Entertainment

For me, there's nothing entertaining whatsoever about watching the opposition raining shots in on our goal and having a succession of corners. My entertainment derives from what MY team does, not the opposition. If the opposing team were camped in their own box for the entire game, that would constitute a highly entertaining game, for me. If they were camped in our box, it would be a horrible spectacle.

I would take your points system, but for the opposing team I'd multiply all the values by -1. That would be more akin to the entertainment I want to see.

 

just messing around mate

 

This may sound a little odd, but the most "entertaining” game I've seen us play was our 2-2 draw away to Bolton during our promotion season of 96/97. Left the ground disappointed by conceding an equaliser so late on, but it's genuinely the most exciting, absorbing 90 minutes of football I've ever watched. Two brilliant teams, a match you couldn't risk taking your eye off. It wasn't 90 minutes of pure technical football, both sides knew how to mix it up then, chances at both ends, hard but honest tackles, penalties, errors, close chances and so on. But it went beyond the match, the atmosphere in an old school ground at Burnden Park, stood on a terrace, smells of Bovril, tobacco.

I have no idea no idea how it would score on the scale, but I long for football matches like that and the memories are so clear. Emotion, passion, a complete release from life for a couple of hours. That is what being entertained is for me.

 

Surely perceived entertainment/enjoyment is different for every individual? Some people like model railway sets, some people like being pegged wearing a gimp mask. I don't see how you can set up an assessment system that take account of individual mores...

 

Don't tell em, Pike.

 

Interesting thread. As always, RR guaranteed to spark debate.
As others have said, entertainment can't be simply reduced to the kind of clinical analysis RR applies here. It's far more subjective than that. This season, by far and away the best entertainment I've personally had was seeing us beat the Oinks at The Swill. The most entertaining because it was Them and it was even more entertaining as we came from a goal behind.
The least entertaining was Cardiff away , quite simply because we were utter ****.
I'm repeating what others have expressed but Stahlrost's message above perfectly sums up my own personal definition of entertainment.
The real issue for me is that I find it difficult to separate enjoyment from entertainment.
If we win by playing badly I can still enjoy it whilst it could have been the worst game in history.
Now I'm really confusing myself because there's another "e" which needs to be thrown into the mix. For sure I feel 100% entertained if I get a positive emotion watching a game.
The three e's......................think I should pack this in and take the dogs for a walk. Too much time on my hands and my one brain cell can't cope.
I blame you RR.
Goodbye!

 

I do wish you wouldn't make this sort of comment in your posts RR. You do come over as condescending at times. I suspect you don't mean to be patronizing but your writing style is a bit 'holier than thou'. You post some interesting views at times but I do wish you'd think about how you sound as you type. Regards.
P.S. I'm sure I wind people up at times too.

 

I did think about how it would read before I posted this comment, but I decided to go ahead anyway. You see, in his post SuperTyke had tried to wind me up. He thought that he could blow a huge hole in the system by showing how ridiculous is was by referencing a past game. He was not entering into the spirit of the thing. He was not providing any evidence. He was simply trying to rubbish my post. On reflection, I think my response is justified.

 

Or a bit childish, perhaps...

 

While the Cardiff game was clearly not very entertaining for Barnsley fans, I'm not sure I'd consider it a particularly entertaining game for the neutral either. I'd say the Forest game was more entertaining for neutrals, with chances at both ends, and the result in the balance until late in the game.

When trying to quantify entertainment value of a game, I think you'd need different metrics for neutrals vs those who support one of the teams, or at least different weighting of metrics in favour of the team you're supporting.

It's going to be difficult to score anything based on the BBC sport website stats, as it's pretty restricted in the metrics it provides. For example, no stats on possession in opposition half, pass completion, key passes.

To be honest, I don't think you can really quantify entertainment through match stats. It's better quantified by match tickets / ifollow passes, highlights views. How many people want to watch it again?

 

I collect my £20 you are David Gower.

 

Why not just comment on the entertainment in terms of your own thoughts in terms of the way that the systems have operated in the game etc? You often do that anyway.

 

96% of statistics are made up. 78% of statistics are developed to favour a particular angle or argument.

There are two kinds of measurement categories that come to mind (of course there are many) in the theory of measurement and evaluation. Qualitative (Non-numerical) and Quantitive (numerical, statistical measures) . One fundamental factor is that the right category of measure and tools etc should be selected based on the objective and in the context of what it is you are measuring. So here i think you have made the basic error of using a quantitive process to measure a qualitative topic. Qualitative data is found in different way, surveys, feedback etc. So the real measure of entertainment is based on us as fans who watched it. So i suggest taking a survey of fans feedback, maybe some neutrals too will give you the real answer. I look forward to the findings.

 

I score this thread as a 27.2 on my entertainment scale.

 

That's high!

 

You don’t know what it’s out of!

 

I accept the points that you make, but I would add that any individual opinion would have built into it the bias of that individual. My idea was to use statistics that are generally accepted, and to try to build a number representing the performance of both teams based upon a generally accepted statistic. Now I willingly admit that the multiplier attached to each statistic is open to debate. My only defense for the multipliers used is that they were arrived at after a long period of reflection.

During my working life, I was engaged in the measurement of things, and I am drawn back to that way of life, whether I like it or not. I have to accept that others are not the same way inclined, which I have done. I found the process interesting, even if others see it as flawed.

 

As I posted earlier; you believe yourself some superior intellect because your analysis rises above ‘emotion’. But it falls into the trap of being based on your subjective targets.

Which makes your base assumption flawed.

So your scoring is based on what you ‘subjectively’ enjoy watching. You then score a game objectively against that subjective criteria. But because you’re objectively scoring it, you believe your opinion to be objective.

You’re wrong though and it’s subjective just the same as if it was purely based on emotion and no numbers were involved.

We could win the league by a clear 10 points, and using your criteria you could have us playing without entertainment and to be failing tactically because we weren’t playing the football you believe we should be.

And you’d still believe you were right and everyone else is wrong.

 

Anyway, hopefully I'll be getting my jotter out later

 

I am sure that you are not right, but I do not know of any way of proving it to you.