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Thread: Scientists Prove Soccer is Better than Baseball

  1. 01-09-2006, 04:33 PM #1
    Unassisted
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    Scientists Prove Soccer is Better than Baseball

    But baseball is improving!

    http://www.newscientist.com/channel/...mg18925334.500

    Surprises make soccer the best sport

     BASEBALL has home runs, American football has touchdowns and basketball has slam dunks. But when it comes to which is the most exciting sport to follow, soccer takes the gold medal.

    Eli Ben-Naim, Sidney Redner and Federico Vazquez at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico decided to look at unpredictability of results - how often a team with a worse record overcomes an apparently superior one - as the best measure of how exciting a league is. "If there are no upsets, then every game is predictable and hence boring," says Ben-Naim.

    The team analysed results from more than 300,000 games over the last century from the US's national hockey, football, baseball and basketball leagues and the top English football league. Rugby and cricket were omitted because they do not have a big following in the US.

    Their results showed that the "upset frequency" was highest for soccer, followed by baseball, hockey, basketball and finally American football. But when they looked only at data from the past 10 years, the English football Premiership and baseball swapped places, which suggests that soccer might have become more predictable in recent years.
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  3. 01-09-2006, 04:45 PM #2
    RedFanAlways1966
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    Re: Scientists Prove Soccer is Better than Baseball

    Hmmmm. Sounds like three guys with way too much time on their hands (the things you cannot use in that exciting sport). Of course who I am to say others have too much time on their hands when I am posting here again.

    ... how often a team with a worse record overcomes an apparently superior one - as the best measure of how exciting a league is.
    Who judges this measure? I wonder if they use "the line" or if they only judge games like a Texans @ Colts game in the 2005 NFL season (an obvious favored team if you will)? I guess I need more clarification on their measures to see if I believe in their study or not.
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  4. 01-09-2006, 05:23 PM #3
    oneupper
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    Re: Scientists Prove Soccer is Better than Baseball

    Money has made results more predictible, as the gap between the "haves" and the "have-nots" has widened in soccer and baseball alike.

    And that's all I have to say about that...
    "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it."

    http://dalmady.blogspot.com
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  5. 01-09-2006, 05:36 PM #4
    Crash Davis
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    Re: Scientists Prove Soccer is Better than Baseball

    The headline doesn't fit the research or the actual news article.
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  6. 01-09-2006, 06:10 PM #5
    bucksfan
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    Re: Scientists Prove Soccer is Better than Baseball

    I'll admit to being very pleasantly surprised by how exciting it was to watch a Championship Leage soccer match in England. It was every bit as riveting, sitting right there in the stands, as most of the college football games I have attended. And I was by no means a fan of the sport. However, this article really does not address much of why it would or could be truly a "better" sport.
    "I'm virtually free to do whatever I want, but I try to remember so is everybody else..." - Todd Snider
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  7. 01-09-2006, 06:14 PM #6
    RBA
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    Re: Scientists Prove Soccer is Better than Baseball

    Just scoring in soccer is unexpected.
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  8. 01-09-2006, 06:23 PM #7
    Unassisted
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    Re: Scientists Prove Soccer is Better than Baseball

    Quote Originally Posted by Crash Davis
    The headline doesn't fit the research or the actual news article.
    Here's my line of reasoning for the thread title.

    Scientists = " Eli Ben-Naim, Sidney Redner and Federico Vazquez at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico decided"

    Better = "decided to look at unpredictability of results - how often a team with a worse record overcomes an apparently superior one - as the best measure of how exciting a league is."

    Prove That Soccer > Baseball = "Their results showed that the "upset frequency" was highest for soccer, followed by baseball, hockey, basketball and finally American football."
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  9. 01-09-2006, 08:45 PM #8
    marcshoe
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    Re: Scientists Prove Soccer is Better than Baseball

    Wouldn't a greater unpredicability of results mean that soccer is less a sport and more a game of chance?

    Seems that data can be interpreted more than one way. . . .
    It is on the whole probable that we continually dream, but that consciousness makes such a noise that we do not hear it. Carl Jung.
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  10. 01-09-2006, 10:48 PM #9
    RFS62
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    Re: Scientists Prove Soccer is Better than Baseball

    Everyone I know who played soccer loves to watch it.

    Nobody I know that didn't does.
    We'll go down in history as the first society that wouldn't save itself because it wasn't cost effective ~ Kurt Vonnegut
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  11. 01-09-2006, 10:50 PM #10
    pedro
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    Re: Scientists Prove Soccer is Better than Baseball

    Quote Originally Posted by RFS62
    Everyone I know who played soccer loves to watch it.

    Nobody I know that didn't does.
    Let's slightly modify that.

    Everyone I know who loves to watch soccer played it.

    Nobody I know that didn't does.

    I played soccer and think it's boring to watch.
    School's out. What did you expect?
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  12. 01-09-2006, 10:58 PM #11
    RFS62
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    Re: Scientists Prove Soccer is Better than Baseball

    Yeah, good modification.

    I wish I had the opportunity to play, but it wasn't available where I grew up.

    It seems very boring to me to watch, but I've never been schooled by a veteran.
    We'll go down in history as the first society that wouldn't save itself because it wasn't cost effective ~ Kurt Vonnegut
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  13. 01-09-2006, 11:05 PM #12
    Betterread
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    Re: Scientists Prove Soccer is Better than Baseball

    Football/futbol is the beautiful game, either to watch or to play.
    Two quotes come to mind:
    "If God had meant football to be played in the air he would have put grass in the sky" Brian Clough (famous British manager known for taking two small teams Nottingham Forest and and Derby county to championships - if we could find such a manager for the Reds)
    "I fell in love with football as I would later fall in love with women: suddenly, uncritically, giving no thought to the pain it would bring" Nick Hornby (Well, because of High Fidelity, About a Boy and McSweeney's, you know who he is)
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  14. 01-09-2006, 11:05 PM #13
    LoganBuck
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    Re: Scientists Prove Soccer is Better than Baseball

    They couldn't prove that soccer is a product of intelligent design!
    Hugs, smiling, and interactive Twitter accounts, don't mean winning baseball. Until this community understands that we are cursed to relive the madness.
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  15. 01-09-2006, 11:36 PM #14
    Crash Davis
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    Re: Scientists Prove Soccer is Better than Baseball

    Quote Originally Posted by RFS62
    Everyone I know who played soccer loves to watch it.

    Nobody I know that didn't does.
    I played soccer for years...up until I got out of high school and the only available outlet was that sham known as indoor soccer. Just a terrible sport. Hockey in a box -- with feet instead of sticks.

    I really enjoyed playing soccer, but I find it very tough to watch...

    ...except, of course, for the World Cup. I'll wake up at 3:30 in the morning to watch the World Cup.
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  16. 01-10-2006, 12:55 PM #15
    Rojo
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    Re: Scientists Prove Soccer is Better than Baseball

    Quote Originally Posted by tixe
    Wouldn't a greater unpredicability of results mean that soccer is less a sport and more a game of chance?

    Seems that data can be interpreted more than one way. . . .
    My thoughts too. By this measure, Roulette beats them all.
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