Penalty kicks and ad revenue

Randy Paul on penalty kicks in the World Cup:

Before anyone starts to blame the fact that penalty kicks decided this championship, let's look at where the problem really lies and to do so, we have to look to the past, specifically 68 years ago to 1938 when the World Cup was played in France for the first time. If you look at the results, pay special attention to the quarter-finals. On June 12 Brazil played Czechoslovakia to a 1-1 tie after extra time. Two days later, the match was replayed in its entirety and Brazil won, 2-1.

So what's the difference between then and now? The influence of money from television. It would rile television networks to promote the event, only to have to run it again (on a Tuesday, no less) two days later. Money is at the root of this evil and I really don't know of a better way to resolve it. Play until players drop dead of exhaustion? Allow completely open substitutions and let them play for another two hours without a goal scored?

I can see why you wouldn't want to replay the match to resolve a tie. That would be anti-climactic.

Personally, I think that it's more honest to allow of the the possibility of ties. Two teams face off for a set amount of time, if neither gets the upper hand, that's life. Let the record show how the two teams actually played rather than the results of a feel-good gimmick.

If you're not prepared to live with the prospect of ties, then you've got to consider tie-breaker methods that produce an emotionally satisfying, decisive, but non-arbitrary outcomes. Penalty kicks in World Cup soccer are totally unsatisfying to watch. The idea that victory should hinge on a measure with so little variability is absurd.

At that level, most of the kicks are going to go into the net. I'd rather see the teams play until they drop in overtime. At least then the final outcome would be a function of stamina and will, rather than a glorified coin toss.

I don't see a nefarious financial agenda behind FIFA's use of penalty kicks to break ties in the World Cup. If it's all about advertising revenue, why not play into overtime? There are no ads during the periods, but there would be ads in between overtime periods. I bet FIFA could have made even more money off this game if sponsors had the option of buying ads between overtime periods.

I can see a financial argument for not having unlimited overtime during the regular season when the game might preempt a higher-value show. However, for the World Cup itself, I find it hard to believe it's a money-losing proposition to run ads in between overtime periods. The NHL acknowledged this fact in 2005 by allowing regular season games to end in shootouts, but keeping indefinite overtime in the Stanley Cup playoffs. Perhaps FIFA should consider a similar approach for the World Cup.

Comments

[Alon Levy]

Personally, I think that it's more honest to allow of the the possibility of ties. Two teams face off for a set amount of time, if neither gets the upper hand, that's life. Let the record show how the two teams actually played rather than the results of a feel-good gimmick.

I don't think that it's possible to have ties in playoffs. Before the playoff stage, that's exactly what is done: if after 90 minutes there's a tie, the game ends in a tie.

On the other hand, I think indefinite overtime is a possible way to resolve ties in playoff games; however, if FIFA takes this route, it should reconsider the golden goal option as a possible way to make games end more quickly than the current silver goal method.

[Chris O.]

Replays could only possibly work in the finals; they'd screw up the whole schedule if done in any knock-out round before that. Letting players go until they drop dead sounds like a solution, but honestly after seeing guys run themselves ragged for 2 hours, at some point I think you should say enough is enough, they're just going to get slower and slower in attack and who knows how long it will take. And if you think penalty kicks are anti-climactic, try ending a World Cup where the winner is NO ONE.

I think penalty kicks may just be the least-bad solution. You know, like democracy.

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

Letting the guys run until they drop seems like a better solution than penalty kicks. As a fan, I think it's exciting to athletes push themselves to the limit. If you wait 20+ years to get to the World Cup, wouldn't you rather go home knowing that you won or lost because your whole team got to fight to the finish?

Philosophically, I feel like the team that pulls together to gain the upper hand in overtime really deserves the win.

It's the same principle behind a well-designed academic exam. You want to separate the middling from the truly exceptional. So, you put at least one question on the exam that only the best will be able to answer. You don't make the exam five questions longer, knowing that 75% of the students will be able to answer each of them. Instead, you give one or two really hard questions that ask the students to demonstrate superior abilities.

If you aced the exam anyway, you don't need the bonus question, but if your grade is hanging in the balance, a well-designed bonus question creates meaningful breaks in the field.

[Chris O.]

You do make a good case, and it wouldn't be a horrible thing to do in a final. Penalty kciks have to stay in the earlier knock-outs though, as if one team spends more than 120 minutes on the field then if they play a team that won a game in 90 the next round, the latter would have a huge advantage. I suspect that given that, FIFA has a tendency to want to apply the same rule to all of the games after the group stage. Not much of a reason to not change the rule, but could explain why they don't.

