The effect of playoff series length on the outcome
by Timothy L. Urban
International Journal of Revenue Management (IJRM), Vol. 7, No. 3/4, 2013

Abstract: Best-of-k playoff series are typically used in postseason tournaments of the North American major professional sport leagues. For longer series, there tends to be relatively little fan (consumer) interest in the early games of the series. However, conventional wisdom is such that a longer series is more fair, in that it increases the probability that the superior team will win the series. We show that this is not necessarily true, as the specific home/away sequence of games that is used may, in fact, decrease this probability with longer series. The analysis is then extended to determine under what circumstances this anomaly is realised.

Online publication date: Tue, 03-Mar-2015

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