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The alliance formation puzzle in contests with capacity-constraints: A test using American football reception-coverage contest data

Justin Ehrlich, Matthew Harmon and Shane Sanders

PLOS ONE, 2020, vol. 15, issue 3, 1-13

Abstract: We utilize a contest-theoretic model to demonstrate a version of the alliance formation puzzle that aligns with reception-coverage contests in American football. Namely, secondary defenders can opt for single-coverage—1 v 1 contest. Alternatively, they can choose to ally—form double-coverage or 2 v 1 contest with exogenous intra-alliance prize division—when defending a given receiver. In our theoretical treatment, we find that defenses have a lower equilibrium success rate in preventing the receiver from “getting open” under double-coverage than under single-coverage in the absence of capacity constraints. We also find that this success rate paradox is a necessary condition for the alliance formation puzzle. We then test the theoretical treatment by analyzing 8,508 plays of NCAA and NFL game data within a set of fixed effects, logistic regression models that control for receiver, level-of-play, and season-of-play. We find that equilibrium level of defensive success rises significantly and substantially (p-value

Date: 2020
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0227750

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0227750

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