It's quite the dilemma. Your team is winning with 10 minutes left in the game. You're glued to the TV, but really should get back to work. Do you switch off, confident that the game is secure, or stay tuned just in case it isn't? Now there's a way to decide. Aaron Clauset of the University of Colorado, Boulder, and his colleagues analysed more than a million encounters in basketball, hockey and American football. They found that much of the dynamics of these competitive team sports can be accurately captured by a simple model in which the score difference randomly moves up or down over time.
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