How to design a tournament: lessons from the men's handball Champions League
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Many sports tournaments are organised in a hybrid design consisting of a round-robin group stage followed by a knock-out phase. While the traditional seeding system is able to create balanced groups roughly at the same competition level, this may result in a number of uneven matches when the quality of the teams varies greatly. Therefore, the EHF (European Handball Federation) Champions League, the most prestigious men's handball club competition in Europe, applies a novel competition format from the 2015/16 season. We compare this design to the extensively used alternative with equally strong groups and show that it is possible to increase the quality of all matches played together with raising the uncertainty of outcome, essentially without sacrificing fairness. Our results have important implications for the governing bodies of major sports. As an illustration, a new format is suggested for the UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) Champions League.
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