From the BBC news website:
Surprise secret to soccer appeal
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: national 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.
i watch the highlights for NFL games on Sky Sports ocassionally, and it's really fun, but i once watched it live - and **** me was it tiresome, not because i didnt understand the rules... i knew why they were stopping after every play etc, but it's just horrendously boring that they do!
Proper Football is free flowing, two 45minute sections with stops only when theres a foul, the ball goes out of play or someone score. and thats what makes it exciting, how one team can lose the ball and be caught on a counter attack rather than play being stopped for a few minutes.
If you wanna see the style of sport that American Soccer (Football) is, then you should watch rugby, Hard hitting, ball carrying sport but more flow and no armour
balls. im sure the 'scientists' predicted that liverpool and fc porto wud pick up the champions league titles and that greece would win euro 2004
They only looked at the Premiership which has been pretty predictable for the past 10 years. It has pretty much been a Man U and Arsenal show. These two years (especially this season) are (is) even more predictable. A certain blue-coloured club is 13 points ahead..it's pretty predictable who is going to win the Premier League. But it would be a classic if that Newcastle saga in 95/96 happened to Chelsea.
i watch the highlights for NFL games on Sky Sports ocassionally, and it's really fun, but i once watched it live - and **** me was it tiresome, not because i didnt understand the rules... i knew why they were stopping after every play etc, but it's just horrendously boring that they do!
Yeah..I always feel in American Football there is too much going on off-the-field and fans don't concentrate what is going on in the game. One minute some marching band is playing, and then the next the cheerleaders would do their stuff. I have no idea whether this actually distracts people from things on the field, and hence makes the game boring...or whether the boring nature of American Football necessitates the need for off-the-field entertainments.
In English Football, the crowds are concentrated on what is happening on the pitch. They react to referees' decisions, react to fouls, boo the players, sing "ref is a w*anker". You really won't get this in the US. They will only kind of half-cheer if they score or if there is an interception.
But at least you are in an environment where you can switch off the TV if you get bored. For me, come Superbowl (which I am dreading), every TV will be on..there is no running away from it.
Originally posted by cx218
They only looked at the Premiership which has been pretty predictable for the past 10 years. It has pretty much been a Man U and Arsenal show. These two years (especially this season) are (is) even more predictable. A certain blue-coloured club is 13 points ahead..it's pretty predictable who is going to win the Premier League. But it would be a classic if that Newcastle saga in 95/96 happened to Chelsea.
its like that in every league. only 2 or 3 teams challenging for title
Italy: Juventus (in Chelseas league...), AC Milan, Internazionale.
France: Lyon (Ditto), PSG, Lille.
Spanish: Barcelona (probably better than Chelsea), Villareal and Real Madrid... although they usually have surprise teams, which makes it a good league.
German: Bayern Munchen, Werder Bremen, Schalke, Hamburg... although lets face it, other than Bayern Munchen, theyre pretty average.
every league has it's Chelsea, for ages the Premiership held out, but now we have one
Originally posted by Df02
i watch the highlights for NFL games on Sky Sports ocassionally, and it's really fun, but i once watched it live - and **** me was it tiresome, not because i didnt understand the rules... i knew why they were stopping after every play etc, but it's just horrendously boring that they do!Proper Football is free flowing, two 45minute sections with stops only when theres a foul, the ball goes out of play or someone score. and thats what makes it exciting, how one team can lose the ball and be caught on a counter attack rather than play being stopped for a few minutes.
If you wanna see the [b]style
of sport that American Soccer (Football) is, then you should watch rugby, Hard hitting, ball carrying sport but more flow and no armour [/B]
What people fail to relize about american football (especially soccer fans) is that its a completly different game. The only common thing in football and american football is the bloody name. If people can get past that point and not compare them, then maybe you can understand why people watch american football.
If you were brought up watching and playing soccer (like in england), then obviously you'll find soccer to most exicting and entertaining sport to watch.
If you watched american football all your life, then you obviously find american football more exicting.
