A play-in gameThe NBA is having real discussions about a playoffs play-in tournament (Feb 22, 2018) Retrieved Oct 10, 2018, from http://www.espn.com is a game, usually played at the beginning of a tournament or just prior to the tournament depending on how the tournament is defined. In a play-in, the lowest qualifiers or participants who have earned conditional qualification compete for qualification to the main portion of the tournament. This gives an added advantage to the higher or direct qualifiers, allowing them to rest or play non-elimination games, while the lower teams extend themselves by playing in elimination games. Further, teams that advance from a play-in must usually start the main tournament against the highest qualifier in the tournament and on the road. Having a play-in game allows for a tournament to have a number of teams that is not a
power of two
A power of two is a number of the form where is an integer, that is, the result of exponentiation with number 2, two as the Base (exponentiation), base and integer as the exponent. In the fast-growing hierarchy, is exactly equal to f_1^ ...
without having to grant byes in the main tournament. It also gives extra incentives for most if not all teams to play for, as better performing teams that would otherwise directly qualify relatively quickly instead have to try to continue winning, whether for the right to play a play-in qualifier or to avoid having to play in the extra game(s), while teams that would otherwise be eliminated from qualification just as quickly instead remain in contention for at least a play-in berth.
Examples
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MLB
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...
NFL
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league in the United States. Composed of 32 teams, it is divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The N ...
Wild Card games
* Wild Card games at the start of the major Canadian curling championships (
Scotties Tournament of Hearts
The Scotties Tournament of Hearts ('; commonly referred to as the Scotties) is the annual Canadian women's curling championship, sanctioned by Curling Canada, formerly called the Canadian Curling Association. The winner goes on to represent Can ...
and
Tim Hortons Brier
The Brier ('), known since 2024 as the Montana's Brier for sponsorship reasons, is the annual Canadian men's curling championship, sanctioned by Curling Canada. The Brier has been held since 1927, traditionally during the month of March.
The wi ...
, played since 2018)
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NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament
The NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament, branded as March Madness, or The Big Dance, is a single-elimination tournament played in the United States to determine the men's college basketball national champion of the NCAA Division I, Di ...
"
First Four
The First Four is a play-in round of the NCAA Division I men's and women's basketball tournaments. It consists of two games contested between the four lowest-ranked teams in the field (usually the four lowest-ranked conference champions), an ...
Indian Premier League
The Indian Premier League (IPL) is a professional Twenty20 (T20) cricket league in India, organised by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). Founded in 2007, it features ten city-based Professional sports league organization, fr ...
playoffs eliminator
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NBA play-in tournament
The NBA play-in tournament is the preliminary National Basketball Association (NBA) postseason tournament. It determines the final two playoff seeds in the Eastern Conference and Western Conference and is played immediately prior to the NBA pl ...
Australia Cup
The Australia Cup (currently known as the Hahn Australia Cup for sponsorship reasons) is the national association football, soccer single-elimination tournament, knockout cup competition in Australia. This annual competition is organised by Fo ...
: A-League teams are limited to 11 entrants in the round of 32. The first nine teams in the league qualify, with the last two places determined by two separate play-in games, held between 4th to last place against last place, then 2nd last and 3rd last against each other.
* NCAA Season 97 seniors' basketball tournament, one-off play-in tournament during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Philippines
* ''League of Legends'' World Championship, 2 stage play-in before finals – group stage and knockout stage
See also
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One-game playoff
A one-game playoff, sometimes known as a pennant playoff, tiebreaker game or knockout game, is a tiebreaker in certain sports—usually but not always professional—to determine which of two teams, tied in the final standings, will qualify for a ...