Elimination from postseason contention

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 available 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).