There could also be some unintended consequences of letting a final go on indefinitely. If there was one team that really went for it, and one that played very negatively and only tried to race forward in a rare counter-attack now and then, the latter would have a big advantage in the 3rd hour of a game as their players would be much fresher. This would encourage both teams to play very negatively and conserve as much as possible for a long game, which would be a self-fulfilling prophecy with that kind of play. I'm not sure how much that would actually happen, but it's something to consider.

[Asad]

"At that level, most of the kicks are going to go into the net."

Not always. England missed three of four kicks while losing to Portugal...

[Cameron]

I can think of at least two solutions out of hand:
(1) Small, defendable goals for penalty kick rounds.
(2) Keep the same size goals, but allow an additional defender while the goaltender is restricted to the box. It's one-on-one between the side's best defender and the other side's best offensive player.

[Chris Beck]

"At that level, most of the kicks are going to go into the net. I'd rather see the teams play until they drop in overtime. At least then the final outcome would be a function of stamina and will, rather than a glorified coin toss."

I have at points in the past felt the same way - but the fact is that without unlimited substitutions we would have walking and heart attacks. In addition I submit that history (especialy Italian and English) has shown that penalties are in no way a sure thing. Penalties are a part of normal football. Penalties in competitions are more than just a test of skill, they are a test of nerves/composure/will/what-have-you. Even more important than the stress factor is that many of the penalty takers are likely to have been running their hearts out for 2 hours, and the accuracy and strength will be reduced. I actually like the nervousness pacing of a penalty kick solution as well - a tie game produces a steady but increasing tension over ninety minutes, this drops for the first 15-20 minutes of extra-time and then goes higher, but with the kicks your heart leaping about like a jack-rabbitt with every kick.

Of course, if you don't really care who wins, then I can concede that they aren't exciting.

[Helmut]

One of the main problems with the indefinite time solution is not only that the players in the field become exhausted (they could be supplemented with an extra quota of substitutes), but that goalies are hardly ever tired. Increasingly tired players with goalies who are in nearly as good a condition as when the match started is unlikely to produce much in the way of goals. Indefinite time.... One solution is a goalie-less overtime. Take the above problem out of the picture.

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

Or better yet, let them substitute, but only by pulling their goalies and putting them on the field!

Sort of the antithesis of the designated hitter rule. :)

[jr]

"I'd rather see the teams play until they drop in overtime."

And if they drop how would they score? The longer they play, the less likely scoring becomes. They are tired, the shots go wide, they can't put plays together. This isn't football or baseball, these guys are running hard. They pace themselves so that they hit exhaustion at 90 minutes. One overtime period is bad enough. Two would be a nightmare.

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

if there was less diving and writhing like overturned trilobites, there'd be more energy left for scoring in the third 15-minute overtime period.

Just sayin'.

[Trystero]

Golden Goal works fine for me. It's true that extended OT slows play down, but as people get exhausted they start to make mistakes. This is how it works in the NHL, anyway. A couple of years ago, a Pittsburgh v. Philly playoff game went into 5 OT periods. That's a GAME AND A HALF of OVERTIME!

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

To me, the controversy over penalty kicks vs. various overtime metrics seems like an implicit argument for allowing teams to tie the final match.

There may be mathematical reasons for ensuring that every team is ranked up to that point, which might preclude ties.

But really, in the final match, why should it be a foregone conclusion that one team of 11 humans will beat another team of 11. If both teams have access to a theoretical talent pool of 6 billion, you shouldn't necessarily expect ties in 90 minutes of play.

[Chris O.]

I think the possibility of a tie in the final game makes everything a lot less interesting. Like it or not, people want winners. Why have a big final showdown if it doesn't end with one team in absolute rapture and the other choking back tears? Calling both of them winners wouldn't work because it obviously isn't true, and if you somehow convinced them it was true, why would they bother trying to score a goal when 0-0 means they win?

I'm pretty sure if you asked Henry et al if they would rather have had the change to win the trophy on penalty kicks, or if they'd have preferred to just call it a day and say it's a tie, they would say they were glad to have their chance. In the sports world, joy and crushing defeat are two sides of the same coin, and a far cry from the frustration inevitable if no one won anything.

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

Calling both of them winners wouldn't work because it obviously isn't true, and if you somehow convinced them it was true, why would they bother trying to score a goal when 0-0 means they win?

But then, they're both losers, depending on how you want to view it. The public prefers winners, competitors prefer to win.

On the other hand, real life doesn't always produce winners. I'd rather see the stats reflect the real-life chance that two teams are equally well-matched than have some bogus metric to assign winnership.

