Team Contests with Multiple Pairwise Battles

We consider a multi-battle team contest in which players from two rival teams form pairwise matches to fight in distinct component battles, which are carried out sequentially or (partially) simultaneously. A team wins if and only if its players win a majority of battles. Each player benefits from his team's win, while he can also receive a private reward for winning his own battle. We find that the outcomes of past battles do not distort the outcomes of future battles. Neither the total expected effort nor the overall outcome of the contest depends on the contest's temporal structure or its feedback policy. (JEL C72, D72, D74, D82)