Bye (sports)

A bye in sports and other competitive activities can have two different meanings. First, in leagues where almost all teams play on the same days, the team (or teams) that does not play on that day is said to be on bye; in sports that are played weekly, especially gridiron football, a team that does not play at all during the week is said to be on its "bye week", but if they play on another day of the week, e.g. Monday or Thursday, they are not.^[1] (This definition is chiefly US.)

In round-robin tournaments where there are an odd number of competitors, usually one gets a bye in each and every round, as it is impossible for all competitors to play in the same round. However, over the whole tournament, each team plays the same number of games as well as sitting out for the same number of rounds during the tournament.

In knock-out (single elimination) tournaments, unless the total number of competitors is a power of two (e.g. 16 or 32) one or more competitors will not play in one round (usually the first round) and will proceed automatically to the following round. They are said to "have a bye".

Elimination tournaments

If the number of competitors in a single-elimination tournament is not a power of two, some of the competitors (teams or players) receive a bye in the first round, which lets them advance automatically to the second round without playing.

In a seeded tournament, the byes are granted to the top seeds, whereas in an unseeded tournament the byes are usually awarded by random draw.

Often, these byes will be awarded to the highest-rated competitors in the event as a reward for some previous accomplishment; indeed, in some American team sports — most notably American football — the number of teams qualifying for the postseason tournament will be intentionally set at a number which is not a power of two, in order to provide such an advantage to a high-achieving team in the just-completed regular season. However, a player/team getting a bye may get them just by luck or random chance (e.g. if there are 7 competitors, one random one will automatically advance to the semi-finals).

Another example is the NCAA Basketball Tournament, which must grant 60 byes for its "play-in" round, since it has 68 participants (128 - 68 = 60) and had to grant 16 first-round byes when it had 48 participants (64-48). Each of the NFL conferences playoff first rounds must grant two byes, since there are six teams in each (8-6). Both of the NCAA tournament and the NFL post-season (not the regular season) are seeded, single-elimination tournaments, so the highest-seeded participants are granted the necessary (single-elimination tournament) byes.

Multiple rounds of byes are also possible: in the English FA Cup, the football clubs in the top two league divisions enter in the third round "proper" (of eight); the two next-highest divisions' teams will have entered two rounds earlier in the first round; and teams which are even lower ranked have to play in up to 6 preliminary rounds to qualify for the first round "proper". Another example is the UEFA Europa League.

Gridiron football and Major League Baseball

• In a typical use of the term, the National Football League rewards two division winners from each of the two conferences which possess the best regular season record with a bye in the playoffs. This is necessitated by the 12-team playoff structure. Sixteen is the next power of 2, so four teams must be granted byes first week to complete the field.^[2] Beginning in 2012, Major League Baseball (MLB) joined the NFL in having byes, which are awarded to all division winners. There are 10 playoff teams in all of MLB (6 division winners + 4 wildcards or 3 division winners per league + 2 wildcards per league), so six teams must be granted byes in the first round to complete the field (16-10). National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League each allow 16 teams in their postseasons, and since 16 is a power of two, no teams receive byes. The Canadian Football League (CFL) also grants a bye to its two division winners, directly to the division finals as four other teams compete in a semi-final week.
• In both Canadian and American professional football leagues, the term "bye week" refers to any week during the regular season in which a team does not play a game. Each NFL team has one "bye week" during a normal season; this is placed on the schedule between Week 4 and Week 12 (in the 2005 season, byes occurred in week 3). The NFL has used the bye week since 1990 so as to extend the regular season schedule to 17 weeks. In 1993 each NFL team had 2 bye weeks. In the rare case of a game postponement due to various conditions or damage,^[3] a bye week also effectively acts as an open date to schedule a delayed game, with the day of postponement acting as the new "bye week".
• During the NFL seasons of 1960 and 1966, prior to the NFL-AFL merger in 1970, the NFL had an odd number of teams due to expansion. Each week during the season, one team had a bye. The American Football League also had an odd number of teams in 1966 and 1967 following the addition of the Miami Dolphins, leaving each team with one bye.
• In the 1999 through 2001 seasons, the NFL had an odd number of teams, 31, as a result of the new Cleveland Browns entering the league. Each week during these three seasons featured at least one team with its bye week. The league returned to 32 teams for the 2002 season with the addition of the Houston Texans and implemented a new bye week system that is in use today.
• Traditionally, the CFL and Arena Football League have scheduled byes only in seasons when they have had an odd number of teams in their leagues. The CFL introduced a scheduled bye week for its eight teams for the 2007 season, having had regular byes in its schedule since 2002 (the league had nine teams from 2002 to 2006 and will again have nine teams beginning in 2014).

Australian football codes

In Australia's National Rugby League (NRL), each team has two byes each season. During the representative period of the season (such as the State of Origin), byes are generally scheduled to the clubs that are expected to have the most players involved in the representative match, in the round preceding (or following) the representative fixture, to allow those clubs to sufficiently rest those players and prevent them from fielding a weakened side. On the competition ladder, teams are awarded two points (equivalent to a win) during their bye week. The only team not to be awarded premiership points for a bye were the Melbourne Storm in 2010 when they were revealed to have breached the salary cap, whereby they were not permitted to accrue any premiership points that year.^[4]

The Australian Football League, which comprises an even number of club, gives each club one bye week near mid-season. During the 2011 season, between 1994 and 1991, between 1924 and 1919, and in 1915, when an odd number of clubs competed, each club had two byes.

In both leagues, and under many other professional and amateur sports leagues in Australia, higher placed teams earn byes during finals, but double chance also (top seeds can lose a match and not be eliminated). Double chance is common in Australia, but it is not used in USA; to earn an easier passage to the Grand Final as reward for finishing higher on the ladder.

Gaelic football

In the Provincial Championships, a team may receive a bye. This is due to the irregular number of teams competing in each Championship. Thus the method used differs in each Provincial Championship.

For example, below is an assessment of the 2012 Provincial Championships, and their use of the "bye".

In the 2012 Connacht Senior Football Championship, a quarter-final was not played by Mayo. Mayo therefore advanced directly to the semi-final to await the winner of the game between Leitrim and London.

In the 2012 Leinster Senior Football Championship, three teams (Carlow, Dublin and Wexford) were permitted to advance to the quarter-finals without playing a game in the preliminary round.

In the 2012 Munster Senior Football Championship, two teams (Clare and Cork) were permitted to advance to the semi-finals without playing a game in the quarter-finals.

In the 2012 Ulster Senior Football Championship, all teams except Cavan and Donegal were permitted to advance to the quarter-finals without playing a game in the preliminary round. Cavan and Donegal played each other to determine which would join the other seven teams in the quarter-finals.

Connacht and Munster did not make use of a preliminary round, while Leinster and Ulster did.

Swiss system tournaments

In a Swiss-system tournament with an odd number of players, one player gets a bye in each round, but not all players will get a bye (as there are fewer rounds than there are players). However, as with the case of NFL "bye weeks", these "byes" do not confer any advantage, or in the case of a seeded tournament, that any player/team receiving one is perceived as any better than one that does not, as all of the participants receive one, whereas the awarding of a bye in a single-elimination tournament most definitely does, in both cases.

References