Prediction league

[Cabanas Blue]

First of all I just want to say the prediction league is very good and I appreciate all the work that goes into it but I just wanted your thoughts on my idea, the attendance for our home game this week for example, they have said that almost 23,000 tickets have been sold, No 9 Massy Ferguson and Blue Wilf have all posted before this was known and have guessed between 15 and less than 18,000 so by posting early are at a disadvantage and others still could, no problem with the away matches IMO.

Do you think for home games we could have points for Half Time and Full Time scores and maybe extra points for getting both correct ? Maybe starting next season in the Championship.

[Charnwood]

The attendance Q has been troubling me for a while especially since the club have been publishing regular updates through various media. This does of course give an advantage to later posters but can sometimes be misleading and has resulted in me changing winning guesses to losing one’s as I did last week when I dropped my first guess from 29,141 to something lower which cost me not for the first time 5 points. It should also be considered that any ridiculous prediction or blatant error can be changed up to the deadline time and there have been examples of this.
Of course the big advantage of posting early is that don’t forget to post which puts 85 points at risk.

Obviously it’s risky changing any Q midway through the season as what one player dislikes another enjoys. I do however think it’s good to make a few tweaks each new Season, unfortunately it didn’t happen this year as the season starting early almost caught me out.

The HT/FT score is an option, we have used it before but dropped it because at the time we were almost guaranteed to be HT 0-0.

Anyway CB, thanks for bringing this subject to the table, it will be interesting to read others thoughts as we could replace the attendance Q with a random Bonus Q with immediate effect.

I’ve also changed your post to a “sticky thread” to make it more visible to other players and hopefully attract more views and comments.

[Bluemike]

I found the HT/FT thing a bit poor if I'm honest and there has been a couple of times I've gone with my guess based on what is stated in the press and been a way off it so I'm not sure it makes much difference but as stated the attendance figure can be changed up to the deadline if anyone sees fit.

IF a change was needed I would rather drop the attendance question and just have another random question, Town possession, number of corners, shots on target, that type of thing but I feel its fine as it is until the end of this current campaign.

[number 9]

Thanks for the heads up CB, I never would have noticed since I work longs hours thurs thru sunday usually. I don't have a lot of time to read articles etc. I've never been a fan of the attendance question, but it's up to the mods if they wanna keep it.

Please change my prediction to 23897. Cheers!

[BLUEBLOOD]

Some of the away predictions make me laugh say the ground holds only 8000 and some guesses are 10000 upwards .
More than the capacity of the ground.
With the home attendance they can say 23000 tickets sold but this can rise quickly on the day.
It's a lottery we could all put a number between 23000 and 24000 but only 3 can win it.
You could say the same about 1st goalscorer predict a player only for that player to be withdrawn from the team later in the week.
Everyone in the competition can read the papers online and change their predictions before kickoff.

[MasseyFerguson]

I try to get my predictions in early, because I'm likely to forget to do it later in the week. I'm happy to take my chances on Attendance predictions even though, for this week I actually made a mistake in putting 17,895 when I meant 27,895. That's the luck of the draw. I made a mistake and I'm happy not to be allowed to change it.

[Bluemike]

You can change it MF, what do you want it to be ?

[number 9]

You can change it MF, what do you want it to be ?

Mine still hasn’t been changed. My new attendance prediction is in this thread. Cheers!

[Bluemike]

It will be correct on my spreadsheet mate, don't worry. I change it soon

[AzzurroMark]

I am quite happy with the attendance question, especially as I have gained quite a few 5 point hauls from it .
I appreciate that the published rounded-up ticket sales do give an advantage to those doing their predictions later. However I have seen cases where even the club estimations have been a way out. For example on the Thursday the club were talking "almost 23k tickets sold", however the official website yesterday evening were saying "with around 25,000 fans expected to be in attendance". That is potentially 2k of ticket sales for a game which went on general sale on 20th January. Is this some kind of ploy to further drive ticket sales? I admit that, prior to the news article I'd have guessed around the 21-22k mark, so yes I have been swayed.

Most league games are fairly easy to get a "ball park" figure well in advance. Take Sheffield Wednesday; I think it is safe to say around a 29k attendance is almost a given. While it wouldn't have been part of a prediction league, Morecambe on Tuesday night, they would have brought very few fans, and being an evening game, perhaps many families with younger children wouldn't attend along with people who have work commitments. Therefore an attendance guess of around 22k would be a reasonable estimation, I feel.

There are only 14 of us doing the prediction league, with the information at hand and allowing for ticket sales afterwards, there's still quite a large window of several hundred to work with.

[number 9]

It will be correct on my spreadsheet mate, don't worry. I change it soon

Thanks, just making sure.