unique home-court rules of the NBA, possibly gain home-court advantage for that series).
The notion of "wild cards" was essentially abolished in the
2015–16 NBA season, as changes made prior to the season mean the top eight teams in each conference qualify regardless of divisional rank, with the seeded teams ranked by percentage. The only particular advantage to winning a division now is that a divisional title serves as the first tiebreaker for qualification seeding purposes. Unlike some other leagues, there is no tie-breaker advantage at all to finishing in any divisional rank lower than first – meaning (for example) that while a division winner ''will'' automatically win a tie-breaker over another division's runner-up, a division runner-up ''will not'' automatically win a tie-breaker over teams finishing third, fourth or fifth in other divisions. The new format means it is possible for an especially weak division to send ''no'' teams (not even its champion) to the NBA playoffs, although as of the start of the
2020–21 season this has not yet occurred.
In the NBA, the winner of the #1 vs. #8 series goes on to face the winner of the #5 vs. #4 series, while the winner of the #2 vs. #7 series faces the winner of the #6 vs. #3 series. The winner of the #1 vs. #8 series will usually play against a wild card team in the Conference Semifinals; this is arranged deliberately to reward the #1 seeded team by giving it the most winnable matchups in the first and second rounds, although this is not always the case in event of an upset because the NBA does not re-seed teams following the first round. For instance, if the #6 seed upsets the #3 seed and the higher seed wins the remaining first round matchups within the conference, the #1 seed would face the #4 seed, while the #2 seed would face the #6 seed in the Conference Semifinals.
National Hockey League
In the
National Hockey League
The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...
(NHL), the first, second, and third place teams in each division qualify for the playoffs automatically, and two additional teams, regardless of divisional alignment, also qualify by having the best records among the remaining teams in the conference. These teams are referred to as the wild cards. In the First Round, the division champions play the wild cards, while the second and third placed teams in each division play each other; therefore the bracket is fixed, like the NBA. Home-ice advantage is given to the higher seed in the first two rounds, with the better regular season record being used in the
Conference Finals Conference Finals may refer to:
* NBA Conference Finals, National Basketball Association
* NHL Conference Finals
The National Hockey League (NHL) Conference Finals are the Eastern Conference and Western Conference championship series of the NHL. ...
and
Stanley Cup Finals.
The NHL's current format is similar in some respects to the "cross-over rule" used by 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 ...
since 1997 in that it the format emphasizes intra-divisional ranking and brackets in the playoff structure and yet allows two teams from one division to qualify for the playoffs at the expense of the two teams finishing with worse records and in the same divisional ranks in another division. The main difference is that the CFL only allows the lowest ranked playoff qualifying team from a division to cross over into the other division's playoffs, whereas in the NHL it is possible for either wild card team to "cross over" to the other division, or even (in cases where four teams qualify from each division) for the wild card teams to swap divisional playoff brackets. Also, unlike the CFL the NHL does not require the second wild card qualifier to have an outright better record than a superior-ranked team in the other division – in the event of such a tie at the end of the NHL season standard tie-breaking procedures are used to determine playoff qualification.
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 shoot ...
until
2013
File:2013 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: Edward Snowden becomes internationally famous for leaking classified NSA wiretapping information; Typhoon Haiyan kills over 6,000 in the Philippines and Southeast Asia; The Dhaka garment fa ...
, three division champions within each conference were given the #1-3 seeds based on their regular-season records. Among the remaining teams within each conference, five additional teams with the best records are awarded seeds #4 through #8. The division champions (first-third seeds) and the non-division winning team with the best record (fourth seed) were given home ice advantage in the opening playoff series, in which they face the eighth-seeded through fifth-seeded teams, respectively. However, the playoff format differed slightly from that of the NBA. In the NHL, the highest-remaining seed of the first round played the lowest-remaining seed of the first round in the next round of the playoffs. For example, if the #1, #4, #6, and #7 seeds win their respective first round series then the second round of the playoffs matched the #1 seed (highest) versus the #7 seed (lowest) and the #4 seed (2nd highest) versus the #6 seed (second lowest). Home ice advantage in each NHL playoff series prior to the Stanley Cup Finals was granted by the higher seed, even if the "wild card" team had a better regular season record. For the Finals, the team with the better record will receive home ice advantage.
Major League Soccer
Major League Soccer (MLS), the top level of
soccer (football)
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is to ...
in both countries, used a wild card format starting in its
2011 playoffs. The top three teams from each of its two conferences automatically qualified for the conference semifinals, while the four remaining teams with the highest point totals in league play, without regard to conference, earned "wild cards" into the playoffs. The wild card matches were single games, with the #7 seed hosting the #10 seed and the #8 seed hosting the #9 seed. The lowest surviving seed then played the
Supporters' Shield winner (i.e., the team with the highest point total), while the other surviving wild card played the top seed in the other conference.
The playoff format was revamped for the 2012 season, with all seeding done entirely in-conference, therefore eliminating any true wild card qualifiers. From 2012 to 2018, the top six teams from each conference qualified for the playoffs, with the #1 & #2 seeds in each conference automatically qualifying for the conference semifinals, and seeds #3-6 in each conference being wild cards. The lowest-seeded winner (played between the #4 & #5, and #3 & #6 seeds) in each conference played the #1 seed, and the next-lowest played the #2 seed in the conference semifinals. In 2019, the playoffs were expanded to the top seven teams in each conference, with only the conference regular season champion receiving a first-round bye.
Canadian championship curling
Curling Canada
Curling Canada (formerly the Canadian Curling Association (CCA)) is a sanctioning body for the sport of Curling in Canada. It is associated with more than a dozen provincial and territorial curling associations across the country, and organizes ...
introduced wild card teams starting with the
2018 Scotties Tournament of Hearts
The 2018 Scotties Tournament of Hearts, Canada's national women's curling championship, was held from January 27–February 4, 2018 at the South Okanagan Events Centre in Penticton, British Columbia. The winning team represented Canada at the 201 ...
and
2018 Tim Hortons Brier
The 2018 Tim Hortons Brier, Canada's national men's curling championship, was held from March 3 to 11, 2018 at the Brandt Centre in Regina, Saskatchewan. The winning team represented Canada at the 2018 World Men's Curling Championship from March ...
. The change was made as part of a wider set of changes which expanded the tournaments to 17 teams and eliminated the unpopular Pre-Qualifying Tournaments. From 2018, the round robin stage of the Tournament of Hearts and Brier will consist of two
seeded "pools" of eight teams as opposed to the old format consisting a single group of twelve teams. This allows the main tournament to include "Team Canada" (either the defending champions or, when the champions decline to or are unable to defend their title, the runners-up) and teams representing all fourteen constituent associations representing the ten provinces and three territories plus
Northern Ontario
Northern Ontario is a primary geographic and quasi-administrative region of the Canadian province of Ontario, the other primary region being Southern Ontario. Most of the core geographic region is located on part of the Superior Geological Pro ...
