Heterogeneous Contestants and the Intensity of Tournaments

Abstract

We empirically investigate whether tournaments between heterogeneous contestants are less intense. To test our hypotheses, we use professional sports data from the TOYOTA Handball-Bundesliga, the major handball league in Germany. Based on sports betting odds, we estimate the differences in winning probabilities of the competing teams and find evidence for a negative impact of the matchup’s heterogeneity on the intensity of the game. The decrease is significant not only at the beginning but also toward the end of the game. Further analysis shows that the overall intensity decrease is almost entirely driven by the reaction of the ex ante favorite team.

The Impact of Managerial Change on Performance: The Role of Team Heterogeneity

“…To the best of our knowledge, there has been no empirical evidence so far concerning the impact of heterogeneity in the context of dismissals and our analysis reveals that this is a key factor determining the success of a replacement. Moreover, our results are consistent with recent findings from the empirical literature on asymmetric contests, which often finds a negative correlation between effort levels and the degree of heterogeneity of contestants (see, e.g., Berger and Nieken ; Brown ; Lynch ; Nieken and Stegh ; Orrison, Schotter, and Weigelt ; Schotter and Weigelt ; Sunde ).…”

Intermediate Information, Loss Aversion, and Effort: Empirical Evidence

“…Extensive research centers on different determinants of performance, success, or productivity of teams or individual athletes, but few focus explicitly on effort , mainly because of the difficulty of measuring something that “is [often] not directly observable by the principal or the audience (including the econometrician), which constitutes the major empirical problem for testing the incentive effect” (Sunde , 3200). Sports data provide manifold, extensive statistics, but the best method to measure effort is unclear (Berger and Nieken ), and many previously applied measures might not actually reflect it.…”

“…Some studies argue that overall team effort can be derived from the intensity of a match, which can be approximated by the number of penalties a team receives due to fouls or other rule violations. Frick, Gürtler, and Prinz () use the number of penalty cards (yellow, yellow/red, and red) issued to each soccer team per match to assess match intensity and thus team effort; Berger and Nieken () similarly rely on the number of 2‐minute suspensions per handball match and team as a measure of “defensive effort.” Although they acknowledge that such efforts also could reflect sabotage activities, they relate positively to a team's winning probability. Therefore, these authors consider the number of 2‐minute suspensions as a good proxy for the intensity of a team's play.…”

The Impact of Intermediate Information on Sabotage in Tournaments with Heterogeneous Contestants

“…They find that favored teams tend to engage in fair actions (fair tackles), whereas underdogs are more prone to rely on sabotage behavior (fouls). For hockey (Berger and Nieken, ) and handball (Nieken and Stegh, ) heterogeneity has been confirmed to decrease fouls and therefore penalties.…”