Bye (sports)
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A bye is when a player or team is allowed to advance to the next round of a playoff tournament without playing. This most commonly occurs if the number of entrants into the competition is not a power of two (i.e. not 4, 8, 16, 32, etc.), thus resulting in an odd number at some point. In large tournaments, sometimes the best-ranked players or teams get a bye in the first round(s), to reward them with less risk of elimination, as well as on the basis (particularly in seeded tournaments) that they would be most likely to eliminate the worst seeds anyway. Byes can be applied equally to single-person competitions and team sports, and well as to single-game eliminations and best-of series eliminiations.
In some tournaments, a player can elect to take a half-point bye for one round and not play.
[edit] Bye week
In the NFL, the two division winners from each of the two conferences with the best record are rewarded with a bye in the playoffs. This is sometimes referred to as a bye week, as one round is played per week. This is necessitated by the current 12-team playoff structure. Eight is the next lowest power of 2, so 4 teams must be eliminated in the first week before the 4 first-week winners continue in the playoff tournament with the 4 remaining teams. The NFL is the only one of the four major North American sports leagues to offer playoff byes. The CFL also offers a bye to its two division winners, directly to the division finals as four other teams compete in a semi-final week.
In Canadian and American football in general, the term "bye week" is more commonly used to refer to any week during the regular season in which a team does not have a game. Each team will have one "bye week" during a normal NFL season, between weeks 3 and 9. Unlike the above traditional usage, there is no advancement or tournament benefit from the missed week, and is simply in place for scheduling requirements.
In leagues such as the National Rugby League, where competition points are used to determine standings, the bye also garners points (in the NRL's case, two, equivalent to a win).
