Talk:Wild card (sports)

Wild card in NFL sections
I think there is a mistake here. The 2006 colts were division champions, and therefore are not a wild card team to win the playoffs. Shouldn't this be deleted?

The US sports media use the phrase "clinch a playoff berth". Can someone shed some light on what this means, perhaps finding research on origins of applying terms clinch and berth Dudshan (talk) 03:02, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Wild card in MLB section
Deletions:
 * "This same scenario was repeated in 2004 when the wild-card Boston Red Sox had home-field advantage over the St. Louis Cardinals, a first-place team, and defeated the Cardinals in four games." (end of paragraph 1)

Not really. The Marlins-Indians controversy was cited as an example of a situation motivating the decision to change the home field advantage rule in 2003, and not just to point out a case in which it may have influenced a victory.


 * "As the 2003 champion, the Florida Marlins, were also a wild card." (end of paragraph 1)

Irrelevant. So were the Angels (2002) and Red Sox (2004) during that period.

Also, in paragraph 2: Not really sure if "seeding" in other sports is analagous to the manner in which contenders are paired in baseball. Left it in there anyway, but feel like the analogy should be deleted.

Wild card in NBA and NHL sections
Do a Google Search "NBA wild card teams" and "NHL wild card teams". 58.163.152.108 05:54, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-wild-card-playoff-team.htm ''Non-division winners are allowed into the playoffs in all four major American team sports, but it is not always referred to as a wild card. In the NBA and NHL, there only three division winners and five of what would be considered wild-card playoff teams in each conference, so the term "wild card" is not used.'' 58.163.152.108 05:54, 18 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Your point? This article does not call teams #4-#8 "wild card"; it states that they walk like a wild card, talk like a wild card, and quack like a wild card.


 * From the first line of your very own proof (which is not a reliable source): "A wild-card playoff team is a team that is entered into the postseason play of a given sports league despite not winning its own division"...sounds exactly like what I just said.  ju66l3r 05:57, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

"Use the discussion page" does not mean continue to vandalize the article while trying to prove your point here. Sprotection requested. ju66l3r 05:59, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

So a team that finishes 4th is considered a wild card? pfft that's bullshit. A team that finishes 4th has as much right to win the Conference Championship than a team that finishes 1st, 2nd, and 3rd does. And besides there's not many hits on Google. It mainly just shows up as Wikipedia referring to the NBA and the NHL having wild cards. 58.163.152.108 06:05, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

They're considered a wild card because they didn't win their division. They finished in second place. In the old days, only first place teams made the playoffs, so that's why they're called "wild cards." They may have the right to win their conference championship, but that honestly has nothing to do with whether or not they're a wild card. Wild cards in baseball and football have the right to win their conferences and leagues, as well.50.136.139.204 (talk) 11:32, 9 September 2015 (UTC)


 * No, you refuse to understand what is written. A team finishing #4 (and may have even finished #2 in the conference ahead of 2 other division leaders who get seeded #2 and #3) is the first team to get seeded after the division leaders ... #4.  They are accompanied by #5-#8...all of which make the playoffs in the same way as a wild card team.  That's why the section informs how much they are like  a wild card, even if the term is not used in their league.  For that reason, you are wrong on this one and should really understand that removing these sections in whole or throwing citation requests around is not appropriate editing.  ju66l3r 06:08, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

The reason that the NBA and the NHL don't use the term "wild card" is simply because there is no wild card teams in the first place!! 58.163.152.108 06:09, 18 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Precisely. That's why I'm glad the article is fine just the way it is.  Pnatt, please stop evading your ban and vandalizing wikipedia.  Thanks.  ju66l3r 06:13, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Well why leave it in the article then? 58.163.152.108 06:16, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

The article is fine. Stop evading your block on your earlier IP and in general your community ban. ju66l3r 06:19, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Honestly, I'm not able to make sense of the description of wild card in the NHL. But that problem aside, one thing that should be changed is the mention that the term is seldom used in the NHL. Nhl.com even has a "WILD CARD" tab on its standings page, and I hear commentators using the term all the time. Does the NHL redefine it? AngusCA (talk) 15:35, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Broader sense of term
In working on links to the dab page, I noticed that this article doesn't reflect that wild card is used in any sport (and thereby in a number of entries) when you have someone in the tournament who didn't qualify in the normal way. Even the MW definition reflects that:. I suppose that's why the globalize tag is here. So I went ahead and added it in at the beginning. Planetneutral 03:36, 7 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Isn't the North American sporting system the only one using Wild Cards? I don't hear about Wild Cards in Australia, for instance.--Kylohk 07:14, 2 August 2007 (UTC)


 * There's a whole section of the main article that seems to indicate otherwise. Planetneutral talk  22:14, 21 August 2007 (UTC)


