The sports term comes from the verb sense of seed meaning "to spread" which of course comes from the older verb meaning of spreading seed or sowing. In the newer usage there is a sense of some deliberatness in the spreading and spacing, "Hecklers were seeded throughout the audience by political opponents." Sporting (originally tennis) sense (1898) is from notion of spreading certain players so as to insure they will not meet early in a tournament. Usually top ranked players are seeded , if half your stars get eliminated in the first round, the fans are liable to lose interest.

Players in tournaments are "planted" in the draw so that they will not meet each other until the later stages. This ensures that the best players will have the best chance of meeting each other at the end of the tournament. Should everything go according to the seedings then seeds 1 and 2 will meet in the final. The benefits of this are that the public are able to see the best players competing for trophies, when otherwise they may meet in the first round. Some argue that this method is a little unfair, since the best players should be good enough to overcome any obstacle put in front of them. It is also true that once a player reaches the games elite (say top 32), and hence becomes seeded, it is easier for them to stay there than drop out. This is because they will invariably be facing lower-ranked opponents and hence have a better chance of progressing through tournaments and hence earning ranking points. The counter-argument is, as mentioned before, the public want the best players to contest the latter stages (and obviously this is better for television revenues etc). Sports that employ a seeding system include snooker, tennis, football (in European and World tournaments), darts, to name but a few. On a domestic level (England) they currently do not use a seeding system for the FA (football) Cup, and this has led to some debate. On occasions some teams have managed to reach the final of the tournament without facing anyone from the highest divison. This has led to calls for a review of how the tournament is played, although up until now it has not changed.

Some seeding was 1st tried at Wimbledon in 1924, with the singles events being completely seeded in 1927. From the Old English saed, meaning in agriculture "to separate or select from a group. Top seed: The player judged by a Tournament committee to be the favorite to win a Tournament based on performance records and computer rankings and scheduled within the draw so as not to meet other favorites until the later rounds of the competition.