A paradox of tournament seeding

Csató, László (2023) A paradox of tournament seeding. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SPORTS SCIENCE AND COACHING, 18 (4). pp. 1277-1284. ISSN 1747-9541 10.1177/17479541221141617

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Abstract

We analyse a mathematical model of seeding for sports contests with round-robin qualifying tournaments. The standard seeding system based on coefficients measuring the historical performance of the teams is shown to be unfair as it might potentially punish a team for its better results by having to face stronger opponents on average in the next stage. Major football competitions are revealed to suffer from this weakness. Incentive compatibility can be guaranteed by providing each qualified team with the highest coefficient of all teams that are ranked lower in its qualifying tournament for seeding purposes. Our proposal is illustrated by the 2020/21 UEFA Champions League.

Item Type: Article
Subjects: Q Science > QA Mathematics and Computer Science > QA75 Electronic computers. Computer science / számítástechnika, számítógéptudomány
Divisions: Research Laboratory on Engineering & Management Intelligence > Research Group of Operations Research and Decision Systems
SWORD Depositor: MTMT Injector
Depositing User: MTMT Injector
Date Deposited: 16 Jan 2024 09:18
Last Modified: 16 Jan 2024 09:18
URI: https://eprints.sztaki.hu/id/eprint/10642

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