Sports addiction and Science

The most dramatic moments in sports — the upsets, the longshots, the Cinderella runs — don’t happen in a vacuum. They’re baked into the structure of the league.

Two academic papers break this down clearly:

• The NFL feels wild and dramatic because its rules create that feeling.

• The NBA feels inevitable because it’s designed for the top teams to stay on top.

• Baseball and hockey? Pure chaos — by design or by accident.

Once you understand how parity, predictability, and information density per game work, the narratives you see — or don’t see — start to make sense.

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🔍 Part 1: Parity & Predictability

(Ben-Naim, Vazquez & Redner)

This paper explores how often the underdog wins, and how balanced a league really is — not just in theory, but in outcomes.

They run a simple model:

• Each game has a favorite.

• The underdog wins with a fixed probability (say, 40%).

• That one rule is enough to simulate entire seasons across major sports.

And here’s the twist:
Even with this basic setup, the model replicates actual league standings — across the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, and Premier League.

Here’s how the leagues stack up:

🔁 Reinforcing the Thesis:
The NFL doesn’t just feel like “any given Sunday.” It is that.
And the NBA isn’t just star-driven. It’s structurally tilted toward the favorites.

📊 Part 2: How Much Does a Single Game Tell You?

(Wolfson & Koopmeiners)

This paper takes it further:
How many games do you need to figure out who’s actually good?
That answer turns out to be wildly different depending on the sport.

They run a prediction model using only parts of the season, and ask:
How accurately can you forecast the rest?

Here’s what they find:

• NFL games are the most “information-dense.”
  You can get a reliable sense of team quality with just 4 or 5 games.

• NBA games take more time — but are highly consistent.
  The longer the season runs, the more obvious it becomes who’s good.

• MLB and NHL games are noisy.
  Even after 100+ games, it’s hard to tell which teams are actually elite.

🧠 Why it matters:
Leagues with low-information games need longer seasons to smooth out the chaos.
But in doing so, they stretch the narrative thin.

📌 Reinforcing the Thesis:

• In the NFL, fewer games + high information = every game matters, every win feels like a plot twist.

• In the NBA, more games confirm what we already suspect — the best teams will stay that way.

• In MLB/NHL, chaos rules. But with 82+ games, it’s hard to keep the average fan emotionally tuned in.

🎬 Final Word

The structure of a league doesn’t just determine fairness or competitiveness.
It shapes the stories we can tell.

• The NFL has mastered narrative — not because of its media machine, but because of how its rules engineer parity and surprise.

• The NBA gives you long arcs and dominant characters — not random outcomes.

• Baseball gives you randomness — but too much of it, spread across too many games.

These aren’t just quirks of the sport.
They’re design choices.

And once you understand them, the way you interpret every game, every streak, and every playoff run changes too.

Credits:
🧠 Parity and Predictability of Competitions — Ben-Naim, Vazquez & Redner
🧠 Who's Good This Year? — Wolfson & Koopmeiners