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Almost all the games and sports involve an odd number of players. And most the games involve 11 players, eg: football, cricket, hockey etc. And other games like basketball and all have 5 which is also odd and prime. i can think of only volleyball that has even and non prime number of players.

My specific question is why are there ODD prime numbers of players in most of the games?

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  • Hockey 6? I thought it was 11. Which hockey are you reffering? – Rohit Vipin Mathews Mar 23 '12 at 3:59
  • @Drewbenn - and Junior and High school leagues... at least in the US. – Chad Mar 23 '12 at 12:23
11
  • Ice Hockey 6
  • Softball (mostly played with 10 players with an extra outfielder) 10
  • Volleyball 6 for indoor 2 for sand
  • Curling 4
  • Boblseigh = 2 or 4
  • Relay Racing - 4
  • Polo 4

I could go on but I trust you get the point.

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  • But still i feel its mostly odd number of player in most of the games. – Rohit Vipin Mathews Mar 23 '12 at 6:24
  • @Rohit - thats because most of the games you see on tv regularly use odd numbers. But 2 or 4 are actually more common when you look at all sports. Though alot of them its only 1 person active at a time. – Chad Mar 23 '12 at 12:21
  • Technically Ice Hockey has 6, but only 5 really move anywhere. – corsiKa Apr 4 '14 at 4:56
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    @corsiKa - The goalie is a specialized position sure but the same could be said about any sport with a goal tender. That does not mean that they are any less part of the team, and at the end of the game in hockey the team that is down will often play empty net with the intent of using the extra man to catch up. – Chad Apr 4 '14 at 14:15
4

Surely this is just down to the individual sports and their rules themselves. When codifying the game, the people in charge of doing so must have picked a number most convenient to them and the space they played in, and didn't consciously try to pick an odd, prime number as you claim is common. It might just seem that more sports have odd, prime number sized teams because the ones you list are the popular ones that are on television.

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