Data
From the venue to your screen: how live scores reach Maxivaleur
A goal is scored, and a few seconds later the board updates. This is the chain behind that update, where delays come from and what we do when the data is wrong.
By Standards Desk ·
News and analysis
Explainers and analysis from the Maxivaleur desks. Every piece carries a named desk, a publication date and, where it changed, an update date.
Football
When points are level: how league tables break ties
Two clubs on the same points can sit several places apart. The order is not arbitrary — each competition publishes a ladder of tiebreakers, and the order of that ladder matters more than most fans think.
By Live Desk ·
Esports
Single or double elimination? How esports brackets crown a champion
One loss and you are out, or one loss and you drop a floor. The bracket format shapes how many series a team plays, how much a bad day costs and why grand finals sometimes look lopsided.
By Esports Desk ·
Football
Possession, shots, shots on target: what the stats panel actually tells you
A 64% possession figure sounds decisive. On its own it rarely is. Here is how to read the numbers in a match centre without over-reading them.
By Live Desk ·
Esports
The map veto in CS2 and Valorant, step by step
Before a best-of-three starts, two teams strike maps off a list of seven until three remain. The order of those strikes says a lot about how each side prepared.
By Esports Desk ·
Tennis
Seven points or ten: the tiebreak formats you will see in a tennis draw
A score of 7–6 and a score of 10–7 can both settle a set. The difference comes from which tiebreak the event uses, and it changes how a final set feels.
By Live Desk ·
Basketball
Plus-minus in basketball: useful, noisy and easy to misread
A bench player finishes +14 and a starter finishes -9. Plus-minus is one of the simplest numbers in a box score and one of the easiest to over-interpret.
By Live Desk ·
Esports
Drafting in Dota 2 and League of Legends: what happens before minute one
Long before the first fight, each team has locked in five characters and removed others from play. The draft is a match inside the match.
By Esports Desk ·