. The remaining two participants in the tournament are the wild cards, which compete in an MLB-style play-in game prior to the main tournament to determine the sixteenth team in the main tournament. Just as is the case with MLB division titles, the format is designed to give teams an incentive to win their provincial championships. The wild cards are the top two teams in the
Canadian Team Ranking System (CTRS) standings that did not win either the previous year's tournament or their respective provincial or territorial championship. The top ranked of these two teams receives the
hammer (last rock) to start the game.
The CTRS standings are also used to determine the seeding of all teams in the main tournament, with one important caveat - for the purposes of seeding the round robin pools and so as to allow the main round robin schedule to be drawn up prior to the wild card game, the ranking of the top wild card team is the ranking that is used for seeding purposes regardless of who wins the game. Whereas teams in the Tournament of Hearts and Brier are traditionally referred to by their respective province or territory (other than Northern Ontario and Team Canada), the team that wins the wild card game is referred to as the "wild card" for the duration of the tournament. As is the case with Team Canada, the wild card retains that designation even if the team that is representing the same province or territory as the wild card team is eliminated prior to the wild card team.
With the introduction of pools, the round robin portion of the Tournament of Hearts and Brier now consists of two stages. The top four teams in each pool qualify for the second stage, formally known as the "Championship Pool." Unlike most tournaments which use a similar format, teams carry over their entire round robin records from the preliminary stage as opposed to only those results against teams that also qualify. This ensures that each Championship Pool team still plays eleven games that count for the purposes of determining playoff qualification.
The format is designed to ensure that a competitive team fills the wild card slot - due to the significant disparity in playing caliber between the top teams of Canada's fourteen member associations, it is widely expected that the wild card will consistently come from one of the provinces with the toughest fields in the playdowns, and that it will consistently be a championship contending team.
The format was changed for the 2021 curling season 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 identi ...
. For at least that year, tournaments will expand to eighteen teams each. Three wild card teams will gain direct entry into the main draw, which expanded to pools of nine teams each. As a result, teams that advance to the championship pool will play twelve round robin games instead of eleven. To accommodate the expanded round robin schedule, the playoffs will revert to the old three team, two game format thus eliminating the page playoff and quarter-final round.
Canadian Football League
While 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 ...
does not officially use the term "wild card" to denote any playoff qualifier, its crossover rule acts similar to a wild card in many respects.
Calls to change the CFL's playoff format came about soon after the CFL finished its evolution from two regional conferences, which were originally the
Interprovincial Rugby Football Union
The East Division is one of the two regional divisions of the Canadian Football League, its counterpart being the West Division. Although the CFL was not founded until 1958, the East Division and its clubs are descended from earlier leagues.
T ...
in the East and the
Western Interprovincial Football Union
The West Division is one of the two regional divisions of the Canadian Football League (CFL), its counterpart being the East Division. Although the CFL was not founded until 1958, the West Division and its clubs are descended from earlier leagu ...
in the West. Although the CFL was officially founded in 1958, its constituent sections did not fully merge until 1981. At the time, it was agreed that three teams from each division would qualify, regardless of overall league standings. This quickly proved controversial, as a wide disparity in playing caliber had emerged between the East and West divisions. Since the league had also implemented a fully balanced schedule (each of the nine teams played each opponent once at home and once on the road), this disparity (made even worse by the fact the West had one more team than the East) was fully exposed in the standings - in each of the first three seasons of the new format, the fourth place team missed the playoffs with records as good as 9–7 in the West, while in the East records as bad as 3-13 were good enough for third place and a playoff berth. In 1981, even the fifth place Western team's record of 6-10 was good enough for outright possession of sixth place overall.
In 1986, the playoff format was changed. The new format the fourth place team in one division to qualify if it finished with an outright better record than the third place team in the other division. The Eastern owners agreed in exchange for expanding the schedule to 18 games, and also with a stipulation that the qualifying fourth-place team would stay in its own division for the playoffs. As a result, the change introduced the possibility of a four team bracket in one division and a two-game total point series in the other (the two game total point format was nothing new in Canadian football - it was commonly used until the early 1970s). It also introduced the possibility of the first place teams losing their traditional byes based on results elsewhere in the league. This occurred in 1986, when the 11-7
Calgary Stampeders
The Calgary Stampeders are a professional Canadian football team based in Calgary, Alberta. The Stampeders compete in the West Division of the Canadian Football League (CFL). The club plays its home games at McMahon Stadium and are the third-o ...
qualified in place of the 4-14
Montreal Alouettes
The Montreal Alouettes (French: Les Alouettes de Montréal) are a professional Canadian football team based in Montreal, Quebec. Founded in 1946, the team has folded and been revived twice. The Alouettes compete in the East Division of the Canad ...
. The Alouettes folded before the start of the following season. Although it is highly questionable whether a 1986 playoff appearance would have saved the floundering Montreal franchise, the CFL quickly re-instated the traditional playoff format for the 1987 season. It also moved the
Winnipeg Blue Bombers
The Winnipeg Blue Bombers are a professional Canadian football team based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The Blue Bombers compete in the Canadian Football League (CFL) as a member club of the league's West division. They play their home games at IG Fie ...
(the West's easternmost team) to the Eastern Division. This balanced the divisions both in numbers as well as, to a considerable extent, in playing caliber, and the reduction in teams also caused the schedule to be changed to emphasize more divisional games. As a result, the three top finishers of the two divisions finishers always had the six best league records from 1987 up until the start of the league's
U.S. expansion experiment, which started in the 1993.
The current rule was adopted after the league re-activated the Alouettes and reverted to an all-Canadian alignment in 1996. It allows the fourth place team of one division to "cross over" and take the place of the third place team in the other divisional bracket, provided the fourth place team has more points (i.e. an outright better record) than the third place team. Since the cross over team enters as the third place team, it never receives home field advantage in the playoffs, even if its record is better than that of one or both of the qualifying teams in the other division.
As of 2019, all teams to qualify under this rule have crossed over from the Western Division to the Eastern bracket, although there have been a handful of occasions where a fourth placed Eastern team was in mathematical contention for a Western cross-over berth late in the season. Cross-over teams have advanced as far as the Eastern Final, but as of 2018 have never advanced to the
Grey Cup game. There is no provision for a fifth placed team in one division to cross over in place of the other division's runner-up, even if it has a better record; in 2018 the
Edmonton Eskimos finished fifth in the West with a 9–9 record and missed the playoffs while the
Hamilton Tiger-Cats finished 8-10 and qualified as Eastern runners-up. Thus, it is theoretically possible (but it has not yet occurred) that all four Eastern Division teams could reach the playoffs, but not for all five Western Division teams.
Professional tennis
In professional
tennis
Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...
tournaments, a wildcard refers to a tournament entry awarded to a player at the discretion of the organizers. All
ATP and
WTA tournaments have a few spots set aside for wildcards in both the main draw, and the qualifying draw, for players who otherwise would not have made either of these draws with their professional ranking. They are usually awarded to players from the home and/or sponsoring country (sometimes after a tournament where the winner is awarded the wildcard), promising young players, players that are likely to draw a large crowd, or have won the tournament earlier or players who were once ranked higher and are attempting a comeback (for instance, following a long-term injury). High-ranked players can also ask for a wildcard if they want to enter a non-mandatory tournament after the normal entry deadline; for example, because they lost early in another tournament. This means a wildcard player sometimes becomes the top seed.
