Elimination from postseason contention, or elimination from playoff contention, refers to the point when it is no longer mathematically possible for a sports team to qualify for its league's annual postseason, regardless of the outcomes of the team and the team(s) they are trailing in remaining games. This occurs when the number of wins by teams leading for all possible postseason spots, including a first-place finish (division title) or an at-large bid (where applicable) combined with the number of losses by a team trailing for the available postseason spots exceeds the number of games on the regular season schedule. Tiebreakers may also apply, when the combination of the number of wins by leading teams and losses by the team trailing matches the number of games on the regular season schedule.
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). It does not apply to certain sports leagues, often (but not always) for some high school and college-level sports where all teams participate in the playoffs or conference tournament, regardless of record. It also does not strictly apply to those sports that do not have a postseason or whose postseason criteria are too subjective to determine until the selectors make their decisions (this is especially true in American college sports, where teams in the four most lucrative and reputed athletic conferences are regularly awarded invitational bids to postseason tournaments even if they would otherwise have been eliminated had they been in a mid-major conference).
Definition When a sports season is reaching its conclusion, ranking watchers, such as the media, keep track of which teams have clinched divisions and playoff berths, and what teams close to this point must accomplish in order to achieve this ahead of the season's conclusion. Often, a team that has won a championship (such as a conference or divisional championship) is automatically granted a postseason berth, regardless of record, and there are still teams remaining in contention for one or more "wild card" or "at-large" playoff berths. At the same time, the poorer performing teams face the prospect of elimination before and sometimes long before the season is over. Elimination occurs when, regardless of the outcomes of all unplayed games on the league schedule, the eliminated teams miss the playoffs. In exceptional cases, such as forfeits against a leading team, an "eliminated" team may be chosen to advance in their stead.
The term "elimination" when used in the sense of the regular season differs from elimination when used in the postseason. In the postseason, a team is said to be "eliminated" or "knocked out" when it is defeated by another team it is playing in a round of the postseason, thereby ending the team's season. But a team eliminated during the regular season continues to play the remaining games on its schedule as a lame duck, and the value to the team's coaches and players in seriously contesting these games may vary (see below). In both cases, elimination prevents the team from further pursuing the league championship.
Effect on rest of the season
History
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. Once a team was no longer a contender for the best record in the league, this often served to seriously diminish interest in the team's remaining schedule from their fan base.
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.
The most notorious case of this came in 1899, when the Cleveland Spiders recorded the worst season in Major League Baseball history. At the time, games moved to opponents' stadiums were recorded as road games, and with paid attendances in Cleveland being anemic, the Spiders had 35 of their 77 home games moved. They finished with 101 road losses, a record that cannot be broken under modern MLB scheduling rules, and the Spiders folded after the 1899 season.
Modern era
While a team that has been officially eliminated must still play its remaining games on the regular season schedule, the team's behavior may differ from one that is striving for the postseason or has already clinched the playoffs. And among those "eliminated" teams, the teams' behavior will vary.
Oftentimes a team would be eliminated from clinching a division title, home field advantage, or other postseason advantages, but the wildcard or lower-seeded spot might still be attainable thus some teams may play with an effort to win in order to choose its first-round opponents.
When the team is eliminated from postseason contention, it does not need to worry about winning to qualify for the postseason, and the urgency to win may be lower. As a result, coaches may give playing time to backup and other lesser players who would not be used when a win is urgent, thereby giving them some real-game experience in an attempt to develop them. This is especially true at the high school and college levels, especially if a coach sees a number of players that are "promising". Former starters (such as seniors on a high school or college team) will often still be asked to play a role in helping develop their younger teammates, but their roles may be different than before. 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. And if a team has many younger players the coaching staff will sometimes play different combinations of players to see which ones work best together, another building block for future seasons.
Some teams who are practically or even mathematically eliminated before the trade deadline will hold a "fire sale", where they trade away many of its veteran players, especially expensive star players, to competing teams for less expensive and usually younger players. Teams usually have a fire sale for financial reasons. The term "fire sale" is generally thought of as different from merely "rebuilding" a team, because during a rebuilding process, teams often obtain players who are already in the major leagues or who are close to being major-league-ready, while retaining at least some of their key veterans (such as a franchise player) while also getting players from their minor league system; most rebuilding teams have few veterans remaining to jettison in the first place. 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. The term "fire sale" also comes from the perception that the team is trying to get rid of all its players. Getting rid of veterans and stars with high salaries does reduce the payroll which saves the team money for the remainder of the season.
Often, an eliminated team will now have the opportunity to play the role of spoiler – that is, possibly eliminate one or more teams from contention that had a chance to make the playoffs (especially if they were "on the bubble," or holding one of the lowest qualifying positions while still in contention and, as a result, their own qualification depends on the outcomes of other games and/or other teams' performances) or – if the opponent is in the playoffs, cause them to get a lower seed in the elimination tournament and/or lose home field advantage they had already provisionally secured.
Pride and opportunity also play into eliminated teams still striving to achieve victory on multiple occasions. These teams often want to go down swinging – that is, play their best even if there isn't a realistic chance they can defeat, much less compete with, future opponents. Sometimes, teams will still have to play an opponent they have a good chance of defeating, even if the opponent has made the playoffs: The teams may match up well on the field and have comparable playing ability, despite a disparity in win–loss records; the other team has players who are unavailable (starters are resting, key players are injured or suspended, etc.); or the opponent is from a lower division and, even with the opponent's excellent win–loss record, the team with the losing record can rather easily outmatch the opponent and, although with some work, readily achieve victory. For cases such as a divisional or geographical rivalry, a losing team nearly always puts in effort against their rival as it would be considered bad form by the fans of either team, along with the players and outside observers to not play with a full effort against a team which is considered the rival most identified with by a team.
Other reasons eliminated teams still try hard to win include achieving an improvement over the previous year's record, attempting to finish the season with a winning record (especially if winning the final game is needed to achieve that goal), or the team wants to avoid the stigma of a last place finish or worse, if they have yet to win, a winless season. For teams in sports that have been eliminated from a wild-card berth but qualifying is still possible by winning a conference tournament, the objective might be to win as many games as possible to try to earn as high of a seed as possible for the conference tournament, thereby increasing their chances of making the playoffs after all.
Teams that operate as for-profit operations may still be compelled to put a competitive product on display, to ensure fans continue to attend the games and purchase tickets. 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. In league systems that operate using promotion and relegation, even if a team may be eliminated from a postseason tournament, it may have to continue to play at a competitive level (for instance in the Premier League, one quarter is awarded on a merit basis based on final league position, the top club getting twenty times as much as the bottom club, and equal steps all the way down the table), and to avoid being relegated to a lower league (and thus lose a significant amount of revenue).