Xbox Social Campaign Seeks Out The Expected Jinx

Xbox has teamed up with Opta to launch “xJ” (expected jinx), the first-ever stat that applies Opta’s Live Win Probability data to something fans obsess over but analytics has never before touched: whether they are the reason their team keeps losing. Superstition, treated with the rigour of elite sports data.

The xJ score is the first-ever attempt to quantify superstition in football. Fans can upload their matchday viewing data from throughout the season and work out if they impacted their team’s results positively or negatively, and by how much.

The idea, developed by Edelman, rolls out today with a hero film, following a teaser that’s already driven strong sports and gaming fandom engagement, and that’s before fans can even calculate their own scores.

Mohan Gehlot, Xbox Senior Global Product Manager, commented: “However rational they may seem, the rituals and good luck charms that accompany a matchday are sacred to fans who are desperate to influence a win. The xJ calculator is Xbox’s celebration of these weird and wonderful superstitions that unite all of us fans, and we’re glad we can help out the unluckiest fans by providing the Xbox rewards they’ll need to play Xbox instead so they can’t jinx any future games!”

How it works - Fans enter matchday viewing behaviour from across the season into an xJ Calculator to generate an xJ score, with positive or negative impact included. Later this month, Xbox will crown the UK’s unluckiest fan and quite literally remove them from matchdays, offering an Xbox sponsorship (hardware + EA SPORTS FC) to play EA FC instead, so they can stop jinxing results altogether.