The organizers of three of the Grand Slam tournaments —the
Australian Open,
French Open, and
US Open— grant one wildcard nomination to each of the other two.
Christopher Clarey described this practice as "nothing more than mutual back scratching" and "an outdated symbol of elitism".
Notable wildcards
* In 2001,
Goran Ivanišević
Goran Ivanišević (; born 13 September 1971) is a Croatian former professional tennis player and current coach. He is the only player to win a Wimbledon singles title as a wildcard. He achieved this in 2001 while ranked world No. 125, after ...
won the
Wimbledon Men's Singles championships having been handed a wildcard entry by the organising
All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club
The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, also known as the All England Club, based at Church Road, Wimbledon, London, Wimbledon, London, England, is a Gentlemen's club, private members' club. It is best known as the venue for the Wimbledon ...
. At the time, he was ranked world No. 125 after a shoulder injury but had earlier reached the final three times.
* In 2009,
Kim Clijsters
Kim Antonie Lode Clijsters (; born 8 June 1983) is a Belgian former professional tennis player. Clijsters reached the world No. 1 ranking in both singles and doubles, having held both rankings simultaneously in 2003. She won six major titles, ...
won the
US Open tournament, after receiving a wildcard entry. It was her first Grand Slam tournament since announcing her comeback to the sport, having first retired in 2007 to start a family. She was a former champion and world No. 1 but was unranked since she had only played two other tournaments (also on wildcards) since her comeback, and three were required to get a rank.
* In 2012,
Jonathan Marray
Jonathan Marray (born 10 March 1981) is a former British tennis player and a Wimbledon Men's Doubles champion. Marray is a former top 20 doubles player, reaching a career high of world no. 15 in January 2013, mainly due to more regular appearan ...
and
Frederik Nielsen
Frederik Løchte Nielsen (born 27 August 1983) is a former professional tennis player. He was the top ranked player from Denmark in the ATP doubles world rankings. A former Wimbledon men's doubles champion, he peaked at no. 17 in the rankin ...
won the
Wimbledon Men's Doubles after being selected as a wildcard. They had no significant results but Marray was a home player.
* In 2017,
Maria Sharapova
Maria Yuryevna Sharapova ( , ; rus, Мари́я Ю́рьевна Шара́пова, p=mɐˈrʲijə ʂɐˈrapəvə, a=Maria_sharapova.ogg; born 19 April 1987) is a Russian former world No. 1 tennis player. She competed on the WTA Tour from 2 ...
was granted a wildcard to play in the
US Open. She was a former champion and had finished serving a 15-month
doping ban earlier in the year.
* In 2019, 15-year-old
Coco Gauff
Cori Dionne "Coco" Gauff (born March 13, 2004) is an American professional tennis player. She has a career-high ranking of world No. 4 in singles, reached on October 24, 2022, and world No. 1 in doubles, achieved on August 15, 2022. Gauff won h ...
received a wildcard to play at the
Wimbledon qualifying event, and advanced to the last 16 of the
main draw.
* In 2019, Canadian teenager
Bianca Andreescu
Bianca Vanessa Andreescu (; born June 16, 2000) is a Canadian professional tennis player. She has a career-high ranking of No. 4 in the world, and is the highest-ranked Canadian in the history of the Women's Tennis Association (WTA). Andreescu ...
became the first wildcard to win
Indian Wells.
* In 2022,
Thanasi Kokkinakis
Athanasios "Thanasi" Kokkinakis ( ; born 10 April 1996) is an Australian professional tennis player and a doubles specialist. He has been ranked as high as world No. 69 in singles by the ATP, which he first achieved on 8 June 2015. He has won ...
and
Nick Kyrgios became the first wildcard men's doubles entry to win at the
Australian Open
Motorsport
Motorcycle racing
In
motorcycle racing the term 'wildcard' is used for competitors only involved in individual rounds of a championship, usually their local round. Local riders taking advantage of their local knowledge (often having raced that circuit on that bike before) and affording to take risks without planning for a championship, often upset established runners.
Makoto Tamada
(born November 4, 1976 in Matsuyama, Ehime Prefecture, Japan) is a former Japanese professional motorcycle racer currently working as a rider instructor in Suzuka Racing School. He is one of the few riders to win races in both MotoGP and Superb ...
and
Shaky Byrne have both taken double victories in
Superbike World Championship
Superbike World Championship (also known as WorldSBK, SBK, World Superbike, WSB, or WSBK) is a silhouette-class road racing series based on heavily modified production motorcycles, also known as superbike racing.
The championship was founded i ...
rounds in their home countries.
The most famous wildcard entry perhaps was the late
Daijiro Kato
was a Japanese Grand Prix motorcycle road racer, the 2001 250cc world champion, and the 2000 and 2002 Suzuka 8 Hours winner. He died as a result of injuries sustained after a crash during the 2003 Japanese motorcycle Grand Prix at Suzuka Circuit ...
with finishing 3rd at his first appearance in 1996 and then winning the Japanese 250cc Grand Prix back to back in 1997 and 1998 on his way to become the most successful 250cc World Champion of all time in 2001.
Grand Prix motorcycle racing
Each Grand Prix host Federation (FMNR) may nominate 3 wildcard entries for the Moto3 and Moto2 classes in their own Grand Prix only.
The MSMA (Motorcycle Sport Manufacturers’ Association) may, at each event, nominate 1 wildcard entry for the Moto2 and
MotoGP classes.
The
FIM
FIM may refer to:
Organizations and companies
* Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme, the International Motorcycling Federation
* Flint Institute of Music, in Michigan, United States
* Fox Interactive Media, now News Corp. Digital Media
* ...
may, at each event, nominate 2 wildcard entries for the Moto3 and Moto2 classes and
FIM
FIM may refer to:
Organizations and companies
* Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme, the International Motorcycling Federation
* Flint Institute of Music, in Michigan, United States
* Fox Interactive Media, now News Corp. Digital Media
* ...
/
DORNA may, at each event, nominate 1 wildcard entry for the MotoGP class.
Superbike World Championship
Each Event host Federation (FMNR) may nominate 4 wildcard entries for the
Superbike class and 2 wildcard entries for the
Supersport and Superstock classes, in their own event only.
The
FIM
FIM may refer to:
Organizations and companies
* Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme, the International Motorcycling Federation
* Flint Institute of Music, in Michigan, United States
* Fox Interactive Media, now News Corp. Digital Media
* ...
may nominate 2 wildcard entries for the Superbike class.
Motorcycle Speedway
In
Motorcycle Speedway, wildcards compete in the
Speedway Grand Prix
Speedway Grand Prix are a series of stand-alone motorcycle speedway events over the course of a season used to determine the Speedway World Champion. The series started in 1995 replacing the previous format of a single event final. The first win ...
events in which there is 1 wildcard per competition (until 2005 there were 2 per Grand Prix). six wildcards have won a Grand Prix:
Mark Loram
Mark Roysten Gregory Loram (born 12 January 1971)
is a former British motorcycle speedway rider who won the World Speedway Championship in 2000 and won the British Championship in 1997, 1999, and 2001.
