
If circumstances dictate that the front-running team would win the tiebreaker regardless of any future results, then the additional constant 1 can be eliminated. The "+1" in the formula serves the purpose of eliminating ties without it, if the magic number were to decrease to zero and stay there, the two teams in question would wind up with identical records. Then the magic number for Team B to be eliminated is 162 + 1 − 96 − 62 = 5.Īny combination of wins by Team A and losses by Team B totaling 5 makes it impossible for Team B to win the division title. Suppose the top of the division standings late in the season are as follows: L B is the number of losses that Team B has in the seasonįor example, in Major League Baseball there are 162 games in a season.W A is the number of wins that Team A has in the season.G is the total number of games in the season.The magic number is calculated as G + 1 − W A − L B, where The largest elimination number among the non-first place teams is the magic number for the leading team. This number represents the number of wins by the leading team or losses by the trailing team which will eliminate the trailing team. Teams other than the front-running team have what is called an elimination number (or "tragic number") (often abbreviated E#). It could also be referred to as the "clinching number". Magic numbers are not usually used in sports where teams can be credited in some manner for part-wins in case of results such as ties and overtime losses. The widespread use of magic numbers is generally limited to sports where games only count in the standings when the result is a win and a loss. It represents the total of additional wins by the front-running team or additional losses (or any combination thereof) by the rival teams after which it is mathematically impossible for the rival teams to capture the title in the remaining number of games, assuming some highly unlikely occurrence such as disqualification or expulsion from the competition or retroactive forfeiture of games does not occur.

In certain sports, a magic number is a number used to indicate how close a front-running team is to clinching a division title and/or a playoff spot.

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