Sports Contests Research Articles

Does Smart Money Believe in the Hot Hand? Evidence From Daily Fantasy Baseball

The behavior of informed traders, or “smart money,” in sports betting markets has long been of interest to researchers. In this paper, we focus specifically on the behavior of smart money in Major League Baseball (MLB) daily fantasy sports (DFS) contests to determine whether they avoid cognitive-behavioral biases to increase their expected earnings. Specifically, we investigate whether smart money avoids the hot hand bias, where individuals tend to overestimate the likelihood of success for players on a hot streak. Using a dataset of MLB DFS contests, we find that winning lineups have lower usage rates for players exhibiting the hot hand compared to losing lineups. This suggests that smart money identifies and fades the hot hand strategy to increase their expected earnings.

The Olympic Art Competitions: Olympic medals for artworks, Pierre de Coubertin’s passion for art, the Fine Art Salon, and the social circles

In 2024, the city of Paris will be hosting the Olympic Games for the third time, after 1900 and 1924. At that Olympic Games one competition was held at the Grand Palais for which, instead of physical effort, creativity was needed to win an Olympic medal. This means that Pierre de Coubertin’s Olympic program had an artistic element. Only a few people know that between 1912 and 1948, the Olympic Art Competitions were held in parallel to the sports contests. Male and female artists competed in the five disciplines of painting, sculpture, architecture, literature and music. Consequently, this paper traces the inspirational sources for Pierre de Coubertin to conceptualize such competitions. It unveils the link to the art worlds of the Fine Art Salon through his artistic family background. In addition, it explains the importance of the private salons to find like-minded people that helped him realizing his Olympic vision and who were companions along the way. The findings enable a better understanding of how and why the sports aficionado had an interest in art and find a way to combine both in the Olympic Art Competitions – the artistic element in the Olympic Program during the first half of the 20th century.

‘I can’t outrun a bear, but I can outrun you:’ sport contests, nature challenge activities and outdoor recreation

ABSTRACT The old adage has two people out hiking who run into a bear. One starts running while the other asks ‘why are you running? You can’t outrun a bear’. To which the other responds, ‘I don’t have to outrun the bear. I only have to outrun you’. Hiking/trekking is not typically a competitive endeavor characterized by contests but, like many endeavors/pursuits/activities, competition can be injected into it; thereby sportifying it. Swimming is a sport (under certain conditions). At the same time, it is also a recreational activity and a form of physical exercise; likewise angling/fishing, climbing, cross-country skiing, mountain biking, kayaking, rowing, surfing, et al. The categorization of many activities under the umbrella of sport has it uses to understand the wider concept of what is sport, but the purpose of why one engages in ‘physical activities taking place in a natural environment’ can sometimes be more important than whether some activities might or might not qualify to be classified under the rubric of sports at all. Indicators exist to show whether participants are actually engaged toward—driven in a way, even—to further their skills in their focused activity (if it is a focused activity at all!––i.e. a ‘serious leisure’ pursuit or just a recreational hobby). From this perspective (of looking at sport-like and sporting activities in other than Olympic-style forms) this paper explores the differentiations between sport (including nature sport) contests, nature challenge activities (NCAs) and outdoor recreation from the standpoint of the most relevant factors that distinguish them: rules, skill development, purpose for engaging in them. This paper also makes the case that differentiating participants in the above activities by purpose (as either nature challenge recreationalists or nature sport devotees) has utility; to better help research into people’s engagement in physical activities in natural environments.

Historical evolution of competitive balance in the Mexican football league: a time series analysis, 1943-2015

This paper employs the Bai-Perron (BP) approach to perform a time series analysis of two measures of competitive balance (CB) in the unexplored area of the Mexican football league. A significant break point where CB experienced a substantial reduction is found. The time of the break point coincides with a modification of the league's regulations, which implemented two short tournaments instead of a single annual season to increase the revenue by doubling the final playoff games. This paper also establishes a first periodisation of the league's evolution, from its professionalisation in 1943 to 2015, on the basis of key historical events. In defence of the invariance principle, elements of collusion do not seem to have repercussions in CB. Nevertheless, the findings support the argument regarding the potential of significant regulatory changes to affect competitive equilibrium in sports contests.

