Third place playoff

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The third place playoff (sometimes called the bronze medal game or consolation game) is a single match that is included in many sporting knockout tournaments to decide which competitor or team will be credited with finishing third and fourth. The teams that compete in the third place playoffs are usually the two losing semi-finalists in a particular knockout tournament. The third place playoff has been criticised by some who feel that the match serves little purpose, but others see this game as an occasion for the losing semi-finalists to salvage some pride.

Most sports using a knockout format in the Olympic Games have a third place game to determine who wins the bronze medal, with the exception being boxing which awards two bronze medals (judo, taekwondo, and wrestling, which also award two bronze medals, both feature two bronze medal matches, between the losing semi-finalists and the winners of the repechage). As the difference between a bronze medal and no medal is quite significant, competitors still take this game seriously.

The FIFA World Cup and the Rugby World Cup also feature a third place playoff, usually on the day before the final. It is often there to provide a spectacle as there is often a gap of a few days between the semi finals and the final. How seriously the competing teams take this match is subject to debate, as many teams will use backup players for this match. However, teams that are not expected to get this far usually take this match seriously, as third place can be a historical achievement. The best example of this was Sweden in 1994 who called the match "the bronze match" and after victory they landed at Arlanda with a fighter escort and were then paraded through the streets of Stockholm to millions live on national TV. Indeed such is the hype that Swedes today still think the team were awarded bronze medals and not a single person in Sweden is aware that it was "only" the 3rd/4th play off. Another exampel is the Croatian football team in 1998. On the other hand if the team was one which had been favoured to go further then this match may not be taken as seriously. The friendliest 3rd/4th match in history was England v Italy in 1990 which was played without a serious tackle and after the match the teams mixed together to thank the support and say bye bye to the world cup. If the host nation is involved in the third place match, the team generally uses the match to thank the support of their fans (such as the South Korean football team in 2002, the German football team in 2006 and the French rugby team in 2007), and as a chance to allow some of their reserve team players to play a World Cup game. German goalkeeper Oliver Kahn, who had been a reserve to Jens Lehmann during the 2006 FIFA World Cup, was allowed to retire in the Third Place Playoff by then manager Jürgen Klinsmann.

However, many sports tournaments do not have a third place playoff, mostly due to a lack of interest from the competitors and also from the fans. Interestingly, two of the most celebrated knockout tournaments had featured the third place game for a period of time — the FA Cup Third-fourth place matches (1970-1974) and the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship (1946-1981). A third place playoff still exists in the postseason National Invitation Tournament (NIT); some consider it "the consolation game within the consolation tournament".

The National Football League had a consolation game, the Playoff Bowl, from 1960 to 1969, which pitted the second-place team in each of the two divisions (based on regular season record from 1960 to 1966) against each other. It was abandoned in favor of the current playoff structure with the AFL-NFL merger in 1970.