 On outcome uncertainty and scoring rates in sport: The case of international rugby unionPhil Scarf, Rishikesh Parma and Ian McHale European Journal of Operational Research, 2019, vol. 273, issue 2, 721-730 Abstract: In this paper we investigate the relationship between outcome uncertainty and scoring rates in the framework of a “Poisson match”. We argue that increasing scoring rates in the hope of increasing entertainment may have a detrimental impact on the popularity of sport. The basis of our argument is that higher scoring-rates decrease outcome uncertainty. We use international rugby to demonstrate our findings and show that scoring rates have indeed increased significantly over the previous half-century in this sport. Therefore, administrators should recognise our general point and we suggest that rugby union administrators in particular ought to consider the introduction of new laws to reduce scoring-rates. Scenarios in which the scoring-rate is radically reduced are illustrated through a simulation of the Rugby World Cup tournament. Keywords: OR in sports; Competitive balance; Consumption of sport (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ejores:v:273:y:2019:i:2:p:721-730 DOI: 10.1016/j.ejor.2018.08.021 Access Statistics for this article European Journal of Operational Research is currently edited by Roman Slowinski, Jesus Artalejo, Jean-Charles. Billaut, Robert Dyson and Lorenzo Peccati More articles in European Journal of Operational Research from Elsevier |
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