Posted on 01/04/2006 3:23:20 PM PST by Right Wing Assault
American football, basketball and baseball have millions of followers, but they can't match soccer for sheer excitement, says a team of scientists.
The reason is its element of surprise, claim researchers from Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, US.
Football is more likely to produce an unexpected result, such as a "giant killer" win in the FA Cup.
Scientists analysed results from more than 300,000 games played over the past century.
They reviewed five sports: ice hockey, football, baseball and basketball in the US, and English football.
The team decided to make unpredictability - how often a leading team is overcome by an opponent with a worse record - the best measure of how exciting a league is.
"If there are no upsets, then every game is predictable and hence boring," co-author Eli Ben-Naim told New Scientist magazine.
The results of the analysis showed that the "upset frequency" was highest for soccer, followed by baseball, hockey, and basketball. American football came last on the list, and so was labelled the least exciting sport.
But there was a twist in the tail.
When the scientists looked only at data from the past 10 years, English Premiership football and baseball swapped places.
One interpretation of the finding might be that soccer has become more predictable in recent years.
There is no sport in the world more exciting than Crimson Tide football.
I hope this research wasn't government financed.
Soccer - dullest sport ever? Unless you are 12 and playing it, it absolutely stinks. These must be the same "scientists" that insist the Kyoto Protocol is brilliant.
yes there is.
Ohio State football
:)
and, I can't resist, more dominant right now too....
This is scary if these are the guys doing our weapons research. Anyway, why are they studying sports excitement? Can't we find something a bit more useful for them to do?
Exciting- I still wonder how Bobby Bowden hasn't died of a heart attack yet.
Soccer is gay.
What's to understand? If you like soccer, you are Latino, European, or gay.
Ditto that!!!
ping
I can't believe that they are wasting resources for this at LANL, even IF the funding came from a non-taxpayer source.
I almost would have thought this was just some lame satire...
Wrote to my friend who works at LANL; Asked her what the heck they were doing.
Soccer is a game for people who are skilled enough to play sports.
Why do you think they have soccer leagues for 5 year old girls?
Soccer ia a socialist game. You gotta play with both hands behind your back.
Make that AREN'T skilled enough.
1-0 final score. Woo-hoo.
First of all I love football but Lacrosse comes a close second for me......
signed,
proud lacrosse mom
They need to make that goal about twice as wide and give different points for shots from different distances. I'm not a soccer fan, so all the plays look the same to me. I love real football because of its variety.
I'll tell you this. I'm willing to put money on two things.
Next season, Arkansas will have a better record than Tennessee, and more importantly, Arkansas will come out of this season with a better recruiting class than Tennessee.
I have waited so long for the fall of Fulmer and now that it's happening, well, let's just say I'm overjoyed.
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