Jessica Hargreaves (University of York)
 
Who is the best athlete? Analysing multi-event disciplines at the Commonwealth Games
 
The multi-event disciplines at the Commonwealth Games are often regarded as the ultimate tests of athleticism, requiring competitors to excel in multiple, distinct events. However, determining the winner in these contests, which may involve four, five, or even seven different disciplines, raises important questions about the fairness and accuracy of current scoring systems. Are these systems truly effective at identifying the “best” athlete? Do they treat each event equally, or do certain disciplines receive disproportionate weight? Could athletes be exploiting potential weaknesses in the system to gain a competitive advantage? Focusing on the Heptathlon, Women’s Artistic Gymnastics All-Around, and the Omnium, we will compare the performance results across these events and evaluate the strengths and limitations of current scoring systems.
 
Johan Rewilak (Loughborough University)
 
Should statisticians trust statistical data?
 
The impact of hosting sporting mega (and meso) events is often framed with extraordinary ex-ante statistics, promising economic and social prosperity. Yet, ex-post evaluations tell a different story, suggesting that event boosters’ claims may be exaggerated. Substitution and displacement effects are frequently cited as explanations to these discrepancies, but calculating these phenomena often comes with measurement error. Therefore, should statisticians trust the statistical data? Drawing on evidence from the public house sector during the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, this talk explores the scale of substitution and displacement effects and offers insights for Glasgow as it prepares to host the Games in 2026.
 
Peter Philipson (Newcastle University)
 
The Referee's Whistle: From the 'Big 5' to the SPFL
 
Scrutiny of referees in football is ever-increasing and likely at an all-time high. Is this fair? How consistent are modern day referees? In this work, the number of yellow cards given to the home and away teams over several seasons of data from 2018-2022 in the ‘Big 5’ European leagues, along with the Scottish Premier League, in men’s football is modelled. This allows us to assess the effect of playing behind closed doors due to the pandemic, as well on heterogeneity amongst both referees, primarily, and teams, secondarily. The underdispersed nature of the data from the small counts, and likely dependence of the cards issued within a game, leads us to a bivariate Conway-Maxwell-Poisson copula model to analyse the data. We also model home advantage, and whether this was diluted during Covid-19, and league effects, allowing an assessment of how consistent referees are across leagues and which league has the most heterogeneous men in the middle.
 

Jessica Hargreaves (University of York), Johan Rewilak (Loughborough University), and Peter Philipson (Newcastle University)

Organised by Glasgow, Edinburgh & Highlands local groups and Statistics in Sport Section. Contact Ryan Stewart for any further information.