Batting Outside the Field

This study examines the relationship between cognitive awareness and perceived knowledge of sports fans’ social media engagement behaviors. Data were collected through an online survey of 236 adults from India who identified as Indian Premier League (IPL) fans. The findings of the study suggest that perceived knowledge and cognitive awareness of sports are precursors to social media engagement behaviors of sports fans. Further, sports fandom mediates links between perceived knowledge and cognitive awareness with social media engagement. The findings hold special significance for contemporary COVID scenarios because physical engagement is being substituted by digital engagement.

Analisis Dislikes to Likes Ratio Youtube Pada 5 Liga Terbaik Eropa Saat Ini

YouTube adalah sebuah situs web video sharing (berbagi video) yang populer dimana para pengguna dapat memuat, menonton, dan berbagi klip video secara gratis. Saat ini Youtube menjadi situs online Video provider paling dominan di Amerika serikat, bahkan dunia, dengan menguasai 43% pasar. Adapun 5 Liga Terbaik Eropa Saat Ini yang memanfaatkan Youtube sebagai platform marketing, yaitu : Premier League, LaLiga Santander, seria A, Ligue 1, dan Bundesliga. Tujuan dari penelitian ini yaitu untuk menghitung kredibilitas dari performa akun Youtube 5 Liga Terbaik Eropa Saat Ini. Metode yang digunakan untuk penelitian ini yaitu metode eksploratif kuantitatif. Hasil dari penelitian ini menunjukan bahwa LaLiga Santanderbaik mendapatkan peringkat pertama dan memiliki kredibilitas performa akun yang baik.

Strategies of German Bundesliga and English Premier League clubs for the COVID-19 crisis: the case of international broadcasting fans

During the COVID-19 pandemic that paused sports worldwide, the German Bundesliga League (GBL) and English Premier League (EPL) took two different strategic approaches to agree with their players on returning to play. To become better informed and prepared for future crisis management, this study examines consumer responses to these opposing strategies. We also identify how perceived organizational legitimacy, trustworthiness, reliance, and justifiability have an impact on consumer multimedia consumption of the games. A sample of 503 participants responded to an online questionnaire regarding the contrasting decisions taken by the GBL and the EPL during the global health crisis. SEM with multi-group analysis was conducted to test the research hypotheses. When comparing the two selected sport leagues, the league that reached an agreement with their players experienced higher levels of perceived legitimacy while needing fewer perceptions of trustworthiness, reliance, and justifiability to obtain higher multimedia consumption intention from consumers.

Attentional control and its relationship to the accuracy of some types of basketball shooting for Iraqi youth club’s players

The importance of this study is reflected in the fact that it is an attempt to identify attentional control and its relationship to the accuracy of some types of basketball shooting for youth players for Iraqi Premier League clubs for youth for the season (2020-2021). The problem of the research is to identify the level of some mental abilities, including attentional control, represented by attentional focus, attentional shift and attentional flexibility and their relationship to the accuracy of some types of basketball shooting for the Iraqi players of youth clubs. The study aimed to identify the relationship between attentional control and the accuracy of the performance of some types of basketball shooting for youth basketball players for the 2020-2021 season. The two researchers adopted the descriptive curriculum in a survey style and correlational relationships. The research community was determined by the Iraqi youth basketball players, who numbered (160) out of (16) clubs and these clubs are (Al-Amarah, Dijlah, Dhi Qar, Samawah, Al-Kut, Al-Sharqiya, Nasiriyah, Baghdad, Al-Mina, Al-Karkh, Al-Ittihad, Al-Naft, Adhamiya, Al-Shurta, Al-Tadamon, Naft Al-Janoub) and then a sample of (50) players selected in a random way and they are club players of (Al-Amarah, Baghdad, Al-Karkh, Al-Naft, Al-Adhamiya) and they were tested on the attentional control scale and after processing the results, it was found that some of the young basketball players have a high level of attentional control and the accuracy of performing some types of shooting in youth basketball. Therefore, the two researchers recommend the necessity of paying attention to mental processes, including (attentional focus, attentional shift, attentional flexibility), as well as adopting the attentional control scale as tools to identify the level of some of the mental abilities that players possess

A big data analysis of Twitter data during premier league matches: do tweets contain information valuable for in-play forecasting of goals in football?

Data-related analysis in football increasingly benefits from Big Data approaches and machine learning methods. One relevant application of data analysis in football is forecasting, which relies on understanding and accurately modelling the process of a match. The present paper tackles two neglected facets of forecasting in football: Forecasts on the total number of goals and in-play forecasting (forecasts based on within-match information). Sentiment analysis techniques were used to extract the information reflected in almost two million tweets from more than 400 Premier League matches. By means of wordclouds and timely analysis of several tweet-based features, the Twitter communication over the full course of matches and shortly before and after goals was visualized and systematically analysed. Moreover, several forecasting models including a random forest model have been used to obtain in-play forecasts. Results suggest that in-play forecasting of goals is highly challenging, and in-play information does not improve forecasting accuracy. An additional analysis of goals from more than 30,000 matches from the main European football leagues supports the notion that the predictive value of in-play information is highly limited compared to pre-game information. This is a relevant result for coaches, match analysts and broadcasters who should not overestimate the value of in-play information. The present study also sheds light on how the perception and behaviour of Twitter users change over the course of a football match. A main result is that the sentiment of Twitter users decreases when the match progresses, which might be caused by an unjustified high expectation of football fans before the match.

Investigating the efficiency of the Asian handicap football betting market with ratings and Bayesian networks

Despite the massive popularity of the Asian Handicap (AH) football (soccer) betting market, its efficiency has not been adequately studied by the relevant literature. This paper combines rating systems with Bayesian networks and presents the first published model specifically developed for prediction and assessment of the efficiency of the AH betting market. The results are based on 13 English Premier League seasons and are compared to the traditional market, where the bets are for win, lose or draw. Different betting situations have been examined including a) both average and maximum (best available) market odds, b) all possible betting decision thresholds between predicted and published odds, c) optimisations for both return-on-investment and profit, and d) simple stake adjustments to investigate how the variance of returns changes when targeting equivalent profit in both traditional and AH markets. While the AH market is found to share the inefficiencies of the traditional market, the findings reveal both interesting differences as well as similarities between the two.

The influence of crosses, shots, corner kicks and defensive movements in the results of Premier League matches

The technology growth allowing analysis acts to gain more efficiency in football has increased, with performance analysis researches being conducted, since the knowledge of performance indicators that can determine success in football and the need for more predictive analysis to better comprehend them are essential. So, in account of these aspects this research aimed to investigate the influence of crosses, shots, corner kicks and defensive movements in winning Premier League (PL) football matches. The methodology adopted consists of a quantitative, descriptive and documentary research, which the sample is represented by all PL 2015/2016 matches. The analysis acts were made by the utilization of the association technique, present at data mining process, with the support of the software Weka. Results demonstrated the influence of variables in PL victories, suggesting that making a higher number of crosses than opponents was not effective to win PL matches, but that making more shots on goal than opponents was a positive indicative to predict victories, as having more defensive movements and less crosses than opponents as well. About corner kicks, results demonstrated that there is no influence of this component at match results.