Fans may see sudden death as exciting and suspenseful, or they may view the format as compromising the sport, compared to play during regulation time.
This euphemism became one of announcer Curt Gowdy's idiosyncrasies in 1971 when the AFC divisional championship game between the Kansas City Chiefs and Miami Dolphins went into overtime.
In baseball, a winning run scored by the home team in an extra inning is often referred to as a walk-off, as the players can immediately walk off the field; the equivalent in cricket's Super Over tiebreaker is referred to as the winning team having successfully completed their run chase/chased down the target.
Sudden death has been perceived as a poor fit for gridiron football[citation needed] because the process gives an inherent advantage to the team who starts with possession of the ball: they can end the game immediately by driving a relatively short distance into field goal range and then kicking a field goal, but defensive scores such as the pick-six or the safety are much more rare.
Late in the 1940 season, NFL President Carl Storck announced that sudden death periods would be authorized for any playoff game needed to decide either division title.
True sudden death rules applied if both teams have had their initial possession and the game remains tied.
It was adopted to counter the criticism that the outcome of overtime games was very frequently decided by the coin toss, as the team which won it usually attempted only enough offensive action to maneuver into field goal range and seldom made a real effort to score a touchdown.
In many matches, if the score is tied after the full 90 minutes, a draw results; however, if one team must be eliminated, some form of tie-breaking must occur.
To try to decrease the chances of requiring kicks from the penalty mark, the IFAB, the world law-making body of the sport, experimented with new rules.
As this became unpopular, the silver goal rule was instituted, causing the game to end if the scores were not equal after the first 15-minute period as well as the second.
The silver goal has also fallen into disrepute; the UEFA Euro 2004 was the last event to use it, after which the original tie-breaking methods were restored.
The first sudden death in a World Cup after the penalty shoot-out ended equal was in dramatic West Germany vs France semi-final in 1982.
If the hosts should exceed the visitors' score, the game ends at the conclusion of the play on which the hosts take this insurmountable lead (if the final scheduled inning ends in a tie, multiple extra innings will be played, and that procedure repeats until one team leads, which wins the game).
It was popularized by a sports broadcaster after 2000, and is sometimes mistakenly thought to have been so named because "everyone walks off the field" after the winning run scores.
3x3, a formalized version of the half-court three-on-three game, uses an untimed overtime period that ends by rule once either team has scored 2 points.
In team tournaments, players may gain half a point each for a tie rather than play sudden death; this is the case in the Ryder Cup, for example.
In the Presidents Cup, there was provision for a single-player sudden death shootout if the entire competition ended in a tie.
There was no provision for an extra day's play, and both team captains agreed to declare the match tied and share the trophy.
Modern considerations such as television coverage and the tight travel schedule of most leading golfers have led to this practice being almost entirely abandoned, and in all but the most important tournaments, the champion is determined by sudden death.
Through 2017 (and last used in 2008), the U.S. Open had an 18-hole playoff at stroke play on the day after the main tournament, with sudden-death if needed after 18 holes.
Currently, the NHL, American Hockey League, and ECHL also use the sudden-death system in their regular seasons, playing a five-minute overtime period when the score is tied at the end of regulation time.
In 2000, the AHL reduced the teams to four players each during the five-minute overtime (but any two-man advantage is administered with five-on-three play rather than four-on-two).
In the case of a tie in competition judo, the match proceeds to Golden Score, another form of Sudden Death.
Kabaddi features a "golden raid" towards the end of its tiebreaking process, in which certain rules are modified to encourage point-scoring, and the team that scores first wins.
This particular rule, known as "Sudden Victory", has been commonly seen in previous seasons of the reality television show The Ultimate Fighter when the competition has consisted of two rounds.
A sudden victory round rule was also implemented in the tournament to decide Ultimate Fighting Championship's first Flyweight Champion.
A comparable draw leading to sudden death might happen if the shoulders of a wrestler applying a submission move are on the mat.
Drawn National Rugby League premiership and State of Origin series games are subject to sudden death extra time after 80 minutes of play, called the golden point.
However, no match in the history of the Rugby World Cup has ever gone past 100 minutes into a sudden-death extra time period.
In the World Rugby Sevens Series, a match that ends in draw proceeds to multiple sudden death periods of 5 minutes.