Career
Born in Mtarfa, Malta, Mark ...
in
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 shoot ...
,
Martin Dugard in
2000
File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from S ...
,
Hans Andersen in
2006 (later that year he replaced a permanent rider and went on to win another GP),
Michael Jepsen Jensen
Michael Jepsen Jensen (born 18 February 1992) is a speedway rider from Denmark.
Career
He was part of the 2010 Under-21 World Cup winning Denmark team. He also won the 2012 Nordic Speedway Grand Prix becoming the 1st wildcard to have won a GP ...
in
2012
File:2012 Events Collage V3.png, From left, clockwise: The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia lies capsized after the Costa Concordia disaster; Damage to Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, New Jersey as a result of Hurricane Sandy; People gat ...
,
Adrian Miedziński
Adrian Miedziński (born 20 August 1985 in Toruń, Poland) is a Polish motorcycle speedway rider.
Career
He has won the Team Under-21 World Champion and Individual Under-21 Polish Champion titles.
In 2022, while riding for Bydgoszcz he suffe ...
in
2013
File:2013 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: Edward Snowden becomes internationally famous for leaking classified NSA wiretapping information; Typhoon Haiyan kills over 6,000 in the Philippines and Southeast Asia; The Dhaka garment fa ...
and
Bartosz Zmarzlik in
2014
File:2014 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Stocking up supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) for the Western African Ebola virus epidemic; Citizens examining the ruins after the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping; Bundles of wat ...
.
Auto racing
wildcard entries are not unknown in
auto racing
Auto racing (also known as car racing, motor racing, or automobile racing) is a motorsport involving the racing of automobiles for competition.
Auto racing has existed since the invention of the automobile. Races of various sorts were organise ...
either, although the
Concorde Agreement
The Concorde Agreement is a contract between the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), the Formula One teams and the Formula One Group which dictates the terms by which the teams compete in races, and how the television revenues and ...
in modern-day
Formula One
Formula One (also known as Formula 1 or F1) is the highest class of international racing for open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The World Drivers' Championship, ...
requires all teams to participate in every event.
John Love came close to winning the
1967 South African Grand Prix
The 1967 South African Grand Prix, formally the 1st AA Grand Prix of South Africa (Afrikaans: ''Eerste AA Suid-Afrikaanse Grand Prix''), was a Formula One motor race held at Kyalami on 2 January 1967. It was race 1 of 11 in both the 1967 World Ch ...
in a wildcard-type situation, long before the term had been coined. Although the term is rarely used in
NASCAR
The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, LLC (NASCAR) is an American auto racing sanctioning and operating company that is best known for stock car racing. The privately owned company was founded by Bill France Sr. in 1948, and ...
, the concept of a
road course ringer
In NASCAR, a road course ringer, also known as road course specialist, road course expert, or a road runner, is a non-NASCAR driver who is hired by a NASCAR Cup Series or NASCAR Xfinity Series team to race specifically on road courses.
, current ...
is similar. Before the late-1990s,
NEXTEL Cup
The NASCAR Cup Series is the top racing series of the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR). The series began in 1949 as the Strictly Stock Division, and from 1950 to 1970 it was known as the Grand National Division. In 1971, ...
and
Busch Series
The NASCAR Xfinity Series (NXS) is a stock car racing series organized by NASCAR. It is promoted as NASCAR's second-tier circuit to the organization's top level Cup Series. NXS events are frequently held as a support race on the day prior to a ...
races in the
West
West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth.
Etymology
The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...
and
Northeast
The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each se ...
respectively would have several drivers from the
Winston West
The ARCA Menards Series West, formerly the NASCAR K&N Pro Series West, NASCAR AutoZone West Series, NASCAR Winston West Series and NASCAR Camping World West Series, is a regional stock car racing series owned and operated by the Automobile Racin ...
and
Busch North
The ARCA Menards Series East (formerly Busch East Series, Busch North Series, Camping World East Series, and NASCAR K&N Pro Series East) is a regional stock car racing series owned and operated by the Automobile Racing Club of America (ARCA) and ...
series, as the series regulations were very similar, and until the mid-2000s,
ARCA drivers would usually attempt Cup races in the
Midwest and at restrictor-plate races.
NASCAR has rules currently in lower-tier series (Xfinity and Truck), but prior to 2015, Cup, where the top teams that did not qualify on time qualified based on owner points. Officially known a provisional starting positions, they are the opportunity for a "wildcard" type starting position at the end of the grid. This allowed track owners to advertise and guarantee to fans that the most popular drivers would participate in the race (pleasing fans in attendance, and preventing no-shows) even if the driver had an unfortunate mishap (e.g., blown engine) or crash during time trials. All provisionals are based on team performance, except in lower tiers where past champion status or most recent winning driver, can earn the provisional.
During the
NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race
The NASCAR All-Star Race, formerly known as The Winston from 1985 to 2003, the Nextel All-Star Challenge from 2004 to 2007, the Sprint All-Star Race from 2008 to 2016, and the Monster Energy NASCAR All-Star Race from 2017 to 2019, is an annual NAS ...
(a non-points exhibition event) one driver who fails to qualify for the race is awarded a wildcard spot via "Fans Choice" vote. In 2008,
Kasey Kahne
Kasey Kenneth Kahne (; born April 10, 1980) is an American dirt track racing driver and former professional stock car racing driver. He last competed in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series in 2018, driving the No. 95 Dumont Jets/ Procore Technolo ...
, was selected as a wildcard via fan vote, and went on to win the race.
From
2011 to
2013
File:2013 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: Edward Snowden becomes internationally famous for leaking classified NSA wiretapping information; Typhoon Haiyan kills over 6,000 in the Philippines and Southeast Asia; The Dhaka garment fa ...
, NASCAR's top-level Sprint Cup Series, since renamed the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series, used "wildcards" in a different context, namely that of qualifying for the season-ending Chase for the Sprint Cup, now rebranded as the
NASCAR playoffs. In previous seasons, the top 12 drivers in championship points after the first 26 races of the season automatically qualified for the Chase, with their points reset to a point unreachable by any other driver. Under the 2011–2013 system, only the top 10 drivers automatically qualified. The other two Chase qualifiers were the two drivers ranked from 11th through 20th after 26 races with the most race wins, with tiebreakers used as necessary to restrict the number of "wildcards" to two. Major changes to the Chase format that took effect in 2014, most notably determining the newly expanded Chase field of 16 mainly by race wins, eliminated this type of "wildcard".
College and university sports
NCAA
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...
tournaments in all of its sports have included wildcard berths, typically known as at-large berths or at-large bids. Winners of each
athletic conference
An athletic conference is a collection of sports teams, playing competitively against each other in a sports league. In many cases conferences are subdivided into smaller divisions, with the best teams competing at successively higher levels. Conf ...
