Thesis (Ph. D.)--Washington State University, May 2010. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on June 16, 2010). School of Economic Sciences." Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (B.A.)--Haverford College, Dept. of Economics, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Texas at Dallas, 2009. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 206-213)

Thesis (M.A.)--Rowan University, 2008. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references.

No description available.

Thesis (M.S.)--Springfield College, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references.

Various parts of the question concerning how random and deterministic attributes intertwine during the course of athletic contests have been explored by researchers. This study attempted to extend the research data base and formulate the initial postulates for a model to describe the random/deterministic interaction. The 1988-89 National Hockey League season was the primary focus of attention. Supplemental examination was made of the 1937-38 and 1946-47 NHL, the last 50% of the 1988-89 National Basketball Association season and the 1987-88 Football Association English First Division seasons. The data overwhelmingly supported earlier studies which argued that major outcomes (wins/losses, goals, shots) followed a random sequence. The axiomatic model developed argued that the random pattern of outcomes is quite pervasive (wins/losses, shots and goals for, against or combined are distributed randomly whether home, away or total games are examined). The pattern of outcomes (win/losses, goals, shots) is relatively independent of the size of the unit of measurement: random patterns held whether one period, two period, three period games or four-game sets were examined. Conditional probability tests showed game-to-game outcomes were independent (a win was no more likely to be followed by a win than by a loss). The pattern of outcomes (goals) is dependent on how the data is examined. If all 21 team's goals are plotted time-wise, goals are distributed uniformly minute by minute (except for the last minute of play). If goals or shots per game (or period) are tallied for home, away or both teams, the resultant frequency distribution will approximate the negative binomial distribution. However, if the time-spaces between goals are tallied, a geometric distribution will emerge. Deterministic effects were demonstrated when artificial season outcomes based on first, second or third period only seasons were found to correlate favorably with real season outcomes (wins, losses, points, goals for, goals against). Finally, comparison of hockey, basketball and soccer outcomes suggested that upset rates may vary from one sport to another. / Education, Faculty of / Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of / Graduate

Speaking to a local radio station in the 1960s, with the glitz, glitter and glamour of televised professional wrestling at its height, one old, retired Cumbrian wrestler declared that ‘wrestling…was a game for the field not the stage'. This statement, condensed and potent as it is, could stand in for the questions this thesis asks and seeks to answer: why did wrestling develop as a professional, performed ‘sporting entertainment'? To answer this question, existing theories of social and sports history are combined with cultural studies methods and applied to Pierre Bourdieu's notion of fields. Chapters one and two surveys the birth of a fielded society and the growth of spectator and professional sport as part of a wider cultural field in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Considering many sports during this time had relationships with the theatre, circus and fairground, the seemingly logical expansion of professional sport was closer to that of professional wrestling. Sport, however, did not develop in this way. Chapter three explore the reasons for this and posits that the genesis of the sporting field, demonstrated by the growth of sporting bodies and the perpetuation of amateur ideal, dominated the field. Control of wrestling, however, for various reasons, was not gained in this manner. Chapter four examines the consequences of this when professional wrestling became a fully performed sport in the interwar years. Finally, chapter five assesses the relationship between the sporting field and television in the late twentieth century. Wrestling as a ‘sporting entertainment' is of interest precisely because it displays a ‘discarded possible' of how professional sport may have grown had it not been for the institutions and ideologies active within the field during the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century. It also demonstrates the often precarious nature of fields and concludes that sport's meanings, pleasure and values are not as consistent as are first assumed.

Thesis (B.A.)--Haverford College, Dept. of Economics, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references.

Project (M.A.) - Simon Fraser University, 2006. / Theses (Dept. of Economics) / Simon Fraser University. Also issued in digital format and available on the World Wide Web.