So, maybe both teams would fight harder and take more chances if they had to win outright in order to win at all.

[David]

The real problem with deciding the game with penalty kicks is that it's not soccer anymore. Even if penalty kicks weren't so arbitray (which they are), it would still be diappointing to watch because all it would show is which team is better at scoring goals, one-on-one with the goalie, from a position that is likely never to occur in an actual match. It's like creating a new game that's similar to soccer, minus passing, defense, and playmaking. Soccer should determine who wins a soccer match.

Plus, Golden Goal overtime is much more exciting to watch. Of course the players are exhausted but the superior athletes are less exhausted and they deserve to win because of it.

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

Exactly, David.

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

I mean, if you're not going to allow ties because of the emotional insecurities of the fans, then Golden Goal is the way to go. I think people who actually tie at soccer deserve to tie, but Golden Goal would be the next best thing.

I never expect FIFA to bring the GG back, considering every second in GG play is millions off their noses. Fuckers.

[DJA]

Chris O.,

If there was one team that really went for it, and one that played very negatively and only tried to race forward in a rare counter-attack now and then, the latter would have a big advantage in the 3rd hour of a game as their players would be much fresher.

This is, of course, assuming that the score is still tied after two hours. A team that never attacks runs a substantial risk of being eliminated before extra time, or in a golden goal (sudden death) situation. I should mention that this is also equally -- if not more of -- a problem with the current rules, where once you get into extra time, there's a strong temptation to hold back and try to run out the clock in the hopes of getting to penalty kicks.

Clearly, if you were going to unlimited overtime, you'd probably need to allow more substitutions (perhaps an additional sub every 15-minute period), but I have to say, I really don't see the problem with that.

Another option someone suggested at LGM was using alternating corner kicks instead of penalty kicks. At least that solution resembles actual soccer.

[Chris O.]

DJA -- With a defense like the Italians have, I'd say them playing negatively is very likely to produce a clean sheet for them. The only two goals they gave up the whole tournament were one fluke own goal, and one penalty given on a very questionable call.

With a limited amount of time on the clock, a team knows that if they don't want to go into a random toss-up situation, they have to score. This has usually applied to Italy because they've been so bad at PKs historically.

[Jon Moyer]

I have the solution.

Have a replay two days later with a golden goal rule in case of ties.

The economics of the situation actually favors this solution: anyone who goes to the final would have to purchase two or three days more of beer, lodging, beer, food, and beer. The host country and city would make out like a bandit, and FIFA would certainly get more TV money if they could negotiate for a potential second game.

And, if the second games goes to OT, relax the substitution rules, allowing unlimited substitutions after each 15 minute period.

The world will thank me for this, as it always does when an American who played linebacker, not striker, in high school solves the great soccer problems of the day.

Tomorrow: Hooliganism - is it all it's cracked up to be?

[Barbara]

Don't use PKs to decide the game, use goal kicks that utilize the whole team and that are more of a true contest between the two teams.

[alias]

anyone know or care to guess why they went away from the sudden death/golden goal to the new two overtime format? i would think it had to do with the networks desire for control over the time element. same reason i dont think theyd opt for a second day approach. too many schedules and reservations to keep. those corporate entities couldnt possibly want to allow for that much indeterminacy.

that said, i dont have an answer either. i do, however, seem to recall the NASL having a different style of post sudden death penalty kick which as a kid i thought more exciting than the current penalty kicks. more like the ones i think they have in hockey now. the player starts at the 35 yardline, and as soon as he moves, the goalie can come off the line. might be no more satisfying an end to a soccer game, world cup or otherwise, but i think it gave the goaltender a much better chance at stopping the shot, which ultimately i think made it more dramatic. plus it showcased the players inventiveness. imagine what ronaldinho could do going one on one against a goalie!

[wkmaier]

I agree with Alias. The old NASL style shootout (similar to NHL) would be much more fun to watch but only in the knockout stages.

Barring that choice (FIFA did NOT care for it back when the NASL did it), then I would vote for 2 15 min OTs as right now, after that, continue with 15 min periods with an additional sub each team per period, and also switch to Golden Goal.

[Justin Slotman]

Penalty kicks are insane and probably an arbitrary way to end a soccer contest, but they are absolutely compelling as spectacle. Like in U.S.-China in the women's World Cup, or that Champions League final Liverpool won. I wish the NFL did something like that instead of the current "first to a field goal wins" setup--at least it would be compelling television.

And I loathe golden goal, and all forms of sudden death overtimes. Overtimes should always be miniature versions of the actual game, like in the NBA.