I’m not looking for “soccer is the only sport to end in a tie” answers. I’m asking WHY, through the gameplay or tactics is soccer much more likely to end in tie compared to other professional sports?
In: 0
Because fewer points are scored than in other sports. Premier League’s average for the last 30 years [is 2.66 goals per game](https://www.myfootballfacts.com/premier-league/all-time-premier-league/premier_league_goal_statistics/). Other major sports like american football, basketball, hockey, baseball have way more scoring events.
Let’s say only two goals are scored during a game. All things being equal, half of the outcomes are ties:
|First Goal|Second Goal|Score|
:–|:–|:–|
|Team A|Team A|2-0|
|Team A|Team B|1-1|
|Team B|Team A|1-1|
|Team B|Team B|0-2|
By the same principle, if four goals are scored, 37.5% of outcomes are ties; if six goals are scored, 31.3% of outcomes are ties, and so on. On an even total of goals, more goals means the likeliness of ties gets lower — obviously there is always a winner if the total number of goals is odd.
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