My fear was that an excessive number of matches this season would be influenced by penalties. This largely came to fruition as 2020 had the largest proportion of matches since 2014 “decided” by fouls, in the sense that the actual winner differed from the unpenalized winner:
| Year | Matches “decided” by fouls |
|---|---|
| 2012 | 5.3% |
| 2013 | 4.4% |
| 2014 | 11.1% |
| 2016 | 5.2% |
| 2017 | 5.6% |
| 2018 | 3.8% |
| 2019 | 7.0% |
| 2020 | 8.5% |
2012-2014 source*: Week4 Twitter data analyses - #7 by Basel_A
2016+ source: https://github.com/inkling16/MiscellaneousStatisticsProjects/raw/master/RP%20strengths.xlsx
I’ll concede that things weren’t as bad as 2014, and thank goodness for that. But that’s a pretty low bar to clear, and 2014 had both subjective foul complaints and high point values, whereas there is not as much subjectivity concern this season.
2020 is still far too high for my taste, especially when I see better alternative structures.
*In the wise words of Ether, the usual twitter data caveats apply.