I completely disagree with the premise of the article that draws are most boring and the wider the score difference the more interesting the game is.
Frequently draws are very exciting, they can make compelling viewing. In a game that is completely dominated by one team, there can be very little of interest.
An alternative metric would be the degree of uncertainty/jeopardy in the game. So a game that ends 1-1 has a high degree of jeopardy because at any moment a team can score and take point from the other team.
Agreed as well. I would say shots on target (not straight at the goalkeeper) are a good metric of an exciting game. I would also include near misses past the post and just over the bar as I don't think these are officially counted as "shots on target".
Dribbles or passing plays into the box which may not result in a shot are exciting too. For match excitement/entertainment value these should be measured also.
The sharp drop in Premier League draws after 1993 clearly lines up with increasing club inequality, something most fans feel but isn't always backed by data.
It raises an important question: is competitive balance worse for business? Fans love unpredictability, but money seems to be concentrating power.
Few months ago I was watching Bernie Ecclestone and Max Mosley interviews and they said that in F1 there should be a cap on how much teams are allowed to spend because Mercedes always wins....but in football there are no such thoughts and limits and that's why Manchester City and PSG rose so hard in the last 10 years. If you pump billions of dollars into any business, you will more likely win than not win, just look at TikTok, they pumped billions into advertising and user-acqisition and now they rule on mobile.
Unfortunately, because of the phenomenon of "brand loyalty" fans will continue to support their teams even when they have no chance of winning anything (due to lack of finances); and the elites that run the EPL know this all too well.
Much more fun to go out and support lower league clubs. And cheaper too.
While the premise of 'draws are boring' is debatable, I do think the discussion on unequal finances in prem clubs needs to continue. For some years parachute payments have helped with the relegation issues, but there seems to be a recurring issue of the top 4 clubs ignoring their spending limits and overall compounding their power transferring top players.
Also, nice article. I enjoyed the interactive graphs.
Betting/gambling. Also talking shit to your friends in the pub which support the 'other' team (in a (friendly) banter).
I remember when I was betting (a lot) with Ladbrokes 15-20 years ago, I _loved_ statistics. But win/lose/draw was never my cup of tea. I would study the numbers and find teams who score/receive a lot and would bet on Over/Under. It didn't even have to be the 'premier' leagues. There were teams in Finland and Netherlands that would have an aggregate of 6-8 goals in most games. This was as certain as it could be. Low yield but steady yield. It just took time. I assume now with LLMs, one could write a prompt that would get an LLM to scour the interweb and give it "the games with over/under of x1.5 or more and teams that do so-and-so.. but.. who has time for that!
Looking from the perspective of other top tier European countries leagues (Spain & Italy), the English Premiere League is always seen as an example of more equal money distribution (beside having more absolute money in general, I think a newly promoted team there earns more from thei own league than the 5th club in Italy IIRC), so this article kind of surprised me.
Is this a "point of view" issue or do we get factually wrong information outside England?
English football, unlike tic-tac-toe, can be thrilling and end in a draw. Possession mix, shots on goal, and more stats are useful to determine how exciting a match was from a box score.
Frankly, for me the most boring is a 2-0 win where the team scores those 2 in the first 20 to 30 minutes, swaps to a 5-4-1, and plays tiki-taka passing possession control without trying hard to advance the ball for the remaining hour of the match.
MLS works really hard to keep a "level playing field" in terms of spending, and really leans into "parity", and also has a knockout tournament to figure out the "champion", so whoever wins the championship season to season is basically a crap shoot.
Miami set the record for most points earned in a season for the regular season and then went out in the first round to an 8th seeded team. LA Galaxy won the title last season and are currently sitting at the bottom of the table halfway through the season.
Anybody can win any game, but most of the teams are thoroughly mediocre, and MLS struggles even to beat Mexican teams, let alone do well at something like the Club World Cup (Miami being an exception because they spent the money to sign the best person in the history of soccer to the team, and even then they suffered from the lack of depth caused by the salary cap).
IMO, parity and mediocrity is also boring, and I would much prefer a league that allowed teams to spend more if they want and really try to compete on an international level. Even if that means you have 2 or 3 teams that dominate the league, that is not necessarily bad. Baseball was dominated by the Yankees for literally decades, and it survived and even thrived.
It's very stupid to think that a draw is boring.
even a 0-0 match can sometimes be exciting.
What should be the measure of "boringness" of a game is Expected Goals, better known as xG. And of course a game with both teams having 1.3 xG is much better than 4xG vs. 0.04xG.
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[ 1.8 ms ] story [ 38.7 ms ] threadFrequently draws are very exciting, they can make compelling viewing. In a game that is completely dominated by one team, there can be very little of interest.
An alternative metric would be the degree of uncertainty/jeopardy in the game. So a game that ends 1-1 has a high degree of jeopardy because at any moment a team can score and take point from the other team.
Dribbles or passing plays into the box which may not result in a shot are exciting too. For match excitement/entertainment value these should be measured also.
It raises an important question: is competitive balance worse for business? Fans love unpredictability, but money seems to be concentrating power.
Much more fun to go out and support lower league clubs. And cheaper too.
Also, nice article. I enjoyed the interactive graphs.
Betting/gambling. Also talking shit to your friends in the pub which support the 'other' team (in a (friendly) banter).
I remember when I was betting (a lot) with Ladbrokes 15-20 years ago, I _loved_ statistics. But win/lose/draw was never my cup of tea. I would study the numbers and find teams who score/receive a lot and would bet on Over/Under. It didn't even have to be the 'premier' leagues. There were teams in Finland and Netherlands that would have an aggregate of 6-8 goals in most games. This was as certain as it could be. Low yield but steady yield. It just took time. I assume now with LLMs, one could write a prompt that would get an LLM to scour the interweb and give it "the games with over/under of x1.5 or more and teams that do so-and-so.. but.. who has time for that!
Frankly, for me the most boring is a 2-0 win where the team scores those 2 in the first 20 to 30 minutes, swaps to a 5-4-1, and plays tiki-taka passing possession control without trying hard to advance the ball for the remaining hour of the match.
Miami set the record for most points earned in a season for the regular season and then went out in the first round to an 8th seeded team. LA Galaxy won the title last season and are currently sitting at the bottom of the table halfway through the season.
Anybody can win any game, but most of the teams are thoroughly mediocre, and MLS struggles even to beat Mexican teams, let alone do well at something like the Club World Cup (Miami being an exception because they spent the money to sign the best person in the history of soccer to the team, and even then they suffered from the lack of depth caused by the salary cap).
IMO, parity and mediocrity is also boring, and I would much prefer a league that allowed teams to spend more if they want and really try to compete on an international level. Even if that means you have 2 or 3 teams that dominate the league, that is not necessarily bad. Baseball was dominated by the Yankees for literally decades, and it survived and even thrived.
0-0 games are boring, but not because they're draws. It's because there are no goals!
I think most fans agree with me that a 2-2 draw is more entertaining than a 1-0 win.
What should be the measure of "boringness" of a game is Expected Goals, better known as xG. And of course a game with both teams having 1.3 xG is much better than 4xG vs. 0.04xG.