Wild card (sports)

Some North American professional sports leagues compare the records of teams which did not qualify directly by winning a division or conference.

[1] In Olympic and World Championship competitions in track and field and swimming, however, nations are automatically allowed to enter two competitors, so these instances are technically not wildcards.

[citation needed] 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.

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.

In the National Football League (NFL), since 2020, each of the two conferences sends three wild card teams along with four division champions to its postseason.

The change came largely in response to criticism from NFL loyalists following the New York Jets' upset win in Super Bowl III, who argued that the Jets had an "unfair" advantage since, having won the Eastern Division outright, they were the only pro team with a bye in the divisional round (the Western Division title having been determined by a traditional tiebreaker, played the same weekend as the NFL's divisional round, between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Oakland Raiders).

Despite Kansas City's upset wins over the Raiders and Minnesota Vikings, some purists argued for the tradition of having only division champions contest the playoffs to continue.

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 ended with a one-score loss to the Steelers in the AFC Championship Game.

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 2022–23 season this has not yet occurred.

[4] The NHL's current format is similar in some respects to the "cross-over rule" used by the Canadian Football League 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.

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.

[citation needed] The playoff format was revamped for the 2012 season, with all seeding done entirely in-conference, therefore eliminating any true wild card qualifiers.

Curling Canada introduced wild card teams starting with the 2018 Scotties Tournament of Hearts and 2018 Tim Hortons Brier.

Additional wild card berths are granted if the defending champion does not play and/or a member association does not enter a team (this occurred, for example, in the 2024 Scotties Tournament of Hearts when Nunavut withdrew) As a result, teams that advance to the championship pool will play twelve round robin games instead of eleven.

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.

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.

[citation needed] The MSMA (Motorcycle Sport Manufacturers’ Association) may, at each event, nominate 1 wildcard entry for the Moto2 and MotoGP classes.

As of 2014[update] six wildcards have won a Grand Prix: Mark Loram in 1999, Martin Dugard in 2000, Hans Andersen in 2006 (later that year he replaced a permanent rider and went on to win another GP), Michael Jepsen Jensen in 2012, Adrian Miedziński in 2013 and Bartosz Zmarzlik in 2014.

[16][17] The eligibility of wildcard entries is dependent on the championship – Formula One, for example, has an agreement in place that specifies a guaranteed number of teams and cars participate in all events with no exceptions.

To set a fair process, the slowest qualifiers participate in a special session, to determine the final grid positions and the 'bumped' cars.

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.

One such notable wildcard selection was Equatorial Guinea swimmer Eric Moussambani, who finished last in the 100m meter event in the 2000 Summer Olympics.

[citation needed] Other times, wildcard spots are offered to ease political tension[23] such as the case of North Korean athletes participating in the 2018 Winter Olympics despite most of them not meeting the qualification criteria.

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).

Since the addition of the quarterfinal bye, no wildcard has entered the Finals, although the Air21 Express won the third-place trophy at the 2005-06 PBA Fiesta Conference.

The Euroleague, a Europe-wide competition for elite basketball clubs, once had one "wildcard" advancing from its first phase, officially the regular season, to its second, called the Top 16.

For both the junior and senior Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final (which starting in the 2008–2009 figure skating 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 circuit.

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).

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.

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.