Magic number (sports)
In sports, a magic number is a number used to indicate how close a front-running team is to "clinching" a season title. It represents the total of additional wins by the front-running team or additional losses by the rival team after which it is mathematically impossible for the rival team to capture the title in the remaining games. This assumes that each game results in a win or a loss, but not a tie. Teams other than the front-running team have what is called an elimination number often abbreviated E#. This number represents the number of wins by the leading team or losses by the trailing team which will eliminate the trailing team. The elimination number for the second place team is exactly the magic number for the leading team.
A concise formula to calculate the magic number is
magic number = G + 1 - WA - LB
where
G is the total number of games in the season WA is the number of wins team "A" has in the season LB is the number of losses team "B" has in the season
For example, in Major League Baseball there are 162 games in a season. Suppose the top of the division standings late in the season are as follows:
Team Wins Losses "A" 96 58 "B" 93 62
Then the magic number for team "A" to win the division is . Any combination of wins by team "A" and losses by team "B" totalling to 5 makes it impossible for team "B" to win the division title.
