Using Match Attractiveness Measures to Evaluate the Structure of the Currie Cup

Recent remarks in the media suggest that the Currie Cup competition, the premier rugby union competition in South Africa, is in need of a revamp. This is not a new inclination; the structure of the Currie Cup has had numerous alterations over the preceding two decades. But why has the Currie Cup suddenly lost its glamour? Existing measures of competitive balance used in the economics of sports literature are found to be unsatisfactory for rugby union competitions. Using a new measure of match attractiveness, this paper shows that the existing Currie Cup performs poorly compared to the top rugby union competitions across the world. 21 years of Currie Cup rugby are assessed to determine which structure yields the most attractive rugby. It is found that it is not the number of matches or the format of the competition that determines the “attractiveness”, but rather how many teams participate. A structure where only the five Super 14 franchises compete yields the most attractive outcomes. Yet, even a competition of “five plus one” will be relatively more attractive than most current rugby union competitions, while also contributing to broadening participation and representation in South African rugby. A format is proposed where the five Super 14 franchises and one team open to promotion/relegation compete. The existing Vodacom Cup excluding the five Super 14-unions can be used as qualification tournament for the sixth team. Promotion for the sixth team should be determined on the highest league log points at the end of the tournament (Vodacom Cup) and not in a play-off match.Economics of sport leagues, Competitive balance, Match attractiveness, Rugby union, Currie Cup

From Competitive Balance to Match Attractiveness in Rugby Union

Professional sports leagues aim to provide attractive contests that maximise fan interest. Literature on the demand for professional sport suggests that fans derive utility from identifying with teams and from the quality of contests, which depends on uncertainty of outcome and demonstration of the skills required to excel at the game. Measures of the attractiveness of sports contests should incorporate these two dimensions of quality. This paper proposes measures of the attractiveness of rugby union matches corresponding to Newton’s gravity equation. These measures proxy the extent of uncertainty of outcome by the points margin between the participating teams and demonstration of playing skills by the total number of points scored in a match, respectively. Using hypothetical match scores, the paper shows that the most accurate of the proposed measures uniquely identify degrees of “attractiveness”. A comparison of major rugby leagues for the period 2006 to 2008 suggests that the Guinness Premiership provided the most attractive matches, followed by the Magners League and the Super 14.Economics of sport leagues, Rugby union, Competitive balance, Uncertainty of outcomes, Match attractiveness

Poverty in South Africa: A profile based on recent household surveys

This paper provides a non-technical, snapshot-like profile of poverty in South Africa based on two surveys recently conducted by Statistics South Africa: the Income and expenditure survey of households 2005/06 (IES2005) and the General household survey 2006 (GHS2006). It uses various “poverty markers” (including geographical location, population group, gender, household structure, the age of the head of the household, and employment status) to identify key characteristics of poverty groups, and also highlights other important dimensions of poverty (deficient access to infrastructure services, high transport cost burdens, limited education attainments, and exposure to hunger). The paper further emphasises that the expansion of social grants since 1999 has significantly reduced extreme poverty.Poverty, Poverty markers, Burden of poverty, Social grants, South Africa

"Trustees and agents of the state?": Missions and post-union policy formation towards African education 1910-1920

African Studies Seminar series. Paper presented 26 April 1993During the first decade after Union, African education was the subject of syllabus reform initiatives in three out of the four provinces. The control of African education was also an issue which was debated as part of these reform initiatives, and was touched on by commissions of enquiry into the provincial system as a whole. It is the task of this paper to analyse the nature of policy making and reform regarding African education in the first decade after union, and to focus on the role of the missions in this process. It argues that the process of syllabus reform in the Transvaal, Natal and the Cape was informed by a general need to respond to critiques of existing education, but that there are important regional imperatives which fashioned each province's particular rationale and content adaptations. It indicates that the reforms cannot be seen as directed at the African working class in order to meet the needs of capital. Instead it argues that much of the "education makes better workers" type of justification for change, and the content change itself was really rhetoric designed to allay white hostility. The target of the reforms was the educated African elite, whose ambitions needed to be shaped in a direction which did not challenge the existing social order. However, only the Cape reforms appear to have moved beyond rhetoric in providing a concrete syllabus for agricultural education for an elite modernising peasantry and ancillary administrative staff. In this sense, to some extent the reforms were compatible with emerging segregationist ideas and policies. However, it is far fetched to link the reforms with any grand design of Native policy or with the "needs of capital". ...This paper stems from a dissatisfaction with the existing literature's failure to grasp the complexities of the relationship between church, state, education policy and the broader political economy in the early years after Union. In doing so, it addresses a number of problematic areas in the literature of this period. … This paper ends in 1920, a year which marks the first real attempt to consider African education from a national viewpoint. This came with the establishment of the Native Affairs Commission in 1920

The abused child complex and its characteristic x-ray findings

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Segregation, science and commissions of enquiry: The contestation of native education policy in South Africa 1930-36

African Studies Seminar series. Paper presented 29 April 1996. Not to be quoted without the Author's permission.This paper focuses on debates around African education which emerged from two State initiated commissions and an education conference in the period 193 0-193 6: the 1932 Natives Economic Commission (NEC), the 1935-6 Interdepartmental Committee into Native Education (Welsh Committee) and the New Education Fellowship (NEF) Conference of 1934. The paper highlights the responses of the English-speaking Protestant missions to two major and intermeshing trends which affected African education during this period, secularisation and segregation. In the history of South African education, a clear but neglected theme which emerges in the period after the First World War is the desire of the mission churches to resist State control, and to retain control of their schools in terms of administration, appointment of staff and curriculum content. Implicit in the struggle over control of African education were important issues such as the location and nature of expertise, what constitutes worthwhile knowledge, the most appropriate schooling system for imparting knowledge and the political consequences of such policy. Through the lens of debates around African education, global and colonial trends such as the rise of science, the secularisation of knowledge and the concomitant emergence of the "expert" can be seen. This paper argues that church responses to these trends incorporated more than merely an outdated reliance on nineteenth century Cape liberalism and notions of assimilation. They drew on an emerging critique of segregation and the illiberal use of science and expertise which emerged both from South Africa and from the British colonial experience elsewhere in Africa

Using musical structures to communicate emotion

Includes bibliographical references.This study investigates the hypothesis that music has the ability to strongly influence emotions in listeners. It begins by challenging the accuracy of this presumption, provides a general psychological and philosophical overview of human emotions and their relation to music, and hypothesises a theory that accounts for the numerous different findings by authors around this topic. The study then attempts to investigate in what manner specific musical structures are linked to the expression of certain emotions; firstly through a literature review and secondly through the execution of empirical tests. These findings are summarised in the Conclusion. An Annexure to this study provides graphic representations of specific musical structures on valence x arousal diagrams that are of value to composers of music

Book Review: Local Government Finance: A Comparative Study

Book Title: Local Government Finance: A Comparative StudyBook Author: Dirk BrandSUN Media, Stellenbosch, South Africa, 2016. ISBN 978192068998