Effort maximization in contests under balance constraints

We study all-pay contests with complete information and two heterogeneous contestants who compete for a single prize. We combine two common designer's goals which are combined especially in sports contests; effort maximization and competitive balance. We focus on two cases when the designer's utility is either continuous or discontinuous in the contestants' efforts. We show that a maximum effort constraint is always efficient for increasing the designer's utility, namely, effort maximization under competitive balance.

New York Redefines “GAMBLING” … and What Could this Mean for Poker?

New York Redefines “GAMBLING” … and What Could this Mean for Poker?

Real Winners in Sports Contests

ABSTRACT The question what ultimately determines the real winner of a sports contest (or whether a sports contest was really a draw) has been little discussed in the philosophy of sport literature. In this article, I discuss in detail and reject three views about what ultimately determines the real winner of a sports contest, which I call ‘the Official Result View’, ‘the Adjudicator View’ and ‘the Rules View’. I also present a variation of the Rules View, which may be a promising view about what ultimately determines the real winner of a sports contest. I call this view ‘the Desert-adjusted Rules View’.

A large-scale prospective study of big wins and their relationship with future financial and time involvement in actual daily fantasy sports contests.

Early big wins might have a psychological impact upon gamblers that increases their likelihood of intemperate gambling; however, there has been a paucity of empirical research examining this effect using actual gambling data. We assessed the effects of daily fantasy sports (DFS) big wins on subsequent play by analyzing a prospective dataset from a major DFS provider (N = 34,596 DFS subscribers) representing over 18 million entries into DFS contests. We found that experiencing a big win in DFS is associated with subsequently increased DFS engagement (i.e., increased contest entry fees and contest entries) and losses (i.e., higher net loss). However, the effect of a big win on engagement and losses decays over time. Whereas theorists have highlighted the effects of early big wins, our analyses indicated that later big wins had a relatively stronger effect on DFS engagement. Sensitivity analyses confirmed the robustness of most results, with somewhat greater support for big wins' effects on engagement metrics than losses. Our results collectively indicate the existence of a big win effect in DFS. For some players, big wins might instill unrealistic expectations about future probabilities of winning and lead to increased-and potentially excessive-engagement. Explanations from cognitive psychology (e.g., the illusion of control) and behavioral psychology (e.g., operant conditioning) might help to explain the big win effect. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Daily fantasy sports and the law in the USA

This chapter examines legal, regulatory, and social issues surrounding the phenomenon of the daily fantasy sports (DFS) industry in the USA. Traditional fantasy sports contests largely involved groups of family or friends creating their own respective “fantasy” teams of real professional athletes, whose actual games results over the course of an entire season determined the success of one’s fantasy team. Fantasy sports contests were not considered gambling on sports, and federal legislation exempts “fantasy sports” from prohibitions against online gambling. As the name implied, DFS is a different product, offering users who pay the DFS operating company to select their team roster on a daily basis, competitions can occur over a day or a week depending on the contest, and among thousands of users, few of whom are consistent winners in the contests. The DFS commercials and advertisements are again blaring the airwaves. Major DFS operators are expanding their product lines and are now fully immersed in online, mobile, and casino sports gambling in states where legal. The DFS and sports gaming market is booming; the technology, analytics, user sophistication, financial stakes, and the distinction between DFS and gambling are increasingly blurred. This chapter considers the legal, regulatory, and social issues arising from the expanding DFS and sport gaming business.

Motivations as predictive variables of satisfaction and loyalty in coastal and marine destinations: a study in Acapulco, Mexico

