[bradtemp]

While computer camera/laser judged pole vault/high jump would certainly be possible, and much quicker, they would be different in that the visible bar clearly creates a target in the mind of the athlete. It also has the advantage I talked about -- the spectator can immediately see, with no clock, judge or computer to aid them, if they cleared the bar.

As I wrote, not all sports should be for the spectator. But if the purpose of the competition is to be watched, as is the case in the Olympics, that is what to design for.

[divan]

Right, but that's also true for the long jump. Why not use progressive approach for the distance? (I'm not advocating, just raising question to show that there is no design involved, mostly tradition)

Television emerged much later than most of Olympic sports, but affect many sports a lot, especially the one where international federation rips the TV rights fees (some sports delegate it to the local organizing federations and care less). For example, compulsory figures disappeared from figure skating largely because they didn't "sell" on TV and wasn't exciting to watch. Or table tennis ball got bigger to slow down the game and make it more appealing for TV.

And yet I'd love to see some research on theory of sports where spectators engagement was part of the model. For example in track cycling there is a weird discipline of individual sprint, where, as name suggests, the one who gets faster to the finish line wins. But here is the catch – they don't care about time, only about who crosses the line first. Given that airpressure behind fast-moving rider is low and saves around 30% of energy, it creates an incentive to be the second most of the time. Which leads to the weird interplay between cyclists where the literally stand still sometimes instead of rushing to the finish line. The even weirdest part is that this moment of suspension and speeding up like crazy after standing still – most exciting moment for spectators.

If we could have a framework to plug in all the requirements and constraints of the specific sport, and choose the trade-offs we want (including interest for viewers as you mentioned) based on model and not just intuition or loudest voice in the federation...

[bradtemp]

Strategy is valued by a lot of viewers, myself included. As I pointed out the victory by the mathematician Anna Kiesenhofer in cycling was amazing to see, even though there was no dramatic race, because she used more math and strategy than the others.

But it was still better because it was a race, and you could see how far behind the others were. But a nerd is going to love that race.

It's just not the same when they race with the clock, and of course it takes a long longer. It is the most fair, which is what you want from the standard of making an academic measurement of athletics, and that is valuable. But in terms of spectator excitement per unit time, it's just too far down the list.