Short answers, pulled from the story.
A bye in sports is a scheduled break from play, occurring when a player or team is not set to compete while others are. It can mean advancing past a round in a tournament, sitting out a week in a league season, or a full week where an entire league plays no games.
In a single-elimination bracket, a bye lets a competitor advance to a later round without playing, usually given to the highest-ranked entrants when the field is not a power of two like 16 or 32. Some tournaments also award double-byes, sending top seeds straight to the third round or beyond.
In the FA Cup, the 44 clubs from the Premier League and the EFL Championship each receive six byes, entering directly at the third proper round of the competition's 12 rounds. Clubs at other levels receive multiple byes too, while only level 7-10 clubs enter from the first qualifying round.
The NFL introduced a bye week for every team in 1990, usually falling between week four and week twelve of the season. It was added to give broadcasters an extra week of televisable games under a new deal, without adding a game to any player's schedule.
Studies of NFL games from 2002 to 2010 found teams returning from a bye held a 2.2-point scoring advantage. That advantage shrank to just 0.3 points from 2012 to 2023, after a 2011 collective bargaining amendment gave players real rest during the break.
In a Swiss-system chess tournament with an odd number of players, one player receives a bye each round instead of playing. FIDE rules state these pairing-allocated byes must go to the lowest-rated eligible player and cannot be given to the same player twice.