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Stochastic dynamic Thurstone-Mosteller models for sports tournaments

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Cattelan, Manuela, Varin, Cristiano and Firth, David (2010) Stochastic dynamic Thurstone-Mosteller models for sports tournaments. Working Paper. Coventry: University of Warwick. Centre for Research in Statistical Methodology. Working papers, Vol.2010 (No.19).

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Official URL: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/statistics/crism...

Abstract

In the course of national sports tournaments, usually lasting several months, it is expected
that the abilities of teams taking part in the tournament change in time. A dynamic extension
of the Thurstone-Mosteller model for paired comparison data is introduced to model
the outcomes of sporting contests allowing for time-varying abilities. It is assumed that the
development of teams' abilities follows a stationary process and a team-specific home effect
is considered. The likelihood function of the proposed model requires the approximation of
a high dimensional integral. This difficulty is overcome by means of maximum simulated
likelihood via the Geweke-Hajivassiliou-Keane algorithm. Ranking of teams and forecasting
future match results are performed through a Metropolis-Hastings algorithm. The methodology
is applied to sports data with and without tied contests, namely the 2006-2007 Italian
volleyball league and the 2008-2009 Italian Serie A football season.

Item Type:

Working or Discussion Paper (Working Paper)

Subjects:

Q Science > QA Mathematics

Divisions:

Faculty of Science > Statistics

Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):

Sports tournaments -- Mathematical models

Series Name:

Working papers

Publisher:

University of Warwick. Centre for Research in Statistical Methodology

Place of Publication:

Coventry

Official Date:

September 2010

Dates:

Date	Event
September 2010	Published

Volume:

Vol.2010

Number:

No.19

Number of Pages:

Status:

Not Peer Reviewed

Access rights to Published version:

Open Access

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