The concept of being "eliminated from postseason contention" is applicable to sports leagues and programs where qualifying requires a first-place finish or at-large bid (i.e., a "wild card" spot).
In the early days of organized sports, clubs were essentially gate-driven enterprises that depended on ticket sales for most of their revenue, and most leagues did not feature formal playoffs, instead awarding the championship to the team with the best regular season record.
Compounding this issue was that sports leagues in this era generally operated on the principle that a visiting team was entitled to a percentage of the gate receipts.
If this cut was insufficient to meet the costs of making the trip, the visiting team would often be reluctant to travel, let alone play, especially if they were also out of championship contention.
Often, especially in the early days of baseball, team owners deemed it more profitable to forfeit scheduled league games in order to play more lucrative exhibition contests.
The establishment of the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs in 1876 was the first serious effort to eliminate this practice, as the NL adhered to a strictly-enforced policy of expelling teams that refused to honor scheduling commitments.
Further to this, in the early days of the NL, the league had (and often enforced) a policy of moving games to an opponent's stadium in the event that the paid attendance fell to the point where visiting teams would be left unable to meet their expenses to make the trip.
Additionally, a team may take greater risks during the remaining games in order for players to master new skills or try plays a coaching staff believes will help them win in the future.
On the other hand, trades in a fire sale often bring a team draft picks and prospects who have little to no major-league experience in their sport, in exchange for proven, experienced veterans.
This is less of an issue at the major professional levels, where a greater portion of revenue comes from television rights fees that are locked into contracts years in advance.
This is sometimes referred to as "tanking" the remainder of the season, and is sometimes done by putting players on the field that are too young and/or inexperienced to realistically be expected to win many games.
[3] Coaches and managers can be released with less financial consequences to their team, compared to players who are often under guaranteed contracts making them somewhat costly to buy out.
Their loss, combined with a Tampa Bay Rays win over the AL East winner and Red Sox rival New York Yankees by two dramatic home runs, first in the 9th inning by Dan Johnson and later in extra innings by Evan Longoria, knocked the Red Sox out of the playoffs in favor of the Rays.
[8][9][10] In a testament to the Dodgers–Giants rivalry, the 1982 Los Angeles Dodgers knocked the 1982 San Francisco Giants out of playoff contention on the second-to-last day of the season.
With only a tie at home against the already-eliminated 4–11 Saskatchewan Roughriders, Calgary would have not only made the playoffs but would have dethroned their bitter archrivals the Edmonton Eskimos, who were the five-time defending Grey Cup champions but had struggled to finish with an 8–8 record.
Calgary led most of the game and eventually extended their lead to 23–20 with only 2:45 remaining, and only needed to hold Saskatchewan to a field goal from that point since at that time overtime was not used in the CFL regular season.
Saskatchewan recovered the ball on their opponents' 43 yard line, and on the ensuing drive Roughriders coach Reuben Berry, realizing a tie would be of no value for his team, crucially chose to gamble while facing a third down and eleven situation well within the field goal range of kicker Dave Ridgway.
The upset ended Calgary's season since Edmonton had a slim advantage in decisive tiebreaker (points-for-and-against ratio in divisional games) although the Eskimos' unexpected reprieve only lasted one week as they were throttled 49–22 by the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in the Western Semi-Final.