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to find the underlying variables of travel motivations associated with a coastal and marine destination, and the motivations that predict satisfaction and the intention to return and recommend a destination, as loyalty variables.Design/methodology/approachCoastal and marine destinations are highly visited by travelers for their variety of tourist activities. Motivation is one of the crucial aspects to understand visitors’ behavior in these tourist places. This in situ research was conducted in Acapulco, a major tourist destination in Mexico. The 441 questionnaires gathered were analyzed using exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and the stepwise multiple regression method.FindingsThe results show six underlying variables or motivational factors: heritage and nature, learning, sun and beach and physical activities, authentic coastal experience, social interaction and novelty. The “novelty” dimension is the most important and influential predictor of satisfaction and loyalty, followed by “social interaction” and “learning.”Research limitations/implicationsTiming was the main limitation of the present study, considering that the survey was administered in March and April, and the demand could vary in different seasons. The findings will contribute to academic literature and will offer valuable information to tourist destination planners.Practical implicationsAcapulco’s potential for coastal and marine tourism has been identified. This destination should organize activities related to the motivational factors found, for example, visits to museums, craft markets and walks can increase visitors’ “heritage and nature” motivations. Community visits can help to promote the “authentic coastal experience” dimension. Increasing the offer of water sports will better position the “sun & beach and physical activities” motivation. As “novelty” is the most predictive variable, activities that include the novelty component and related to beach festivals, coastal events, educational workshops, sports contests, parades, gastronomic activities and navigable tours should be carried out.Social implicationsThe results will serve as management guides for the destination management organizations and as sources of information for the companies involved in marketing to develop products according to the demand found.Originality/valueUntil now, tourism studies have been carried out on the influence of motivations as predictive variables of satisfaction and loyalty in different types of destinations. However, research in coastal and marine destinations is scarce, representing a gap in the academic literature.

The Sporting Bubble as Gilded Cage

The Sporting Bubble as Gilded Cage

Supplemental Material for A Large-Scale Prospective Study of Big Wins and Their Relationship with Future Financial and Time Involvement in Actual Daily Fantasy Sports Contests

Supplemental Material for A Large-Scale Prospective Study of Big Wins and Their Relationship with Future Financial and Time Involvement in Actual Daily Fantasy Sports Contests

Optimising Daily Fantasy Sports Teams with Artificial Intelligence

Abstract This paper outlines a novel approach to optimising teams for Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) contests. To this end, we propose a number of new models and algorithms to solve the team formation problems posed by DFS. Specifically, we focus on the National Football League (NFL) and predict the performance of real-world players to form the optimal fantasy team using mixed-integer programming. We test our solutions using real-world data-sets from across four seasons (2014-2017). We highlight the advantage that can be gained from using our machine-based methods and show that our solutions outperform existing benchmarks, turning a profit in up to 81.3% of DFS game-weeks over a season.

Seen but not heard: missing the mark in conceptualizing high performance officiating

Officials are undeniably key figures in high performance sport, providing some order and regulation within complex and generally unpredictable sport contests. Despite their importance and centrality, a largely incomplete picture exists of their pressurized and complex work. Specifically, the limited existing research has tended to be framed by the ‘seen but not heard’ view of officialdom whereby they are considered to be rather benign rule-appliers. The result has been a somewhat valuable, yet largely narrow and constrained research agenda that often ‘misses the mark’ by emphasising largely decontextualized accounts of fitness, decision-making, and stress. The purpose of this deliberatively polemic paper is to stimulate debate about the important concepts in high-performance officiating, including how they learn their craft. In doing so, we propose that officiating is a complex and fundamentally human activity that demands authentic investigations considering the vital reciprocity between the official, their environment, and their dynamic role.

Understanding the Relation Between Social Behaviors and Daily Fantasy Sports Risk Behavior.

In daily fantasy sports (DFS) contests, participants form a roster of athletes scheduled to perform in a pre-determined list of sporting contests or games. Each participant has the opportunity to win cash prizes, depending on the performance of the athletes on their roster and the performances of the athletes on the other participants' rosters. Some contests have higher variances than others (i.e., lower percentages of participants winning and higher payouts versus higher percentages of participants winning and lower payouts) and can be considered riskier propositions. DFS operators have mechanisms for interacting with friends on their servers (e.g., referral programs and incentives, friend lists, private contests). To determine whether use of these mechanisms (i.e., social behavior) was associated with preference for higher variance contests (i.e., risk behavior), we analyzed player records (N = 11,130) from a DFS service. We constructed a measure of risk behavior, player risk score, that is based on DFS contests' entry fees and payout structures. We observed that players referred to the DFS service by a friend and those who had a reciprocal friendship had similar player risk scores. However, those who referred a friend, both generally and among players with reciprocal friendships, were more likely than others to have greater player risk scores, and greater numbers of friend referrals also was associated with higher player risk scores. Although the observed effect sizes were small, the results point to a possible relationship between referring others to play and risk activity. Future research should assess how these small effects interact with other behaviors and motivations associated with DFS play, like playing to escape or playing to earn/win money. It also should examine the temporal relationships between refer-a-friend program participation and risk content choices.