's tournament (or, in the case of basketball's
National Invitation Tournament, the team with the best regular season record in that conference) are granted automatic bids into the tournament, and a selection committee fills the remaining slots in the tournament bracket with who it determines to be the best teams who did not win their tournament (in practice,
major conferences with stronger reputations and more revenue are invariably favored over
mid-major
Mid-major is a term used in American NCAA Division I college sports, particularly men's basketball, to refer to athletic conferences that are not among the "Power Five conferences" (the ACC, Big 10, Big 12, Pac-12, and SEC), which are alternativ ...
s with similar records).
College basketball
Each year, the NCAA grants
automatic berth
Automatic may refer to:
Music Bands
* Automatic (band), Australian rock band
* Automatic (American band), American rock band
* The Automatic, a Welsh alternative rock band
Albums
* ''Automatic'' (Jack Bruce album), a 1983 electronic roc ...
s in both the men's and women's Division I basketball tournaments to the winners of 32 conferences. Since the
Ivy League
The Ivy League is an American collegiate athletic conference comprising eight private research universities in the Northeastern United States. The term ''Ivy League'' is typically used beyond the sports context to refer to the eight school ...
added a conference tournament in 2017, every conference's automatic berth is granted to the team that wins its conference postseason tournament.
The NCAA has established Selection Committees for both the men's and women's tournaments. Teams that did not win their conference tournament may be eligible to earn an at-large berth. At-large berths are determined by record, ranking, the strength of schedule, and many other factors. A key factor in determining at-large berths is the
Ratings Percentage Index, popularly referred to as the NET.
The fields of 68 teams that participate in both the men's tournament and the women's tournament are filled as follows:
*32 automatic berths (since the 2021-22 season, winners of each conference tournament)
*At-large berths
**36 in the men's tournament
**36 in the women's tournament
After all automatic berths are filled, the teams that did not win their conference tournaments are studied to see if they can make the tournament anyway. Once conference tournaments are complete, the Selection Committee need not consider conference affiliations in determining at-large berths, making it free to select as many teams from one conference as it deems correct. Most
mid-major
Mid-major is a term used in American NCAA Division I college sports, particularly men's basketball, to refer to athletic conferences that are not among the "Power Five conferences" (the ACC, Big 10, Big 12, Pac-12, and SEC), which are alternativ ...
conferences or smaller conferences will receive no at-large berths, and only the winner of the conference tournament will advance to the NCAA Tournament, making for some heartbreaking moments in the tournaments of smaller conferences.
The conference tournaments of major conferences are generally less important, as most losers will make the "Big Dance" via an at-large bid, but often lesser big conference teams will sneak in using the conference tournament, stealing a bid from a deserving mid-major team in the long run.
At-large berths are not necessarily lesser teams than automatic berths. They simply did not play well enough at the time of their conference tournaments. Often, at-large berths will get higher seeds than the teams that beat them in the conference tourney, because the Selection Committee judges base their judgment on the entire season.
Division I independents do not play a conference tournament and therefore do not have an automatic berth, and can only receive an at-large bid to the tournament, which rarely happens in today's game. Sometimes, a team that is otherwise deserving of a bid may be ineligible for the tournament due to an NCAA post-season ban, applied only as a punishment for egregious violations of NCAA rules in that school's program in that sport.
With a 68-team field and 32 automatic berths, the Selection Committee must pick the 36 (men's and women's) most deserving teams that are left, which ends up being a long difficult process, which culminates in one of the most intense days in U.S. sports,
Selection Sunday
The selection process for college basketball's NCAA Division I Men's and Women's Basketball Tournaments determine which teams (68 men's and 68 women's) will enter the tournaments (the centerpieces of the basketball championship frenzy known as ...
. Selection Sunday is a televised event where the
brackets are revealed. There are almost always interesting arguments about who should be in and who should be out because there are often more than 34 teams that could be considered deserving of a bid. Many final teams that make it, and final teams that are cut are often thought of as interchangeable. This ends up resulting, sometimes, in major surprises of who makes the tournament as at-large teams. At-large teams often will win the tournament which included the last four NCAA Men's Basketball Champions (Connecticut in 2014, Duke in 2015, Villanova in 2016 and North Carolina in 2017).
Conferences
The conferences that are known for many at-large bids are generally the so-called
Power Five conferences
The Power Five conferences are the five most prominent and highest-earning athletic conferences in college football in the United States. They are part of the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of NCAA Division I, the highest level of collegiat ...
that receive automatic places in the
bowl game
In North America, a bowl game is one of a number of post-season college football games that are primarily played by teams belonging to the NCAA's Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). For most of its history, the Division I Bowl Subdivi ...
s associated with the
College Football Playoff
The College Football Playoff (CFP) is an annual postseason knockout invitational tournament to determine a national champion for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), the highest level ...
—the
ACC
ACC most often refers to:
* Atlantic Coast Conference, an NCAA Division I collegiate athletic conference located in the US
*American College of Cardiology, A US-based nonprofit medical association that bestows credentials upon cardiovascular spec ...
,
Big Ten
The Big Ten Conference (stylized B1G, formerly the Western Conference and the Big Nine Conference) is the oldest Division I collegiate athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representati ...
,
Big 12
The Big 12 Conference is a college athletic conference headquartered in Irving, Texas, USA. It consists of ten full-member universities. It is a member of Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) for all sports. Its f ...
,
Pac-12, and
SEC.
Other conferences that receive multiple at-large bids on a regular basis are the high-major offshoots of the
original Big East Conference, the
current Big East and
The American. The
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 ...
and the
Mountain West receive multiple bids on a regular basis as well. The
Horizon League
The Horizon League is an 11-school collegiate athletic conference in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I, whose members are located in and near the Great Lakes region.
The Horizon League founded in 1979 as the Midw ...
,
Mid-American Conference
The Mid-American Conference (MAC) is a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) NCAA Division I, Division I collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference with a membership base in the Great Lakes region (North America), Great L ...
,
Missouri Valley and
West Coast Conference have also received more than just the automatic berth several times.
Certain conferences have never, and probably will not in the near future, get an at-large bid, simply because no team in the conference can ever be one of the best 68 teams in the country, and even if one does, two at the same time would be virtually unheard of. Therefore, it is also often argued that these very small conferences do not even deserve their one automatic bid and it should be given to a more deserving large conference team. Most argue that this would take away from the point of the 68-team large tournament style, that always gives the
underdog
An underdog is a person or group in a competition, usually in sports and creative works, who is largely expected to lose. The party, team, or individual expected to win is called the favorite or top dog. In the case where an underdog wins, the ...
the chance for an
upset. These conferences include the
Big Sky Conference
The Big Sky Conference (BSC) is a collegiate athletic conference affiliated with the NCAA's Division I with football competing in the Football Championship Subdivision. Member institutions are located in the western United States in the eig ...
and the
Southwestern Athletic Conference. One of these conferences recently made an argument for their best team to make the tournament, even though it lost in the conference tourney.
Oral Roberts
Granville Oral Roberts (January 24, 1918 – December 15, 2009) was an American Charismatic Christian televangelist, ordained in both the Pentecostal Holiness and United Methodist churches. He is considered one of the forerunners of t ...
of the
Mid-Continent Conference
The Summit League, or The Summit, is an NCAA Division I intercollegiate athletic conference with its membership mostly located in the Midwestern United States from Illinois on the East of the Mississippi River to the Dakotas and Nebraska on the W ...
blew through their conference in the regular season but lost in the conference tournament, ending with a conference record of 17–1. They did not make the tournament, and
Oakland University won the bid.