Same goes for hockey in canada also.
Its called culture. Every country is different.
Soccer fans always use flow and pace as arguement against american football. Well, what happens if people dont like that type of sport. Are they wrong. No, they have personal differences.
Why I like a sport and why you like a sport is based on how we grew up, what we watched and what we played.
And please, everybody stop callling pads armour, its really ****ing annoying. Please play the sport in full contact, and then maybe you can decide. The pads pretty much cover about 45% of the body and only protect major organs and bones. It's an physical game and your pretty much allowed to anything to the ball carrier aside from pulling him from behind with the shoulder pads. (The rule was enacted because players were breaking both of thier ankles last year).
I'm not saying rugby isnt tough, or less tough or more tough. I cant stand why people criticize about something without actually playing it.
Yeah, I mean really, think about a wide receiver without pads coming down the middle of the field at full speed with Roy Williams coming full speed the other way. Heads would be flying, literally.
Originally posted by cx218
Yeah..I always feel in American Football there is too much going on off-the-field and fans don't concentrate what is going on in the game. One minute some marching band is playing, and then the next the cheerleaders would do their stuff. I have no idea whether this actually distracts people from things on the field, and hence makes the game boring...or whether the boring nature of American Football necessitates the need for off-the-field entertainments.In English Football, the crowds are concentrated on what is happening on the pitch. They react to referees' decisions, react to fouls, boo the players, sing "ref is a w*anker". You really won't get this in the US. They will only kind of half-cheer if they score or if there is an interception.
But at least you are in an environment where you can switch off the TV if you get bored. For me, come Superbowl (which I am dreading), every TV will be on..there is no running away from it.
That's college football and it has always been that way. It adds to the college atmosphere. Kind of like soccer fans singing songs at the match since there isn't anything better to do than uh watch the match?
What game are you watching?
I've been to American football games and it is intense as hell. You may be able to say that about some baseball and basketball fans but not football. America is crazy about football. American Football fans are the closest to soccer fans in terms of passion with the exception that American football fans have at least a little common sense unlike soccer fan.
That's college football and it has always been that way. It adds to the college atmosphere. Kind of like soccer fans singing songs at the match since there isn't anything better to do than uh watch the match?What game are you watching?
I have actually been to a few Stanford games. Yes, there is a lot of noise, but the atmosphere seems to be more of a carnival than what I am used to in English football. I feel people are there because of their attachment to the college rather than be interested in how the team plays or what is going on in play. Maybe it's to do with the fact that Californians tend to be happy-clappies.
Despite the fact that attendances in college football or the NFL are higher than those in Premiership football. (You would get about 40000-70000 in every NFL game) The atmosphere in each Premier League game makes people think the attendance is higher. My roommate was surprised that there were only 20,000 in one of the games we were watching (I forgot which teams). He went on to say that English football fans tend to be more involved with the game than American football fans...and the comment came from an American.
NB: There is a reason why English football games have lower attendances than American football. But I will not go on about it here unless someone wants to know.
its like that in every league. only 2 or 3 teams challenging for title
True. My point was that the scientists were looking at a league, and leagues have been pretty predictable.
You were saying how scientists would not be able to predict Liverpool or Porto winning the Champions League and Greece winning Euro 04, rubbishing their claims that football has been more predictable in recent years... the answer simply comes down to the fact that they were only talking about a league, and not the FA Cup, not CL, not Euro 04.
It's true that English Premier games have alot more intensity than american football on TV.
But is that because its not intense or because the amount of people inside the pitch are alot closer to the field than American Football is.
It could be just a case of how big the stadium is. Some of those 70000 people watching an American football are sometiems realllly far back.
Originally posted by Smasandian
Please play the sport in full contact, and then maybe you can decide
you mean like when i played Rugby, in bitter cold with just shorts and tshirt, with studs tearing my thighs to peices everytime there was a ruck?
as for people calling pads armour, i can imagen its just as annoying as people calling football, soccer