Any sport, excluding Calvinball, has consistent rules. These rules are broken down into four basic groupings. Understanding how these groupings interact then define a particular iteration of a sport as the rules constrain the choice space of the participants.
The first set of rules are technical rules. These are the rules that define the basic structure of a game. Technical rules are the easiest rules to adjust for local conditions or changing values while still producing a game that is recognizable as the core game. Some of the technical rules will be as follows:
- How many players are playing at once?
- How many players may be on a roster?
- How/when/why/where are bench players substituted for field players?
- Who adjudicates fairness, and what are their powers.
- What does the playing surface look like, what variance is allowed between sites etc.
- What characteristics of the ball are allowable?
In soccer, the it is standard to for a team to have 11 players on the field, 18 dressed for the game and 22 on the roster. Substitutions happen at stoppages on the referee’s discretion, the referee is a near god in his/her on field power, the playing field is 115×70 meters, and the ball is Size 5 pumped to 12-15 PSI. My son’s Soccer Jr. program has 3 kids on the field, 5 or 6 on the roster. 2 chase butterflies while substitutions happen on the fly or at the intervention of a shiny object, there is no referee, and the field of play is 20 by 15. The ball is a Size 3 pumped to 4 PSI. But it is recognizably soccer being played.
The next three groupings of rules have significant interplay between them but are separate and distinct in purpose.
The second grouping of rules are safety rules. What type of contact is allowed, and what is the expectation of injury and safety. Lifting someone from the ground is acceptable in wrestling while it is an immediate ejection in baseball. Sliding into an opponent with cleats making the first point of contact with the shin is part of the game in baseball as that is just a good hustle play to break up a double play, while it is an automatic ejection in soccer. Punching someone in the face is a career in MMA, but an ejection in most other sports.
These safety rules usually detail what type of contact is not allowed. There are often significant gradients of sanction ranging from recognition and low level punishment (foul shots, direct free kicks etc) to intermediate level punishments (technical fouls, personal fouls, cautions) to high level punishments (flagrant fouls, major/game misconducts, send offs, ejections). A trip can be just a lazy play , or it can be a trip with intent to injure. Different rule sets will often incorporate referee judgement between those two types of fouls for sanctions.
Most field sports will share a common set of prohibited actions at a high level but they vary in interpretation and execution. Most field sports penalize tripping, kicking, holding, pushing and blind side charging into an opponent. There are differences between sports as a legal holding action in the NFL is different than a legal holding action in hockey which is very different than a legal hand check in basketball. But the basis of the rule is the same; motion of an opponent can only be impeded or contested in certain ways.
These safety rules are frequently modified depending on the skill and strength of the players. In soccer, I know that there are physical interactions that I don’t call at all in a men’s college game will lead me to call a simple foul in the beer league men’s amateur game. The same action as the same force will make me think about a caution in a U-14 game. A college player expects and can handle a higher level of contact than an unskilled 14 year old who has not completed puberty nor spent a moment in a weight room. Higher skilled games tend to have broader parameters of what is considered to be safe. There are a few absolute no-nos, but the gray area gets larger.
Game flow rules are fundamentally aesthetics; they are designed to make a game look “good” for a subjective standard of “good”. Dribbling is a requirement in basketball as a means of controlling movement while also preventing floor rugby from happening. Offside in hockey and soccer are attempts to shrink the size of the playing surface so passing and movement are rewarded instead of dump and chase. The shot clock in basketball and lacrosse are designed to create a desired minimal game tempo. Defensive pass inteference in football is partially a safety rule (Mel Blount says hi) but it is fundamentally about allowing an offense to engage in what is deemed to be an exciting down field vertical passing game.
These rules can often marginally change from season to season through either explicit re-writing of the rule, or more often through a reintrepretation of a rule. In soccer, offside has been significantly loosened over my lifetime without a major rule re-write so that the offensive player has to do a lot more to be called offside today than twenty years ago. The basic rule has been the same, but the working definitions of “involvement in play” has gotten much narrower. Defensive pass inteference and defensive holding calls in the NFL increased after the officials were told they were to focus on these calls more.
The final group of rules are the diffentiating rules. These rules are how a game differentiates itself from any other game, and gives the sport its fundamental characteristics.
Every game has some fundamental rules that make a particular game different from other games. For instance, soccer has a rule that intentionally handling the ball is illegal. Why is that rule in place? It is a mark of distinction between Association football and what eventually became rugby. Rugby allows for hands and feet to be used, so soccer decided it did not want to be rugby, so hands are not allowed. It is meaningless except as a mark of differentiation. These are usually considered core rules that when you talk to eight year olds about a sport and what you need to do for the sport, they will mention in the first three minutes.
