A taxonomy of sports rating systems

Systems analysis is applied to a milieu of spl,rb rating systems (SRS's) re sulting in a unifying taxonomy, Each SRS operates in three phases: evaluati on of sports performance, weighting of the evaluated performance and creati on of a rating for each competitor using the weighted evaluated performance . In the first phase, sports are classified as: combat sports where each co mpetitor tries to control the opponent (e.g., boxing and fencing), object s ports where each competitor tries to control an object in direct competitio n with the opponent (e.g,, soccer and chess) and independent sports where e ach competitor is unimpeded by the opponent. Each sports performance is eva luated by judging, measuring and/or scoring. In the second phase, weighting may be represented by matrix operations. In the third phase, there are two combinations of operations that classify SRS's: accumulative (using some c ombination of the operators best, summation and ageing) and adjustive (usin g some combination of averaging, recursive adjustment and ageing), Examples of SRS's are presented for boxing, track and field, golf, skiing, Olympic performances, chess, soccer, tennis, and those with the ability to predict future outcomes.