Consensus, Diversity and the Wisdom of the Crowd: Predicting Final Rank Positions of the English Premier League

ABSTRACT This study assesses the Wisdom of the Crowd premise using a natural experiment. We collected primary data relating to predictions of the final football club rank positions in the English Premier League over two consecutive seasons using an innovative game and compared these predictions with predictions made by sporting pundits, football blogs and inferred from betting odds. Our results question the Wisdom of the Crowd premise, and we show that scores generated by the Diversity Prediction Theorem vary from one season to the next, suggesting that crowds are not adept at predicting the unexpected.