All of the rules interact with each other to produce playing strategies. Tweaking a game flow rule can lead to significant changes in safety concerns, it can lead to significant changes in technical rules. A good example is the introduction of the NBA defensive three second violation; it leads to a technical foul which significantly constains a big man’s future options of frustration or cynical fouling while improving the spacing the middle of the court even as the defense is allowed to play zone. The NFL is trying to reduce head injuries or at least reduce the amount of liability they incur regarding head injuries. Their safety rule reaction is to define wide receivers in the act of the catch as defenseless players and to minimize the number of hard shots/blindside hits offensive players receive while also allowing neutral atheletic trainers to pull players for concussion protocals. These changes have minimized the role of the traditional enforcer strong safety while encouraging more intermediate passing routes.
The rules interact to produce the new possibility space, and good teams and good players will adapt to their new constraints. But thinking about how a rule fits into this framework allows one to consider what a rule is attempting to do.
waspuppet
Wait, what?
MazeDancer
Excellent post. You must be a great ref.
Gin & Tonic
@waspuppet: Some of those are probably dummies, like people put in their passenger seat to qualify for the HOV lanes.
RSA
Excellent post! I really like the analysis and the dimensions it covers.
Richard Mayhew
@waspuppet: Rephrased that sentence. But in soccer, 11 players on the field, 7 eligible and dressed substitutes (18 players game eligible) and then 4 players on the roster but not game eligible. Those 4 players are either tactically not dressed (usually the 3rd goal keeper is game day ineligible) or minor injuries or coaching decisions (do we need a 7th defender or a 5th forward today?)
The NFL does the same thing — 63 players on a roster, 10 on practice squad and are not game eligible, for a 53 man game eligible roster of which 46 are allowed to dress for the game. Usually the 3rd QB is not dressed, and then either minor injuries or coaching decisions fill out the non-playing list.
Mike J
@waspuppet: A pool of 22 people, of which 18 may suit up on game day, and 11 will be on the field at any given time. Three subs allowed, so only 14 of those 18 will get on the pitch.
Note that MLS has a roster of 28, not 22. That’s mainly how they keep junior players.
ThresherK
Wait, this isn’t an allegory about healthcare risk pools?
Richard Mayhew
@ThresherK: Not intentionally :)
Gene108
OT: Richard, if you have some time I was wondering if you could write about employer insurance.
We just went through our renewal and I am wondering what the relationship between insurance companies, insurance brokers and underwriters is exactly.
Insurance brokers partly sell themselves based on their relationship with an insurance company, either through having a large book of business with the carrier or some sort of individual relationship with an agent at the carrier that can help them negotiate.
From an underwriting perspective the brokers are fungible. Any quote from an underwriter can be given to any broker.
As a person, who has been handling benefits for a small to medium size business for 17 years, and does not have time to go to companies directly and therefore goes through brokers, what exactly is the relationship between a broker and insurance company?
Is there really a one-on-one relationship or do companies just need a company’s census and they hand out the same quote to any broker who asks for a quote?
Richard Mayhew
@Gene108: Good set of questions — brokers are independent entitites (most of the time) and they do all the scut work of prepping quotes and recommendations that a large company’s HR department might do instead. More on this later as it is a side of the business I am not too familiar with.
JGabriel
Richard Mayhew @ Top:
Yes, but all games are Calvinball.
SFAW
@JGabriel:
If by “games” you mean “Republican ‘governance’ ”
ETA: And, Richard: just because YOU do not understand the Calvinball rules does not mean they are inconsistent.
ETA2: And, relative to Gene108’s questions, you might want to include “companies that self-insure” in that mix, if they’re not already covered under one of Gene’s categories. I only mention it because I used to work for a company like that. It was not necessarily a bad thing – the company treated us fairly well – but I can see the potential for abuse.
ETA3: Nothing else – I was just on a roll with the “ETA” thing, couldn’t stop my fingers.
JGabriel
SFAW:
And the business world, office politics, home life … etc.
cahuenga
A few years ago I was working in Australia for a few months and everyday after work a few of us yanks would wander over to a local pub that seemed to always have a cricket game on the big-screen. For weeks we tried to workout the rules on our own through observation. Once we thought we knew what was going on we finally asked a local to describe the rules.
Cricket is Calvinball.. We failed miserably.
SFAW
@JGabriel:
Good point.
Bill Murray
At least at the major tournaments, the teams consist of 23 players, of which 3 must be Goalkeepers and all players may dress for each game and are able to be substitutes. Also the team can only use the numbers 1-23.
Isn’t it more correct to say rugby decided to not be soccer and allow the use of hands, as it developed from soccer. If soccer decided on a rule to differentiate it from rugby, it would be offsides. Rugby still requires players to be behind the ball when the ball is played to be onside.
well, it can be in non-International matches. International matches are supposed to be on fields 100-110 meters long and 64-75 meters wide according to “The Laws of the Game” http://www.fifa.com/mm/Document/FootballDevelopment/Refereeing/02/36/01/11/LawsofthegamewebEN_Neutral.pdf
SRW1
Apparently there is some degree of latitude with the roster size. UEFA requires clubs participating in the Champions League* (and I think also the Europa League) to name rosters of 25 players.
Interestingly, those rosters can be updated after the January transfer window, ie between the group stage and the elimination rounds, though a player who has appeared in the tournament during the group stage is ineligible to play for his new club during the elimination rounds.