Utah State
Utah State University (USU or Utah State) is a public land-grant research university in Logan, Utah. It is accredited by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities. With nearly 20,000 students living on or near campus, USU is Utah's ...
and
Holy Cross also had arguments like this recently. A new way to solve the problem is to attempt to switch to a more prominent conference, a phenomenon that was especially prevalent in
2005 and
the early 2010s. Many teams made significant moves in that period, with some making multiple moves. A few of the more notable moves were:
* Butler (Horizon League to A10 in 2012, then to the new Big East in 2013)
* Louisville (C-USA to Big East in 2005, spent one season in The American after the 2013 Big East split, then to the ACC in 2014)
* TCU (C-USA to MW in 2005, then to the Big 12 in 2012)
* UCF (
Atlantic Sun Conference
The ASUN Conference, formerly the Atlantic Sun Conference, is a collegiate athletic conference operating mostly in the Southeastern United States. The league participates at the NCAA Division I level, and began sponsoring football at the Div ...
to C-USA in 2005, then to The American in 2013)
* Utah (MW to Pac-12 in 2011)
Other tournaments
The
NIT, held for the best teams that did not make the NCAA Tournament, was at one time an entirely at-large event (hence its name, the National Invitation Tournament); new regulations, however, offer automatic bids to teams regular season conference champions which failed to win their post-season conference tournament. The
College Basketball Invitational
The College Basketball Invitational (CBI) is a men's college basketball tournament created in 2007 by The Gazelle Group. The inaugural tournament occurred after the conclusion of the 2007–08 men's college basketball regular season. The CBI s ...
and
CollegeInsider.com Postseason Tournament
The CollegeInsider.com Postseason Tournament (CIT) was an American men's college basketball postseason tournament founded by Collegeinsider.com. The tournament was oriented toward schools that did not get selected for the NCAA Division I men's ...
both seed their entire tournaments with at-large bids.
College football
At-large bids are sometimes used for
bowl games
In North America, a bowl game is one of a number of post-season college football games that are primarily played by teams belonging to the National Collegiate Athletic Association, NCAA's NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision, Division I Fo ...
contested between
NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision teams. Most bowl games have tie-ins with specific conferences; for example, the
Rose Bowl Game has traditionally hosted conference champions from the
Big Ten Conference
The Big Ten Conference (stylized B1G, formerly the Western Conference and the Big Nine Conference) is the oldest Division I collegiate athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representati ...
and
Pac-12 Conference (or their predecessors). Conferences are sometimes unable to provide a team to a bowl that they have a tie-in with; this happens when a conference has signed tie-in contracts with more bowls than the number of bowl-eligible teams it has in a given year. In such cases, bowl organizers will issue an at-large bid to a team in another conference or an
independent
Independent or Independents may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups
* Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s
* Independ ...
team.
For example, the
2009 Humanitarian Bowl
The 2009 Humanitarian Bowl was the thirteenth edition of the college football bowl game, and was played at Bronco Stadium in Boise, Idaho, on the campus of Boise State University. The game started at 2:30 pm MST on Wednesday, December 30, 2009 ...
had tie-ins with the
Western Athletic Conference
The Western Athletic Conference (WAC) is an NCAA Division I conference. The WAC covers a broad expanse of the western United States with member institutions located in Arizona, California, New Mexico, Utah, Washington, and Texas.
Due to mos ...
and the
Mountain West Conference
The Mountain West Conference (MW) is one of the collegiate athletic conferences affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) (formerly I-A). The MW officially began operations ...
. However, the
TCU Horned Frogs
The TCU Horned Frogs are the athletic teams that represent Texas Christian University. The 18 varsity teams participate in NCAA Division I and in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) for football, competing mostly in the Big 12 Conference. The sc ...
of Mountain West were selected for the
Fiesta Bowl
The Fiesta Bowl is an American college football bowl game played annually in the Phoenix metropolitan area. From its beginning in 1971 until 2006, the game was hosted at the Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Arizona. Since 2007, the game has been pla ...
(a New Year's Six bowl game), and all of the Mountain West's other teams were either tied into other bowls or ineligible. As a result, bowl organizers issued an at-large bid, which went to the
Bowling Green Falcons
The Bowling Green Falcons are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent Bowling Green State University (BGSU), in Bowling Green, Ohio, United States. The Falcons compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at the Div ...
of the
Mid-American Conference
The Mid-American Conference (MAC) is a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) NCAA Division I, Division I collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference with a membership base in the Great Lakes region (North America), Great L ...
.
Game shows
''Jeopardy!''
Wildcards are a regular feature in
tournaments
A tournament is a competition involving at least three competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses:
# One or more competitions held at a single venue and concentr ...
of the popular game show ''
Jeopardy!
''Jeopardy!'' is an American game show created by Merv Griffin. The show is a quiz competition that reverses the traditional question-and-answer format of many quiz shows. Rather than being given questions, contestants are instead given gene ...
''.
''Jeopardy!'' tournaments generally run for 10 consecutive episodes (which air from Monday to Friday inclusive over two weeks) and feature 15 contestants. The first week's five episodes, called the "quarter-finals", feature three new contestants each day. The winners of these five games, and the four highest scoring non-winners ("wildcards"), advance to the semi-finals, which run for three days. The winners of these three games advance to play in a two-game final match, in which the scores from both games are combined to determine the overall winner. This format has been used since the first Tournament of Champions in 1985 and was devised by the late long time host
Alex Trebek himself.
To prevent later contestants from playing to beat the earlier wildcard scores instead of playing to win, contestants are "completely isolated from the studio until it is their time to compete."
If there is a tie for the final wildcard position, the non-winner that advances will be based on the same regulations as two contestants who tie for second in a regular game; the tie-breaker is the contestant's score after the Double Jeopardy! round, and if further tied, the score after the Jeopardy! round determines the contestant who advances as the wildcard.
If two or more contestants tie for the highest score (greater than zero) at the end of a first round match, the standard tiebreaker is used with the player who loses that tiebreaker eligible for a wildcard. If none of the contestants in a quarter-final or semi-final game end with a positive score, no contestant automatically qualifies from that game, and an additional wildcard contestant advances instead.
This occurred in the quarter-finals of the 1991 Seniors Tournament and the semi-finals of the 2013 Teen Tournament.
In the 2022 Polish version Tournament of Champions, which used 18 players, the 18 players were split into two groups of nine. The three winners in each group played in the semifinals, and the wild card was given to the highest scoring non-winner there to advance to the finals.
Use outside North America
Although the term "wildcard" is not generally common in sports outside North America, a few competitions effectively (used to) employ such a system to determine one or more reserved places in a particular phase of a competition.
Olympics
In the Olympics, several
sport governing bodies
A sports governing body is a sports organization that has a regulatory or sanctioning function.
