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Strategic rule breaking: Time wasting to win soccer games.
Henrich R Greve1, Nils Rudi2, Anup Walvekar3
1INSEAD, Singapore, Singapore.
Plos One
|December 19, 2019
Summary
In professional soccer, teams strategically waste time to gain an advantage, impacting game efficiency. Introducing a stopped clock could significantly improve game time efficiency and spectator experience.
Area of Science:
- Sports Science
- Behavioral Economics
- Game Theory
Background:
- Rules in competitive environments, like professional soccer, can incentivize strategic rule-breaking due to imperfect enforcement.
- Professional soccer's competitive nature and economic rewards for winning create opportunities for strategic behavior, including time-wasting.
- Time-wasting in sports, while potentially beneficial for teams, detracts from the entertainment value for spectators.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the prevalence and magnitude of strategic time-wasting in professional soccer.
- To analyze the specific methods and situations where time-wasting occurs.
- To explore the relationship between time-wasting incentives and potential rule changes.
Main Methods:
- Utilizing newly available data from professional soccer matches.
- Quantifying time-wasting behaviors across various game events such as goalie captures, goal kicks, throw-ins, free kicks, corner kicks, and substitutions.
- Employing predictive models to assess the value of time per minute and its relation to time-wasting.
Main Results:
- Strategic time-wasting is a widespread phenomenon in professional soccer.
- Significant time is lost through delayed restarts after specific game events.
- Models accurately predict time-wasting based on the value of time per minute.
Conclusions:
- The current rules, specifically the continuous game clock, create incentives for strategic time-wasting.
- A rule change to incorporate a stopped game clock during stoppages is predicted to enhance game time efficiency.
- Altering game clock rules could lead to a more time-efficient and potentially more engaging spectator experience.
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