European ratings lagging?

[SamuliKL]

As we all know, disc golf ratings are determined on how well we play relative to other players and their past performance. Assume, for example, that you have ten equally good players on desert island playing against each other and you assign them all an initial rating of 1000. Assume then that these players all become better (why wouldn't they, they have nothing else to do than play) and that they all improve at the same rate, these players will still have a rating of 1000.¹

This is pretty much the European DG scene where the huge majority of the continent's thousands of players play in isolation from the tens of thousands of North American players. Also, having started later and behind their American counterparts, they will probably improve faster. If that is all true, then we should be able to observe that European players' ratings are be lagging.

Is that so?

I had a look at the European Masters which had 16 American top players competing with European ones.

The American players' rating was on average 1019,8 (at the time of registration, I suppose). Their average round rating in EM was 1017,6.
The European players' rating was 973,1. Their average round rating was 979,8.
For the top 16 of Europe the numbers were 1005,2 and 1017,5 respectively.

I did not perform any statistical analysis on these figures - could it have been just a coincidence? I did not check other competitions - will you see the same in other competitions (eg. USDGC)? I don't offer any conclusions but I wonder if PDGA has had a look at this. If they haven't, they probably should.

--
¹ There may be details-shmetails wrong in what I write about the desert island but it doesn't affect the big picture.

 

[Aim For The Chains]

#hemisphereproblems

seems like nature of the beast where some of the highest rated players in the world play in the US. Hell even Simon was around this summer!

 

[Cgkdisc]

All European ratings originate from U.S. player ratings. International players are not just assigned an arbitrary starting rating. Every player in the world receives their first and subsequent ratings from other players (propagators) who already have established ratings. These ratings of players who do not travel continue to be updated and normalized across the world as other players travel and play in other countries. This keeps the ratings very consistent around the world.

There are small groups of players where once they get ratings, they only continue to play against each other. No more ratings points get added to their pool even if every one of them gets better. So these players may have lower ratings than their current skill level once they travel. But since players do not get paid based on their rating but their actual tournament performance, it really doesn't matter. Their rating will likely go up as a result of the event where they traveled. They'll bring back some more points that their local players may try to earn by beating them.