Sports

The Wenger hypothesis: How many points to win the English Premier League?

Written by Peter Martin on 01 December 2016.

Arsène Wenger (pictured) has been manager of Arsenal Football Club since 1996, making him the longest-standing manager of a current English Premier League (EPL) team. There is no doubt that he knows a thing or two about football that most people don't. Thus, when he made a prediction about the number of points needed to win the EPL this year, the football media listened up.

A smashing return: Team GB's Olympic host legacy

Written by Ray Stefani on 21 September 2016.

Team GB had a phenomenal Olympics in Rio and, in topping its London 2012 medal haul, it has set a standard that may be hard for future Olympic host nations to follow.

The 2016 Prediction Games – Part II

Written by Tim Paulden on 27 August 2016.

Now that the sun has set on the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, it’s time to follow-up on Part 1 of The 2016 Prediction Games, which summarised the numerous medal forecasts published ahead of the event. How well did they predict the top of the medal table, and the table as a whole?

The 2016 Prediction Games – Part I

Written by Tim Paulden on 17 August 2016.

Prior to the start of the 2016 Olympic Games, over a dozen different groups around the world published numerical forecasts of how they believed the final medal table would end up – and just like the athletes competing in Rio, these groups came in a variety of shapes and sizes. Predictions were issued by teams of university academics (including one group published in the pages of Significance), by sports experts, by global institutions such as the Wall Street Journal, PWC and Goldman Sachs – and, on the day before the Games began, by our statistical research team at ATASS Sports.

Belgium to win Euro 2016? A Q&A on probabilistic predictions

Written by Brian Tarran on 30 June 2016.

England fans might have been disappointed to see their football team crash out of the Euro 2016 tournament earlier this week, but they never stood much chance of winning. According to the statisticians at the Norwegian Computing Center (NCC), the probability of England lifting the trophy never got above 5%. Spain is perhaps the biggest surprise: at certain points in the tournament, the probability of the team finishing first was 20% or more.