3 ms·
In the US, the major team sports are not at all "very thin edge". In fact, lack of parity is a real issue facing several leagues. Between "tanking" (teams that
by ubernostrum 8y ago
In the US, the major team sports are not at all "very thin edge". In fact, lack of parity is a real issue facing several leagues.
Between "tanking" (teams that are deliberately bad in order to get better draft picks), massive budget differences (it's not unusual to see large-market teams with payrolls more than double those of small-market teams), and structural issues in the games themselves, parity can be very very difficult to achieve. 538 attempts to use chess-style Elo ratings to track the major sports, and currently they have:
* ~200-point difference between best and worst major-league baseball team
* ~400-point difference between best and worst NFL football team
* ~400-point difference between best and worst NBA basketball team
- sytelus 8y agoI was talking about teams in final games in pro sport. In these scenarios, competitors are very well matched. If outcome was predictable with very high degree of confidence in these games then people wouldn’t care much and all the reasoning chains and justifications would be offered before the games.