*which is an international competition, though obviously under the purview of UEFA and not FIFA
RSR
So, how about those ‘blocking the plate’ rules in MLB? They’ve made everyone so happy.
randy khan
This is an interesting way to analyze and classify sports. For many years, I’ve grouped sports based on what the objects of the game are, and my joke is that there really are only a handful of different sports. In this analysis, they break down something like this:
*Sports where you put an object in a particular place to score (hockey, soccer, American football, basketball, the Meso-American ball game, etc.).
*Sports where you use an object but the objective to move people from place to place (baseball, cricket, softball);
*Sports where your score depends on the distance and accuracy when you propel an object (archery, darts, javelin, shot put, bowling);
*Sports where you score when your opponent fails to hit an object back to you (volleyball, handball, tennis);
*Sports where you’re trying to move yourself better than other people (all track events, high jump, long jump);
*Sports where you’re trying to physically dominate your opponent (boxing, wrestling, judo, etc.)
I have a little trouble in this taxonomy with golf and weight lifting, not to mention gymnastics, but I’m still working on it.
Funkula
Seems to me that golf fits in the accuracy category, and gymnastics and lifting both fit as “move yourself better.”
shawn
@randy khan:
golf i think falls in with the propel category
i’d say most gymnatstics events are essentially weight lifting and both falls into your propel category
i love the hemmingway line “There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and
mountaineering; all the rest are merely games” but mostly because I am an F1 fan and it helps me feel superior
everything you defined except track (and because they are the same basic thing swimming, cycling, etc) are games
i think maybe the confusion between games and sports had something to do with who we called athletes – that gets muddied by another fav quote – “im not an athlete, im a baseball player” – john kruk
burnspbesq
Anyone who thinks the offside rule in soccer is complicated and ambiguous should try figuring out “shooting space” and “defensive three seconds” in women’s lacrosse.
burnspbesq
@cahuenga:
I think I finally got most of the rules figured out (after about 15 years) but defensive strategy (where to put fielders depending on the style and abilities of bowler and batsman) continues to completely evade me. Why a third slip? Hell if I know.
randy khan
@Funkula shawn:
I’ve been thinking about a category along the lines of “Sports where you’re judged based on aesthetic criteria,” which would cover gymnastics, synchronized swimming and figure skating, not to mention half-pipe.
Golf as a “propel” sport makes sense. I’ve been hung up on the scoring (low being better, as compared to high being better in the rest), but that’s just scoring, not the essence of the sport.
Kent
Seems like there’s a 5th category of rules that are manners or sportsmanship oriented.
End zone dances which are apparently allowed in soccer but not football
Talking back to the ref or showing up a ref by a player or coach
Taunting
Mostly regulating coach and player behavior during down times between plays or during stoppages. I suppose these could be considered differentiating rules but they really govern behavior outside the actual play on the field.
shawn
@randy khan: theres a hilarious scene in the US The Office where the women are trying to understand sports terms as they apply to business and they dont get how the term “below par” is bad when being below par in the actual game is good – maybe its sexist but its just a quick little hit and its so precious
shawn
@randy khan: gymnastics is really ruined by the judges because i stand by the weight lifting aspect but how do you judge that – im weight lifting you have to hit a certain position for a lift to count which is kind of true in gymnastics but there is so many areas to judge – its really in that no mans land – and idk why i dont feel the same about figure skating or syncro swimming
Richard mayhew
@Kent: differentiating\safety rule imo. Rugby a thug sport played by gentleman v soccer a gentleman’s sport played by thugs… I wish soccer had rugby’s default respect to the referee
shawn
@Richard mayhew: so white people are gentlemen but latinos are thugs?!?!? HOW DARE YOU! just kidding :P
Kent
@Richard mayhew:
Rugby? Gentlemen? I played football in HS for one of the top HS teams in my state and mainly played strong safety so I was no stranger to head banging. When I got to my small NAIA liberal arts college I tried out for the rugby club as they had no football. After a few weeks I decided those guys were too insane for me. On the plus side they did have a keg on the sideline of every match. I guess that was to numb the pain and bruises. I eventually found my place on the sailing team. Now there is a sport with a lot of rules.
[IMG]http://www.espnscrum.com/PICTURES/CMS/33800/33805.3.jpg[/IMG]
Kent
@Richard mayhew:
Rugby? Gentlemen? I played football in HS for one of the top HS teams in my state and mainly played strong safety so I was no stranger to head banging. When I got to my small NAIA liberal arts college I tried out for the rugby club as they had no football. After a few weeks I decided those guys were too insane for me. On the plus side they did have a keg on the sideline of every match. I guess that was to numb the pain and bruises. I eventually found my place on the sailing team.
Rugby Gentlemen: http://en.espn.co.uk/scrum/rugby/story/206687.html
Donalbain
@burnspbesq:
VERY generally speaking, the more you want to get someone out, the more people you will put in the slips for catches. If you just want to limit the number of runs, you move people out away from the bat.