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One thing about football is that one play can have a huge impact on the game, but the overwhelming majority of plays do not. This gives you a contest where ever

One thing about football is that one play can have a huge impact on the game, but the overwhelming majority of plays do not. This gives you a contest where every new event could be meaningful and is worth watching, but doesn't become chaotic. Compare this to tennis, where missing an individual shot can lose you the game but each failed attempted has roughly the same impact. Football (and soccer and baseball) are more like chess where one catastrophic play can essentially end the game, no matter what plays preceded or follow it. This dynamic is about the difference between focus and consistency. Games like football and chess prioritize the focus not to make a disastrous mistake at any point. Games like basketball and scrabble emphasize performing with a high level of consistency and are more forgiving of rare large errors.

jfengel 6y ago
I think the difference is well characterized by this clip from the Simpsons, of two announcers describing the same soccer game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjp1Zrvn8VQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjp1Zrvn8VQ One sees every instant as an opportunity for something game-altering to happen, creating tremendous tension. The other believes that it's almost certainly not going to, and so is bored instead of tense. This isn't quite the same as what you're pointing out, but the appraoch to focus overlaps. In soccer, constant focus is required for 90 straight minutes. In football, you have bouts of intense action, and even though most of them will result in little gain, you don't have to be constantly on edge for hours because every moment has the same potential as every other. Neither is superior; it's just what the audience chooses to be interested in.
brundolf 6y ago
I wonder if this plays into the entertainment value in a Skinner box/gacha-game type way. Similarly: many of the most popular video games for streaming (including but not limited to Battle Royales) involve some element of chaos or chance. Never knowing how things will go, or when something really exciting will happen, keeps an audience engaged.
lupire 6y ago
Focus and consistency appear to be synonyms here?
jberryman 6y ago
I've always been curious about basketball. It seems to have the same dynamic as big group races, where people are just trying to keep pace with each other until a final sprint. Yet basketball isn't very physically taxing, compared to those types of racing sports (or soccer, etc); it seems like teams could go all out the whole game, and then you wouldn't see as many games won by single digit point margins
- philwelch 6y ago
  Basketball isn't physically taxing the way a marathon is, but I wouldn't say it "isn't very physically taxing". It's far more physically taxing than, say, baseball or maybe even American football. However, basketball is extremely skill-based, to the degree that extremely skilled players can sometimes defeat players with better conditioning. The very best players, like LeBron, have incredible skills combined with incredible conditioning.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- akiselev 6y ago
  Basketball teams play 82 games over about 180 days, so it's a game roughly every 2.5 days not including practice - compared to 38 games over 10 months for the English Premier League which is a game every 7-8 days. I don't know how often racing teams compete but I'm assuming it isn't as frequent. Even a few days makes a large difference for rest and recovery. Playing at 100% every game would very quickly lead to burnout and injuries, or at least that's the common wisdom. Not sure if it's accurate [1] [1] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2325967117729798 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/232596711772979...

jfengel 6y ago

I think the difference is well characterized by this clip from the Simpsons, of two announcers describing the same soccer game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjp1Zrvn8VQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjp1Zrvn8VQ One sees every instant as an opportunity for something game-altering to happen, creating tremendous tension. The other believes that it's almost certainly not going to, and so is bored instead of tense. This isn't quite the same as what you're pointing out, but the appraoch to focus overlaps. In soccer, constant focus is required for 90 straight minutes. In football, you have bouts of intense action, and even though most of them will result in little gain, you don't have to be constantly on edge for hours because every moment has the same potential as every other. Neither is superior; it's just what the audience chooses to be interested in.

brundolf 6y ago

I wonder if this plays into the entertainment value in a Skinner box/gacha-game type way. Similarly: many of the most popular video games for streaming (including but not limited to Battle Royales) involve some element of chaos or chance. Never knowing how things will go, or when something really exciting will happen, keeps an audience engaged.

lupire 6y ago

Focus and consistency appear to be synonyms here?

jberryman 6y ago

I've always been curious about basketball. It seems to have the same dynamic as big group races, where people are just trying to keep pace with each other until a final sprint. Yet basketball isn't very physically taxing, compared to those types of racing sports (or soccer, etc); it seems like teams could go all out the whole game, and then you wouldn't see as many games won by single digit point margins

philwelch 6y ago
Basketball isn't physically taxing the way a marathon is, but I wouldn't say it "isn't very physically taxing". It's far more physically taxing than, say, baseball or maybe even American football. However, basketball is extremely skill-based, to the degree that extremely skilled players can sometimes defeat players with better conditioning. The very best players, like LeBron, have incredible skills combined with incredible conditioning.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
akiselev 6y ago
Basketball teams play 82 games over about 180 days, so it's a game roughly every 2.5 days not including practice - compared to 38 games over 10 months for the English Premier League which is a game every 7-8 days. I don't know how often racing teams compete but I'm assuming it isn't as frequent. Even a few days makes a large difference for rest and recovery. Playing at 100% every game would very quickly lead to burnout and injuries, or at least that's the common wisdom. Not sure if it's accurate [1] [1] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2325967117729798 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/232596711772979...