It's interesting to look at those graphs and see how things have changed over decades. People complain about the dominance of a few teams today, particularly the Yankees and Red Sox (it doesn't help matters that ESPN and Fox shove both down our collective throats), but this is nothing compared to the first decade or two of the 20th century, when the talent gap between rich and poor was far greater. From 1901-13, only the Cubs, New York Giants and Pirates won pennants in the NL; the AL was only slightly more democratic, with four teams dominant from 1901-19, the White Sox, Red Sox, Philadelphia Athletics and Detroit winning (and the Tigers' only three pennants were between 1907-09).

I am curious as to whether or not you even read the study in question. At no point did the authors claim that they were attempting to discern which sport was the most exciting nor were they attempting to quantify the quality of the sports in question; they were simply looking for statistical relationships to determine competitiveness. (ie - How often does the historically stronger team (the one with the higher winning percentage) beat the weaker team (the one with the poorer winning percentage).)

In fact the words "excite," "exciting," or "excitement" do not occur even once in the article. I believe that ascribing these words to the study presented greatly changes the authors' intent. If anything the data presented are most useful to those who wish to wager on sports, especially since it is difficult, if not impossible, as you point out, to truly quantify "excitement" given the hard-to-measure variables of "the personalities and styles of star players, the concept of clutch..., the drama involved in victories", and loyalty to the home team since each of these qualities varies depending on the individual perspective.

The game doesn't start until 3pm today, so, you are either lying about the Germans in the Irish pub, or you are simply clueless about an event which the rest of the world is rejoicing in for another few days, which, to your credit, you basically admit.

Even baseball is getting to be predictable, with the Yankees and Red Sox playing in October on an annual basis. One of the few things Fuhrer Selig has done right is the Wild Card. Gives teams like mine (the Reds) a chance to make the playoffs.

Soccer is pretty much dominated by a few teams, too, but the great thing about it, at least in Europe, is that the national leagues come together for the Euro Championships every year, so the same team doesn't win it all every year, though I guess you could say it's pretty much the same national teams making it every year.

Capitalism has killed competition.

err... that should say "corporatism has killed competition." I'm not a commie.

Great post by Shawn. It looks like Marc read one of the many other blogs which have incorrectly commented on the study as opposed to reading it himself.

As for Daedalus, you do know that Germany had a game a few days ago as well? Stick to your pathetic attempts to be pithy and try to be informed about something you comment about.

And another thing Daedalus, if you are going to jump down Marc's throat for referencing a game from a few days ago, at least get the facts in your post right. the "Euro Championships"?? yearly? I think you might be referring to the "UEFA Champions League"... the European Championships are played by national sides every four years...

I do not pretend to have read the study. My only problem with soccer, as compared with baseball, at the top levels of play, is the difficulty of scoring.

This has led Tony Kornheiser to joke about a World Cup team jumping out to an "insurmountable" 1-0 lead.

A team down two or more goals in the second half faces an almost impossible task, whereas a baseball team down two or even four runs remain in the game until the end. The diffculty in scoring goals also means too many games are decided as the result of penalty kicks and tie-breakers.

For me, this makes baseball more interesting, but it doesn't mean soccer isn't exciting. For millions around the world, it plainly is.

snore...

Wow...another babbling piece on why soccer is so lame. News Flash: Soccer fans don't care what you say.

And I am speaking as a basketball fan.

Soccer can be saved. Either widen the goals by a few yards (meters) or require that goalies be chosen from among professional jockies. None over five feet or 100 pounds. Then there would actually be a score before the "stoppage minutes" in overtime. Until then, it will continue to be of interest only to Euro-peons and young refugees from developing nations.

To "Just a suggestion"--

Don't criticize that which you do not have the intelligence to understand. Over here the jockey's weight would be 1.46 stones and his height would be 1.49 meters. That's why you'll never understand soccer so you shouldn't even try.

Just so you know, Soccer is an "American sport" too. And if you have to rely on statistics to know which sports are enjoyable to watch then your missing out on a lot. Your loss.

>>>Even baseball is getting to be predictable, with the Yankees and Red Sox playing in October on an annual basis.<<<

Ummm, if by "annual basis" you mean 1999, 2003 and 2004.

Not to rain on your parade Marc (I agree 100% with your opinion that soccer is boring), but unless I'm mistaken, the report says that soccer is more competitive than baseball by a small margin. Then football and basketball are the least competitive. I cite the numbers at the bottom left of page 2.

"We find that soccer and baseball are the most competitive sports with q = 0.452 and q = 0.441, respectively, while basketball and football, with nearly identical q = 0.365 and q = 0.364, are the least."

It was said of the Italian lead that they could hold a 1-0 lead forever.

Err ... I meant 'Italian team'. The world's most boring sport is cricket. It flatlined on the Los Alamos graph.