The Wildcard is a rule on American Ninja Warrior, that gives a chance for competitors who failed during city qualifiers or city finals, to have a final attempt on the Las Vegas national finals course. Competitors who received a wildcard to advance to Las Vegas national finals were decided by American Ninja Warrior's producers (except on American Ninja Warrior 5, with an addition for competitors who finished in 16th to 18th place during city finals, and American Ninja Warrior 6, with an addition for competitors who finished in 16th place).
The Wildcard rule was first implemented on American Ninja Warrior 4, when the Mount Midoriyama course (Stage One to Stage Four) was first held in Las Vegas, rather than joining with SASUKE tournament from three previous American Ninja Warrior seasons.
On American Ninja Warrior 9, the Wildcard rule was discarded, with the implementation of new rules for female competitors during city qualifiers and city finals.
Other Appearance[]
SASUKE Vietnam[]
The Wildcard later appeared in most SASUKE Vietnam seasons (except SASUKE Vietnam 2 and SASUKE Vietnam 5), but the rule was different in each season.
SASUKE Vietnam 1[]
The Wildcard is a rule on SASUKE Vietnam 1 that gives a chance for competitors who cleared the Stage 1A or Stage 1B but did not earning their spot in the Top 20 to have a final attempt on the Stage Two.
Originally, only top 40 competitors, including 20 best competitors in Stage 1A and 20 best competitors in Stage 1B advanced to the Stage Two. However, due to Nguyễn Đình Mỹ Linh become the first female competitor cleared Stage 1B, director Lại Bắc Hải Đăng broke the rule by added wildcard for her to advanced to Stage Two. Due to this, the producers later gave the wildcard for 21st place competitor in Stage 1A (Nguyễn Năm) a chance to attempted Stage 2, making Stage Two had 42 attempts instead of 40 like original.
SASUKE Vietnam 3[]
Originally, the Wildcard would be removed since SASUKE Vietnam 2. However, an incident was happed in SASUKE Vietnam 3 making the Wildcard accidental returned, in which the producers had forgot to turn on the klaxon sounds for about 20-30 competitors on Stage 1A. Among them, there were 3 competitors (Trương Hùng Cường, Nguyễn Xuân Tứ and Đinh Quang Vinh) timed out on the top of Rope Ladder, but they didn't know and still celebrated after pressing the buzzer until producers said that they had timed out. To prevent conflicts, three competitors later got wildcards to Stage 2.
SASUKE Vietnam 4[]
On SASUKE Vietnam 4, the Wildcard was returned to give a chance for three female international competitors who failed during Stage 1B (Alix Arndt, Lindsay Eskildsen and Olivia Vivian) to have a final attempt on the Stage Two as special competitors.
Three competitors who have wildcard, only Olivia Vivian have the furthest result, in which only she cleared Stage Two and failed at the Hang Climbing in Stage Three. Due to this, she won Miss SASUKE award and receive the cash prize of VND 4,000,000.