Why do pundits get it wrong?
Why are predictions so hard in sport? The capture of the Premier League title by Leicester City has been cited by many pundits as the greatest shock in sporting history. Is this grand claim little more than evidence of a cognitive bias? ‘Who could have known?’ Certainly not the same pundits who had almost unanimously predicted Leicester’s relegation. Exaggerating the scale of the surprise doubles as a kind of cognitive – and reputational – protection: ‘We were so wrong, yes, but we were right to be.’ I am not trying to argue that the result is not a statistical anomaly,...