Wild card

Wild card: In playing card terms, a wild card is a card that can be assigned any value its holder desires. A wild card can be a pre-assigned card, such as any 2 (deuce) or the jack of spades, for example, or a special card, usually one of the jokers.

In sport, the term wild card refers to a team that qualifies for that sporting league's (association; etc.) playoffs that is one of several high achieving teams that did not obtain the best win-loss record in their specific subdivision (usually called a conference or division) of that sporting league. The number of wild card teams can vary depending on the rules of the particular sport league.