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Suspense: Dynamic Incentives in Sports Contests

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  • William Chan
  • Pascal Courty
  • Li Hao

Abstract

In a dynamic model of sports competition, if spectators care only about contestants’ efforts, incentive schemes depending linearly on the final score difference dominate rank order schemes based only on who wins. If spectators also care about suspense, defined as valuing more contestants’ efforts when the game is closer, rank order schemes can dominate linear score difference schemes, and this will be the case when the demand for suspense is sufficiently high. Under additional assumptions, we show that the optimal rank order scheme dominates a broad class of incentive schemes.

Suggested Citation

  • William Chan & Pascal Courty & Li Hao, 2009. "Suspense: Dynamic Incentives in Sports Contests," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(534), pages 24-46, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:econjl:v:119:y:2009:i:534:p:24-46
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0297.2008.02204.x
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    Cited by:

    1. Rasyad A Parinduri & Yoong Hon Lee & Kung Ming Tiong, 2019. "The effects of bigger rewards in individual tournaments on efforts and risk taking: evidence from chess," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 71(4), pages 979-995.
    2. Li, Bo & Wu, Zenan & Xing, Zeyu, 2023. "Optimally biased contests with draws," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 226(C).
    3. Ewerhart, Christian, 2016. "An envelope approach to tournament design," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 1-9.
    4. Jeffrey Cisyk & Pascal Courty & Amin Kouhbor, 2025. "Are English Premier League Teams Paid Like Bureaucrats? An Incentive Analysis of Monetary Match Importance," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 26(7), pages 783-815, October.
    5. John A. List & Daan van Soest & Jan Stoop & Haiwen Zhou, 2020. "On the Role of Group Size in Tournaments: Theory and Evidence from Laboratory and Field Experiments," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(10), pages 4359-4377, October.
    6. Jarrod Olson & Daniel F. Stone, 2014. "Suspense-Optimal College Football Play-Offs," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 15(5), pages 519-540, October.
    7. Evan Osborne, 2010. "Why Do Some Kinds of Stars Get the Calls?," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 11(2), pages 203-213, April.
    8. Dong, Zhi-Long & Ribeiro, Celso C. & Xu, Fengmin & Zamora, Ailec & Ma, Yujie & Jing, Kui, 2023. "Dynamic scheduling of e-sports tournaments," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    9. Peter-J. Jost, 2021. "“The ball is round, the game lasts 90 minutes, everything else is pure theoryâ€," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 22(1), pages 27-74, January.
    10. Kocher, Martin G. & Krawczyk, Michal & van Winden, Frans, 2014. "‘Let me dream on!’ Anticipatory emotions and preference for timing in lotteries," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 29-40.
    11. Ralf Dewenter & Julian Emami Namini, 2013. "How to Make Soccer More Attractive? Rewards for a Victory, the Teams' Offensiveness, and the Home Bias," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 14(1), pages 65-86, February.
    12. Brad R. Humphreys & Thomas J. Miceli, 2019. "The Peculiar Preferences of Sports Fans: Toward a Preference-Based Motivation for the Uncertainty of Outcome Hypothesis," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 20(6), pages 782-796, August.
    13. Martin Grossmann & Helmut M. Dietl, 2009. "Investment Behaviour in a Two-Period Contest Model," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 165(3), pages 401-417, September.
    14. Xiandeng Jiang, 2018. "Relative Performance Prizes and Dynamic Incentives in Best-of-N Contests," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 53(3), pages 563-590, November.
    15. Xu, Jing, 2022. "Competition and equilibrium effort choice," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    16. Lional Frost & Luc Borrowman & Abdel K. Halabi, 2015. "Stadiums and Scheduling: Measuring Deadweight Losses in Professional Sports Leagues, 1920-1970," Monash Economics Working Papers 07-15, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    17. Barbieri, Stefano & Serena, Marco, 2022. "Biasing dynamic contests between ex-ante symmetric players," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 1-30.
    18. Evan Osborne, 2012. "Upsets," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 13(3), pages 314-320, June.
    19. Bergerhoff, Jan & Vosen, Agnes, 2015. "Can being behind get you ahead? Reference Dependence and Asymmetric Equilibria in an Unfair Tournament," Bonn Econ Discussion Papers 03/2015, University of Bonn, Bonn Graduate School of Economics (BGSE).

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