Sports governing bodies come in various forms and have a variety of regulatory functions. Examples of this can include disciplinary action for rul ...
award wildcards to nations in order to further promote their sport. Sports governing bodies will either make selections or hold a tournament to determine the wildcards. One such notable wildcard selection was
Equatorial Guinea swimmer
Eric Moussambani
Eric Moussambani Malonga (born 31 May 1978) is an Equatoguinean swimmer. Nicknamed Eric the Eel by the media, Moussambani won brief international fame at the 2000 Summer Olympics for an extremely unlikely victory. Moussambani, who had never se ...
, who finished last in the 100m meter event in the 2000 Summer Olympics. Other times, wildcard spots are offered to ease political tension
such as the case of
North Korean athletes participating in the 2018 Winter Olympics despite most of them not meeting the qualification criteria.
Basketball
FIBA Basketball World Cup
The world championship for basketball, the
FIBA Basketball World Cup, invites four wildcards to complete its 24-team field. Teams have to participate in qualifying for the World Cup, have to apply to be one, and FIBA is not allowed more than three teams from the same continent in order to be selected. This setup began in 2006, where Italy, Puerto Rico, Serbia and Montenegro, and Turkey were selected by FIBA; Turkey made the best performance, reaching the quarterfinals. In 2010, FIBA selected Germany, Lithuania, Lebanon, and Russia as the wildcards, with Lithuania finishing third, and Russia making it to the quarterfinals. For the
2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup, FIBA selected Brazil, Finland, Greece, and Turkey; 2014 will be the last time FIBA will select wildcards, as the
2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup would no longer have wildcards when it expands to 32 teams. The perennial top two FIBA Oceania team namely Australia and New Zealand as wildcard teams of FIBA Asia Cup 2017 in Lebanon. These two teams are also part of FIBA Asia in Basketball tournaments including FIBA World Qualifying Tournament for FIBA World Cup 2019 in China.
Philippine Basketball Association
In the
Philippine Basketball Association
The Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) is a men's professional basketball league in the Philippines composed of twelve company-branded franchised teams. Founded in 1975, it is the first professional basketball league in Asia and is the se ...
, the playoffs are done after an elimination (in 2005–06, a classification) round where the top two teams with the best records are given semi-final byes, the next 3 are given quarterfinal byes, the next 4 are given entry to the wildcard phase, and the tenth team is eliminated.
The winner of the wildcard playoffs, varying in format from a round-robin, a single-elimination or sudden death, usually meets the strongest quarterfinalist (the 3rd seed). The wildcard winner's next opponent for the quarterfinals rested while the wildcard phase was ongoing so the chance of advancing to the semi-finals (in which a team rested longer) is slim.
The only wildcard champion are the 7th-seeded
Barangay Ginebra Kings
A barangay (; abbreviated as Brgy. or Bgy.), historically referred to as barrio (abbreviated as Bo.), is the smallest administrative division in the Philippines and is the native Filipino term for a village, district, or ward. In metropolita ...
in the
2004 PBA Fiesta Conference
The 2004 PBA Fiesta Conference, or known as the 2004 Gran Matador Brandy-PBA Fiesta Conference for sponsorship reasons, was tournament held by the Philippine Basketball Association and the first ever edition of the PBA Fiesta Conference.
Prior to ...
after 7 years of championship drought they made an epic run all the way to the throne, in which the top 2 teams were given semifinal byes while the bottom eight went through a knock-out wildcard tournament. Since the addition of the quarterfinal bye, no wildcard has entered the Finals, although the
Air21 Express
The Air21 Express were a professional basketball team in the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) that debuted in the 2011–12 season. The team debuted as the Shopinas.com Clickers during the 2011–12 PBA Philippine Cup. In 2014, the fran ...
won the third-place trophy at the
2005-06 PBA Fiesta Conference. The wildcard set up was no longer used when the league reverted to the 3-conference format starting from the
2010–11 PBA season
The 2010–11 PBA season was the 36th season of the Philippine Basketball Association. It started on October 3, 2010 .
Euroleague
The
Euroleague, a Europe-wide competition for elite
basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...
clubs, once had one "wildcard" advancing from its first phase, officially the Regular Season, to its second, called the Top 16. The rule was in place through the 2007–08 season.
At that time, the competition began each year with 24 clubs, divided into three groups. (Today, the competition starts with a preliminary stage of 16 teams playing down to two survivors, who join 22 other teams in the Regular Season.) Then as now, the groups played a double round-robin for the Regular Season, with eight clubs eliminated and the remaining clubs advancing to the Top 16. Under the rules in place through 2007–08, the top five clubs in each group automatically advanced. The final "wildcard" spot in the Top 16 went to the sixth-place club with the best overall record, with three potential tiebreaking steps. A coin toss is not indicated as a possible step.
Starting in 2008–09, the "wildcard" was abolished when the Regular Season was reorganized into four groups with 6 teams apiece. Now, the top four teams in each group advance to the Top 16. No change to the tiebreakers was made.
Starting in 2016–17 with the new league format, wildcard have been reintroduced.
ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final
For both the junior and senior
Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final (which starting in the 2008–2009
figure skating
Figure skating is a sport in which individuals, pairs, or groups perform on figure skates on ice. It was the first winter sport to be included in the Olympic Games, when contested at the 1908 Olympics in London. The Olympic disciplines are m ...
season will be merged into a single two-division event), the hosting federation may issue a wildcard invitation to one of their own skaters should no skater from the host country qualify for the event through the
Grand Prix
Grand Prix ( , meaning ''Grand Prize''; plural Grands Prix), is a name sometimes used for competitions or sport events, alluding to the winner receiving a prize, trophy or honour
Grand Prix or grand prix may refer to:
Arts and entertainment ...
circuit. Use of the wildcard has not been common; however, it was used at the
2007–2008 Junior Grand Prix Final by the Polish federation.
All-Ireland Senior (Gaelic) Football Championship
In the
All-Ireland Senior Football Championship
The All-Ireland Senior Football Championship (SFC) ( ga, Craobh Shinsir Peile na hÉireann) is the premier competition in Gaelic football. An annual tournament organised by the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA), it is contested by the county ...
, the premier competition in
Gaelic football, each of the
thirty-two counties in Ireland as well as
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, 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 dow ...
and
New York play in their respective Provincial Championships through a
knock-out cup competition format without
seeds. The winners of each of the four Provincial Championships earn one of eight places in the All-Ireland Quarter Finals.
The thirty teams that fail to win their respective Provincial Championships receive a second opportunity to reach the All-Ireland Series via the
All Ireland Qualifiers (also known as the 'back door', similar to a wildcard).
Road cycling
In road cycling (teams), a wildcard refers to an invitation to a race which a particular team would not normally be able to enter. Usually used for top division (currently
UCI World Tour
The UCI WorldTour (2009–2010: ''UCI World Ranking'') is the premier men's elite road cycling tour, sitting above the UCI ProSeries and various regional UCI Continental Circuits. It refers to both the tour of 38 events and, until 2019, an ann ...
