Daam Van Reeth

Using Mixed-Integer Programming to Win a Cycling Game

This paper presents an application of optimization modeling to the winning of a popular cycling game. The application includes real-life data of contempory cyclists. It also has the potential to motivate students with a competitive but fun “race” for a solution. Because the developed optimization model contains features of knapsack problems, multiperiod inventory problems, and logical constraint modeling, it is perfectly suitable for a concluding case study in an undergraduate operations research/management science course. The application was originally developed for an MBA operations research course focusing on spreadsheet modeling skills, but it can also be used in courses that focus on algebraic modeling of optimization problems.

TV viewing of road cycling races

TV coverage of road cycling started shortly after World War II with the first live broadcast of the conclusion of the Tour de France at the Parc des Princes in Paris in 1948. During the 1950s, the popularity of the Tour de France news programmes grew resulting in the first live coverage from within the race in 1958 on the legendary col d’Aubisque. French television began to pay for the right to cover the race in 1960. In the following decades, television coverage of cycling races expanded in duration and scope. In this chapter, we analyse TV broadcasting of cycling in detail. We discuss the reasons behind the successful marriage of cycling and television and explain in detail how TV audiences are measured. We also present some relevant data of TV audiences for major cycling races and summarize the findings of two empirical studies that have been published on TV audience data for cycling. We then conclude with a discussion on the future of televised cycling.

The Finances of Professional Cycling Teams

Although cycling races are usually won on an individual basis, professional road cycling is a sport practiced in teams. This chapter focuses on cycling team’s finances which are in at least three ways very different from the finances of teams in most other sports. First, although cycling teams operate like small businesses, according to the rules of the International Cycling Union (UCI) they are not run for profit. As a result, team budgets should, in principle, equal revenue as well as expenses. Second, cycling teams do not have a home stadium or arena. The lack of a home venue, and thus the impossibility of hosting their own cycling races, prevents cycling teams from collecting ticketing revenue, an important source of revenue in most team sports. Third, while revenue from broadcasting rights is an ever-growing source of income in many other sports, it is currently not available to professional cycling teams. As a result, as of 2015, cycling teams are still almost exclusively financed by sponsorship money. In this chapter, we show how team budgets have grown substantially in the past 25 years and we discuss in detail the different costs and the (potential) sources of revenue to the teams.

Globalization in Professional Road Cycling

Road cycling has its historical roots in 4 European countries: France, Belgium, Italy and Spain. The 5 monuments of cycling as well as the three Grand Tours all take place in one of those 4 core countries, and for decades, the majority of the cycling peloton consisted of riders from these countries. Things started to change in the late 1980s, and from the 1990s on, the International Cycling Union has repeatedly stated that globalization of cycling is a major policy goal. In this chapter, we evaluate this policy goal and assess the significance of the globalization process in professional road cycling over the 1990–2015 period. The intended globalization is analysed from three points of view. Globalization at the rider level is measured by a nationality-based decomposition of the whole peloton. We also compare the nationalities of the top 100 riders and the winners of the most important cycling competitions over the years to check whether globalization is significant at the top level of cycling. To analyse the historical evolution of the globalization of cycling teams, two indicators are used: one measuring the international diversity within teams and one measuring the international dispersion of teams. Finally, globalization at the competition level is examined by a detailed analysis of the UCI calendar of professional cycling competitions.

The Future of Professional Road Cycling

Professional road cycling is one of the oldest professional sports. Its rich tradition dates back to the end of the nineteenth century. The sport is hugely popular in some core European countries and gaining momentum around the world. At the same time, however, there are some dark clouds overshadowing the further development of professional road cycling as a truly major sport at the worldwide level. The particular nature of professional road cycling, an outdoor team sport practiced on public roads by individual riders, makes that the sport is characterized by a large and heterogeneous set of stakeholders with various interests. This complex structure and the many conflict of interests that result from it have undoubtedly disadvantaged the development of professional road cycling in the past two decades. The sport also suffers heavily from its association with doping. As a result of these evolutions, high-profile multinational companies have become more reluctant to invest in professional road cycling. From this, it could be concluded that in a certain way, professional road cycling has failed to make a successful transition into the twenty-first century yet. In this chapter, we present a glimpse at how professional road cycling could look like in the future if all stakeholders are willing to tackle the challenges the sport is facing now and we introduce nine fundamentals that, in our opinion, are essential key to the future of professional road cycling.

Students’ overreliance on linearity in economic applications: A state of the art

Students’ overreliance on linear models is well-known and has been investigated empirically in a variety of mathematical subdomains, at distinct educational levels and in different countries. We present a state of the art of students’ overreliance on linearity in economic applications. We illustrate the widespread but sometimes debatable use of linearity in economics, discussing the treatment of demand and supply functions and of the Phillips curve in major economic textbooks. Next, we provide an overview of instances of, and comments on, this phenomenon in the economic education research literature. Typically, the phenomenon is described in the margin of economic studies whose primary focus is elsewhere. Finally, a study having students’ overreliance on linearity as its main research focus is discussed in some detail.

Optimization modelling for analyzing fantasy sport games

ABSTRACT In a fantasy sport game, participants act like a team manager building a team of real individual players of a professional sport. The real performances of these players (or their teams) are translated into points for their team managers. The managers’ aim is to collect as many points as possible, thereby defeating the fantasy teams of opponents. First, we discuss a number of common game rule characteristics of fantasy sport games. Based on these characteristics, we present a mixed-integer programming model to produce and analyze ex post results for a large variety of fantasy sport games. We discuss how these results create value for both the game organizer and the participants. Finally, we apply our system in practice to a fantasy cycling game.