Thursday, November 27, 2014

College Football Conference Distributions

One of the topics in my First Year Seminar on College Football is about conferences.  Economically, conferences allow schools to lower costs and create consumer demand to generate higher revenues.  Last year the Big 12 conference distributed millions of dollars to the member schools and here is an article listing the amounts distributed since 1997.

Monday, November 24, 2014

2014 NCAA Football Top 25 for Week 13

The college football regular season has now finished week 13.  As you can see Marshall is still the most productive team using the Complex Invasion College Football Production Model using data from cfbstats.com.  Here is the Top 25.

Rank Team
1 Marshall
2 Oregon
3 Michigan State
4 Georgia
5 Baylor
6 Wisconsin
7 Alabama
8 TCU
9 Mississippi State
10 Ohio State
11 Georgia Southern
12 Mississippi
13 Utah State
14 Georgia Tech
15 Memphis
16 BYU
17 Auburn
18 Arizona
19 Oklahoma
20 Florida State
21 Louisville
22 Arizona State
23 East Carolina
24 Miami (Florida)
25 Western Michigan

Previous 2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 Rankings
2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 for Week 12
2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 for Week 11
2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 for Week 10
2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 for Week 9
2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 for Week 8
2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 for Week 7
2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 for Week 6
2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 for Week 5
2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 for Week 4
2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 for Week 3
2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 for Week 2 

Monday, November 17, 2014

2014 NCAA Football Top 25 for Week 12

The college football regular season is now three quarters of the way finished and the top 25 (and top 4) have had a few changes with the recent weekend results.  As you can see Marshall is still the most productive team using the Complex Invasion College Football Production Model using data from cfbstats.com.  Here is the Top 25.

Rank Team
1 Marshall
2 Oregon
3 Michigan State
4 Baylor
5 TCU
6 Wisconsin
7 Georgia
8 Alabama
9 Georgia Southern
10 Ohio State
11 Mississippi
12 Mississippi State
13 Georgia Tech
14 Miami (Florida)
15 Florida State
16 Duke
17 Louisville
18 Utah State
19 Memphis
20 Louisiana Tech
21 Auburn
22 USC
23 Arizona State
24 Western Michigan
25 Arizona

Previous 2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 Rankings
2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 for Week 11
2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 for Week 10
2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 for Week 9
2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 for Week 8
2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 for Week 7
2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 for Week 6
2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 for Week 5
2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 for Week 4
2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 for Week 3
2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 for Week 2  

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Payroll and Performance in MLS

One of the ideas that we focus on in our book The Wages of Wins is the relationship between team payroll and team performance.  We focus primarily on Major League Baseball as that is the sport that the payroll and performance discussion tends to get the most talk.  What we find is that using team performance (regular season winning percentage) and team payroll (relative payroll when comparing multiple seasons or total payroll for one season) we find that there is a positive relationship between team performance and team payroll.  Additionally, we find that that relationship is statistically significant over multiple seasons, meaning that from a statistical viewpoint the two variables are different from zero.  Each of these we find evidence for.  Yet in terms of the amount that the two variables have in common, we find is less than 20% over most time periods.

So, let's take a look at MLS for just the 2014 regular season.  First let me note that since there are only 19 teams in MLS this season, the number of observations is suspect.  So take the following with a statistical "grain of salt".  Eventually, I will like to come back and analyze this over a much longer time period, but it will take some time for me to get the salary data cleaned up from the pdf's on the internet

Thus given I am only looking at the 2014 regular season the statistical results are not very promising.  For the 2014 regular season neither base salary nor guaranteed salary are statistically significant with respect to standings points.  In other words, from a statistically viewpoint either base salary or guaranteed salary do not explain end of regular season standings points.

Monday, November 10, 2014

2014 NCAA Football Top 25 for Week 11

Now that week 11 is finished, here is the latest Complex Invasion College Football Production Model Top 25 rankings.  Marshall has re-taken the top spot in the Top 25, followed by Baylor, TCU and Oregon.

Rank Team
1 Marshall
2 Baylor
3 TCU
4 Oregon
5 Georgia Southern
6 Michigan State
7 Mississippi
8 Wisconsin
9 Alabama
10 Mississippi State
11 Georgia
12 Louisville
13 Ohio State
14 Nebraska
15 Auburn
16 Duke
17 Utah State
18 LSU
19 Louisiana Tech
20 Miami (Florida)
21 Arizona State
22 UCLA
23 Florida State
24 Georgia Tech
25 USC

Previous 2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 Rankings
2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 for Week 10
2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 for Week 9
2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 for Week 8
2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 for Week 7
2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 for Week 6
2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 for Week 5
2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 for Week 4
2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 for Week 3
2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 for Week 2  

Saturday, November 8, 2014

Competitive Balance in MLS

Now that the Major League Soccer regular season is over let's take a look at competitive balance in MLS for the 2014 season.  Using the Noll-Scully measure of competitive balance under the trinomial distribution (since ties are a part of the MLS) I find that competitive balance is higher for the 2014 regular season than the average over the last 15 seasons.  The Noll-Scully for 2014 is 1.488 which is still more competitive than the other "major" US sports leagues.  Yet the average Noll-Scully has been increasing - meaning that competitive balance is decreasing over the last five years.  Here is the Noll Scully since the 2000 regular season.

Monday, November 3, 2014

2014 NCAA Football Top 25 for Week 10

We are now 10 weeks into the regular season and again we have a new #1 team (or repeat) from two weeks ago: Michigan State.  Surprises are that Georgia Southern, Marshall, Memphis and Louisana Tech are also in the top 25.  There are still six SEC teams in the top 25 (Alabama, Mississippi, Mississippi State, Auburn, Georgia and LSU) and four Big 10 and four Big 12 teams as well.

Below is the list of Top 25 teams as of last week using the Complex Invasion College Football Production Model using data from cfbstats.com.


Rank Team
1 Michigan State
2 Baylor
3 TCU
4 Georgia Southern
5 Marshall
6 Alabama
7 Oregon
8 Ohio State
9 Nebraska
10 Wisconsin
11 Mississippi
12 Miami (Florida)
13 Mississippi State
14 Auburn
15 Georgia
16 Oklahoma
17 East Carolina
18 Louisville
19 Duke
20 LSU
21 USC
22 Kansas State
23 Memphis
24 Louisiana Tech
25 Utah State

Previous 2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 Rankings
2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 for Week 9
2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 for Week 8
2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 for Week 7
2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 for Week 6
2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 for Week 5
2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 for Week 4
2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 for Week 3
2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 for Week 2