 * There appears to be insufficient justification for the CSB tag as you don't cite any examples of a global sport that uses wild cards and is being excluded due to systematic bias. As you noted, a wild card is an individual or team picked to fill a leftover playoff or tournament berth after regularly qualifying competitors have all been determined.  Note those global sports which are missing and the tag is justified, otherwise the tag should be removed.Markbyrn 02:28, 3 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Removed globalize tag, agree with the above reasoning by Markbyrn. The article even states that the term is not normally used in this context outside of North American sports.  If that's not true, someone please document the uses of the term outside of the US then the article can be updated accordingly. Vrac (talk) 03:35, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I've edited the article to indicate that the term is widely used in the context of the Olympic Games, for any sport. Aridd (talk) 15:36, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Dudes, you can use semantics all you want about who or what constitutes a "Wild Card", but the Kansas City Chiefs were a Wild Card team in 1969 in the AFL, and they were the first Wild Card team to "win" a Super Bowl. I put that in quotes because Super Bowls III and IV integrity, whether they were honest games, is extremely dubious. Kind of like this statement:

"The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—that is, whether readers are able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether we think it is true. Editors should provide a reliable source for quotations and for any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, or the material may be removed."

You don't care is something is true, you just want a link to where someone can read it? No wonder wikipedia is the butt of so many jokes, like that episode of Family Guy where Brian says "If only there was some internet source where you could post anything want without it having to be true" and Stewie is showing typing in "Wikipedia" on a computer. That and your extremely narrow, PC, definition of what constitutes a "reliable source". Not to mention the liberal usage of the term "conspiracy theory" for anyone who doesn't go along with an official version of something, even when facts support them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.18.9.50 (talk) 19:44, 26 September 2009

I agree. There is no question that the Kansas City Chiefs were the first pro football wild card to win a Super Bowl. It doesn't matter that the term had not yet been invented - The term "Super Bowl" had not been invented for the first game (which was called the AFL-NFL World Championship Game), but we still call it Super Bowl I. The point is the "spirit" of the phrase:  It refers to a non-division winner. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 153.91.37.25 (talk) 21:12, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

The 1969 Chiefs weren't called a "wild card," but what makes them any different than a wild card?50.136.139.204 (talk) 11:34, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Merge with Repechage
Aren't wild cards essentially just a special case of repechage, applied to qualifying for a postseason? If so, perhaps a merge is in order. &mdash; Gwalla | Talk 22:56, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

NFL Wildcard Games
Could you please tell me the teams who just competed and won the NFL Wildcard Games this past weekend (Jan 2010)and what the date for the Superbowl will be? Sincerely,  Deborah Duffin  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.19.214.79 (talk) 21:27, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Motorsport - Motorcycle racing section
I have tagged the motorcycle racing sub-section as original research, added without any source citation(s) in this edit, during June, 2006.

My attention was drawn to it by a new editor who was trying to abstract infomation from the Wikipedia article to use as an argument to keep their unsourced edits, which later also contained synthesis.

I have also deadlinked-tagged the cited expansion added in January, 2008, as whilst these links may have been accurate around the time 2007/2008, they may not be applicable after that date.

The majority of other sections are equally unsourced, hence are editors' own thoughts on the subject. These are not my concern presently.--Rocknrollmancer (talk) 13:25, 18 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I added a banner template stating 'multiple issues' and 'original research' to draw attention to this badly-sourced article. The bot below is of no help as the 2007 archived material may not be relevant.--Rocknrollmancer (talk) 16:38, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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Merge "At-large bid"
The article at at-large bid (also redirected from at-large berth and a couple of variant spellings) is currently an unreferenced, unformatted article focussing on one event. I believe the actual terms are synonyms, and the lede of this article even implies as much, so propose that someone who understands it copies any useful NCAA content from the other page to here, and then make it a redirect. - IMSoP (talk) 17:07, 10 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Support: I would like to see the article shrunken down to the point where we can fit a section devoted to at-large bids here. Hopefully that will be done soon. –Piranha249 21:13, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I've completed the merge quite simply; feel free to cut the college section down in situ. ✅ Klbrain (talk) 05:09, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

Merging Major League Baseball Wild Card
The article is light on sources, and we already have List of National League Wild Card winners, List of American League Wild Card winners, and Major League Baseball Wild Card Game. I don't see an equivalent article in any of the other major sports. Is this standalone article really necessary? A lot of the information is duplicated here at Wild card (sports) already. 162 etc. (talk) 16:53, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Support a merge, if a move to Wild Card (baseball) doesn't occur. GoodDay (talk) 20:52, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose that merge target. I would think the MLB-specific page would be a better target, whichever name it works up with. There should definitely be a mention and link in this article, but just a straight merger gets it lost in the mix too much. The MLB Wild Card(s) have a particular distinctive notability because of how controversial their introduction was back in the 90s as unlike the other major sports, baseball had never had any sort of second place qualifier for the post season in 100 years. Lost of ink spilled on the matter making it stand out. oknazevad (talk) 21:38, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment I would prefer a merge and redirect to wherever Major League Baseball Wild Card Game ends up. Skipple  ☎  22:34, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Split Major League Baseball Wild Card - into the American League Wild Card Series & National League Wild Card Series. GoodDay (talk) 00:01, 16 September 2022 (UTC)