In a single-elimination sports tournament beginning with 64 teams, how many games are played altogether until only one team, the champion, remains?

While you could meticulously add up the games in each round, there's a much more elegant solution. In any single-elimination tournament, every game produces exactly one winner and one loser. For one team to be crowned the champion out of a field of 64, the other 63 teams must be eliminated. Since each game results in exactly one team being eliminated, there must be a total of 63 games to produce 63 losers.

This logic holds up if you do the math the long way. The first round has 32 games, followed by rounds of 16, 8, 4, 2, and the final championship game. Adding 32 + 16 + 8 + 4 + 2 + 1 also equals 63. This "N-1" formula, where N is the number of teams, applies to any single-elimination bracket, making it a handy shortcut for figuring out the total games needed for events like the famous NCAA March Madness basketball tournament or the knockout stages of the World Cup. It's a simple, reliable piece of math that governs some of the most exciting events in sports.