An automatic bid is a bid or berth to a tournament, granted based on performance in prior competition, and not based on subjective picking (see:

at-large bid At large (''before a noun'': at-large) is a description for members of a governing body who are elected or appointed to represent a whole membership or population (notably a city, county, state, province, nation, club or association), rather tha ...

). It is used in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

in all

professional sports In professional sports, as opposed to amateur sports, participants receive payment for their performance. Professionalism in sport has come to the fore through a combination of developments. Mass media and increased leisure have brought larger a ...

, in which all playoff bids are automatic and determined by objective formulae; in

college sports College sports or college athletics encompasses amateur sports played by non-professional, collegiate and university-level student athletes in competitive sports and games. College sports have led to many college rivalries. College sports tra ...

, all divisions (except the highest division of college football) use a mix of automatic bids and subjective selections to seed the postseason tournaments. In Men's and Women's Division I

college basketball College basketball is basketball that is played by teams of Student athlete, student-athletes at universities and colleges. In the Higher education in the United States, United States, colleges and universities are governed by collegiate athle ...

, the teams that win their conference tournament are granted automatic berths to the main tournament. The

Ivy League The Ivy League is an American collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference of eight Private university, private Research university, research universities in the Northeastern United States. It participates in the National Collegia ...

was the last Division I conference to institute a conference tournament, not doing so until the 2016–17 season; before then, the team with the best record in conference games advanced via automatic berth. Schools not in conferences, called "independents," have no conference tournament and can only advance to the NCAA Tournament via an at-large bid, which rarely happens unless the team performs well. As of the 2024-25 season, no Division I teams are competing as independents. Similar automatic bid processes are used in other NCAA sports with a post-season tournament. This allows a team with a losing record to qualify for the NCAA tournament based on winning the automatic bid via tournament. Another post-season college basketball tournament, the NIT, includes the best teams that were left out of the NCAA Tournament. Since the 2005 purchase of the NIT by the NCAA, automatic bids are now awarded to all regular season conference champions who did not win their conference tournament and did not get an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament.

References

See also