Non-Transitive Patterns in Long-Term Football Rivalries

Jan C. van Ours
Additional contact information
Jan C. van Ours: Erasmus University Rotterdam

No 24-031/V, Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers from Tinbergen Institute

Abstract: The phenomenon of non-transitivity in outcomes, typically observed in non-effort games with predetermined probabilities and immediate clarity, extends to team- based, time-consuming games requiring effort that unfold over a long period of time. This study explores this aspect through an empirical analysis of professional football matches in the Netherlands involving three prominent teams: Feyenoord, Ajax, and PSV. Contrary to conventional expectations, the results reveal a non- transitive pattern over more than three decades, indicating that Feyenoord is more likely to triumph over PSV, PSV over Ajax, and Ajax over Feyenoord than the reverse scenarios.

Keywords: Non-transitive match outcomes; football; bookmakers; Elo-rating (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C25 D01 Z2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-05-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-spo
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://papers.tinbergen.nl/24031.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tin:wpaper:20240031

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers from Tinbergen Institute Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Tinbergen Office +31 (0)10-4088900 ().