John_Stone Report This Comment
Date: January 11, 2006 04:30AM


*Surprise key to football appeal*

=The element of surprise elevates football above other sports=

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.

[news.bbc.co.uk]

John_Stone Report This Comment
Date: January 11, 2006 04:31AM

It's sceintifik!

shaDEz Report This Comment
Date: January 11, 2006 09:12AM

this is soccer, not football

Anonymous Report This Comment
Date: January 11, 2006 01:53PM

Soccer is for pussies.Football is for wimps.Basketball is a real sport(you can get the shit beat out of you,no padding).

ToucanSam Report This Comment
Date: January 11, 2006 05:29PM

fuk blacksetball. Football (soccer) is definatly the most fun to play AND watch.

John_Stone Report This Comment
Date: January 11, 2006 10:06PM

ShaDEz, Soccer =is= Football ...to everyone else but Americans. Outside US borders, Yankees play "American Football", where you barely ever use your foot, and don't have an actual round ball.

fossil_digger Report This Comment
Date: January 14, 2006 04:10PM

but if you say football to an american and expect him to think "soccer", there will be confusion every time

John_Stone Report This Comment
Date: January 18, 2006 04:37AM

Well naturally, but we're trying to encourage the Yanks to "think out of the continent" a little. I know that might be a new experience for most, but do give it a try.