The Role of Emotion Regulation and Age in Experiencing Mediated Sports

Recent research indicates that sports fanship decreases with age. Socioemotional selectivity theory (SST) posits that older adults, with time limited, shift their focus on positive experiences. Entertainment media choices reflect this proactive emotion regulation strategy. This study applied that perspective to mediated sports content, itself characterized by emotional intensity and unknown outcomes. Using an online survey containing an experimental condition ( N = 433), the current study investigated whether the unpredictability and emotional intensity of sports contribute to older people disengaging from viewing it. The results are mixed: Older adults consume less sports media than younger adults and value the outcome less but are equally likely to be sports fans or watch highly exciting sports contests. It seems that fanship may contribute to happiness for some and thus reflect an active choice. Future research should investigate individual differences among older sports fans and nonfans to expand knowledge on their (emotional) viewing experiences.

The Role of Referees in Professional Sports Contests

This article models the role of a referee in a contest, in which players can invest into both productive and sabotage effort. The model shows that (1) a referee significantly influences the equilibrium strategies of the contestants, (2) whether or not the referee improves the quality of a contest depends on his refereeing performance and the marginal penalty awardable subject to the rules of the game, (3) the value of the referee is independent of asymmetries between players, as long as the asymmetric attribute does not affect the referee’s errors, (4) corrupt referees pose a serious economic threat to the sports industry, and (5) a referee reduces the competitive imbalance between the contestants in an asymmetric contest.

Outline of Mimesis, Honor and Dignity in Modern Sport: A Commentary

Abstract When reading the masterpiece about “The Agon Motif” by John W. Loy and W. Robert Morford (2019), I was struck by their recurrent reference to the pursuit of honor in agonal sport contests, as it has become common sense to replace honor with dignity in modernity. I take the German social-philosopher Axel Honneth (1995) as a prime example of spelling out the replacement of honor with dignity in what he names “the struggle for recognition”. In a historical perspective, however, it looks like, that dignity can be understood as a distribution of honor rather than as an oppositional concept of honor. Recognition should not only be conceptualized at the categorical level, but also understood in terms of ‘comparative recognition’, which sorts members of a group into an intra-group hierarchy based on their relative merits and, thereby, pave the way for self-esteem (Mark, 2014). Furthermore, Honneth (2008) develops his concept of recognition to a two-level one by including a primordial recognition in terms of mimesis based upon his former concept of basic self-confidence. It is a kind of elementary responsiveness, which always and necessarily contains an element of involuntary openness or devotedness in the bodily-affective sphere. Therefore, I suggest taking mimesis as the precondition of honor into account and understanding dignity as a distribution of honor in the institution of modern sport.

Gear Manufacturers as Contestants in Sports Competitions: Breeding and Branding Returns

Several manufacturers make substantial investments to compete in sports contests, using the gear they develop and market. However, no systematic analysis of the breeding (i.e., innovation) and branding (i.e., marketing) returns from such investments exists. In this study, the authors conceptualize and empirically estimate the breeding and branding returns that such manufacturers obtain. The authors gather data for 30 car brands of 16 manufacturers over the period 2000–2015 regarding their participation, spending, and performance in Formula One championships, annual patent citations, and research-and-development (R&D) budgets as well as monthly vehicle registrations, advertising expenditures, and Formula One TV viewership. The authors find that only gear manufacturers with relatively high levels of R&D spending obtain a positive and significant breeding return from competing in sports contests. While most brands obtain positive branding returns, the lower the level of advertising spending for the brand, the greater the branding returns they obtain from competing in these contests. Thus, research-intense (compared with advertising-intense) gear manufacturers have more to gain from competing in sports contests. These findings can help guide manufacturers in budget allocation decisions on sports competitions, R&D, and advertising.

Investigation of the Relationship between the Self-confidence and Motivation of High School Students Participating School Sport Contests

Investigation of the Relationship between the Self-confidence and Motivation of High School Students Participating School Sport Contests