North America
In North American professional sports leagues, "wild card" refers to a team that qualifies for the championship playoffs without winning their specific subdivision (usually called a 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 and/or to play the majority of their postseason games away from home.
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'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'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.
Read more about this topic: Wild Card (sports)
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