Abstract. The player of squash has a choice between two options when his/her opponent changes the score from 8:7 to 8:8. The player to receive has to decide whether to play until 9th or until 10th point. We observe in this paper that the score of the squash game can be modelled as a Markov chain. Thus using standard techniques of Markov processes, we can derive the optimal strategy for the squa...

Clearly, the enthusiasm of the spectators. An estimated 15 million people lined the streets for the Olympic Torch Relay through the UK, including 4.2 million in London alone. More than 7 million spectators visited venues in the first 10 days of the Games and 2.7 million spectators visited the Olympic Park. More than 5 million people attended Live Sites where events were displayed on big screens...

Due to the worldwide negative impact on sport of COVID-19 pandemic declared by WHO in 2020, first aim this study was analyze influence performance indicators as a natural experiment, according moment time: pre-COVID, COVID and post-COVID. The second ascertain persistence (PIs) over analyzed seasons. To end, 5320 teams’ match data corresponding 2014/2015 2020/2021 seasons LaLiga (first division ...

Over the past four decades, scholars from diverse disciplines have consistently emphasized the role of sport in expressing, reflecting, or producing national sentiments (Abell et al., 2007; Bairner, 2001; Ehn, 1989; Gibbons, 2011; MacClancy, 1996; Marks, 1998; Solis, 1996; Sorek, 2007; Tuastad, 1997; van Hilvoorde et al., 2010). Both sport and national identity, however, are “contested racial t...

We examine network support for spectators in online multiplayer games. We consider how the associated challenges are different from those in traditional audio/video streaming. Specifically, we consider two problems: spectating (distributing the gaming stream reliably to spectators, who may outnumber the players by several orders of magnitude) and cheering (delivering the spectators’ audio cheer...

Understanding consumers is elementary for practitioners in marketing. Consumers of sports events, the sports spectators, are a particularly complex consumer crowd. In order to identify and define their profiles different segmentation approaches can be found in literature, one of them being multidimensional segmentation. Multidimensional segmentation models correspond to the broad range of attit...

OBJECTIVE To determine factors associated with adult squash players' protective eyewear behaviours. METHODS A survey of 303 players (aged >or =18 years) was conducted at three squash venues in Melbourne, Australia over a three week period in June 2000 to obtain information about protective eyewear use. RESULTS Of 303 participants the response rate was 98.1%; 66.1% were males, with a mean ag...