) races where the organization want more teams, lower league teams will be invited. It is very common to offer a wildcard for teams from the same country to help local sport and to boost national pride. For example, for the 100th "
Tour de France
The Tour de France () is an annual men's multiple-stage bicycle race primarily held in France, while also occasionally passing through nearby countries. Like the other Grand Tours (the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a España), it consists ...
" in
2013
File:2013 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: Edward Snowden becomes internationally famous for leaking classified NSA wiretapping information; Typhoon Haiyan kills over 6,000 in the Philippines and Southeast Asia; The Dhaka garment fa ...
, the organisers (the
Amaury Sport Organisation
The Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO) is part of the French media group Éditions Philippe Amaury. It organises the Tour de France and other cycling races, as well as golf, running, sailing and off-road motorsport events. The president of ASO is Je ...
) awarded three wildcards to French teams:
Cofidis
Cofidis is a French company, now majority owned by Crédit Mutuel, based in Villeneuve-d'Ascq.
Founded in 1982 by 3 Suisses International in cooperation with Cetelem, Cofidis specialized in the consumer credit business of the 3 Suisses Group. I ...
,
Sojasun and
Team Europcar, all of which were
UCI Professional Continental
The UCI Continental Circuits are a series of road bicycle racing competitions which were introduced in 2005 by the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) to expand cycling around the world. The five circuits (representing the continents of Africa, the ...
teams at the time and therefore not automatically invited, unlike the
UCI ProTeam UCI most commonly refers to:
* University of California, Irvine, a public university in Irvine, California, United States
* Union Cycliste Internationale, the world governing body for the sport of cycling
UCI may also refer to:
* Uganda Cancer In ...
s which made up the vast majority of the entry list.
Teams can apply for a wildcard.
In January 2015, Team
MTN-Qhubeka
Team Qhubeka () was a UCI WorldTeam based in South Africa. The team rode to raise awareness and funds for Qhubeka, a South African not-for-profit organisation. The team was founded in 2007 and was the first-ever African team to ride the Tour de ...
from South Africa accepted an invitation to participate in the 2015 edition of "
Tour de France
The Tour de France () is an annual men's multiple-stage bicycle race primarily held in France, while also occasionally passing through nearby countries. Like the other Grand Tours (the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a España), it consists ...
". MTN-Qhubeka was the first African team to receive a wildcard entry into the event that was held from 4 to 26 July 2015.
Rugby
European club rugby competitions
Rugby union
Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In it ...
's analogue to the Euroleague is the
European Rugby Champions Cup, which replaced the previous top-level club competition, the
Heineken Cup, starting with the 2014–15 season. The Champions Cup maintains a system originally created for the Heineken Cup in which some "wildcard" teams advance to the competition's knockout stages. Also starting in 2014–15, the organiser of the Champions Cup,
European Professional Club Rugby
European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR) is the governing body and organiser of the two major European rugby union club tournaments: the European Rugby Champions Cup and the European Rugby Challenge Cup. A third tournament, the European Rugby Chall ...
, introduced this type of "wildcard" to the second-level
European Rugby Challenge Cup
The EPCR Challenge Cup is an annual rugby union competition organised by European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR). It is the second-tier competition for clubs based in European leagues behind the European Rugby Champions Cup. From its inception ...
.
During the last five seasons of the Heineken Cup (2009–10 to 2013–14), another "wildcard" system allowed teams to parachute into the original
European Challenge Cup
The EPCR Challenge Cup is an annual rugby union competition organised by European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR). It is the second-tier competition for clubs based in European leagues behind the European Rugby Champions Cup. From its inception i ...
, which has now been replaced by the current Challenge Cup. This was scrapped with the creation of the current Challenge Cup.
Both the Champions Cup and current Challenge Cup involve 20 clubs (compared to 24 in the Heineken Cup and 20 in the original Challenge Cup), divided into pools of four clubs with each club playing a double round-robin within its pool. In both competitions, eight clubs advance to the knockout stages. The top club in each pool advances; the three "wildcard" places are filled by the second-place clubs with the best overall records. For the Champions Cup, the number of wildcards increased by one from the Heineken Cup era; both versions of the Challenge Cup had three wildcards, but the original version filled them in an entirely different manner.
In the final years of the Heineken Cup, starting in 2009–10 and ending with the 2014 reorganisation of European club rugby, the three second-place teams with the next-best records after those that advanced to the Heineken Cup knockout stage parachuted into the Challenge Cup.
The tiebreaking procedure used to determine overall seeding, which was devised in the Heineken Cup era and carried over intact into the current era, is almost as elaborate as that of the NFL, with a total of seven steps (a coin flip is the last).
Prior to 2009–10, the original Challenge Cup also had "wildcard" teams entering its knockout stages. The top club in each pool advanced to the knockout stage, along with the three second-place teams with the best records, using the same tiebreaking procedure as the Heineken Cup. Starting in 2009–10, only the winner of each pool entered the knockout stage, to be joined by the teams parachuting in from the Heineken Cup. As noted above, with the creation of the new Challenge Cup, that competition abandoned this system in favour of the system used in the Champions Cup.
Super Rugby
The
Super Rugby competition, involving regional franchises from Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, adopted a new playoff system with "wildcards" when it expanded to 15 teams in
2011.
In its previous incarnations as Super 12 and Super 14 (each number reflecting the number of teams in the competition), it used a
Shaughnessy playoff system The Shaughnessy playoff system is a method of determining the champion of a sports league that is not in a divisional alignment. This format is also known as the Argus finals system. It involves the participation of the top four teams in the league ...
in which the top four teams advanced to a knockout stage. The expansion to 15 teams led to major changes in the competition format.
Through the
2015 season, the competition was divided into three conferences of five teams each, with every conference consisting solely of teams from one of the participating countries. At the end of the regular season, the winners of each conference received playoff berths. These teams were joined by three "wildcards", specifically the three non-winners with the most competition points without regard to conference. (Tiebreakers were employed as necessary.)
With the expansion of Super Rugby to 18 teams in
2016
File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the Impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses duri ...
, featuring a
permanent sixth franchise for South Africa and new teams based in
Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...
and
Japan, the competition format was changed again.
The competition is now divided into the Australasian Group, including all Australian and New Zealand teams, and the African Group, consisting of the South African teams plus the Argentine and Japanese franchises. In turn, the Australasian Group is divided into Australia and New Zealand Conferences, and the African Group is split into Africa 1 and Africa 2 Conferences. As in the 2011–15 system, the conference winners will receive playoff berths. The number of wildcards will increase to four, with the three top non-winners from the Australasian Group and the top non-winner from the African Group, again based on competition points, earning those spots.
Rugby World Cup
In the current format of the Rugby World Cup, a team that finishes 3rd in their group automatically gains a berth in the next Rugby World Cup (although they do not advance to the next round).
Additionally, the Rugby World Cup qualifying format uses a
repechage
Repechage (; french: repêchage, "fishing out, rescuing") is a practice in series competitions that allows participants who failed to meet qualifying standards by a small margin to continue to the next round. A well known example is the wild car ...
, in which teams from other regions that did not gain the automatic spot play each other for the final spots in the World Cup.
References
;Bibliography
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Wild Card (Sports)
Sports terminology
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Terminology used in multiple sports