Wednesday, December 31, 2014

2014 NFL Payroll and Performance

With the NFL regular season in the books, let me turn my attention to the relationship between team payrolls and team performance.  As we discuss in our book The Wages of Wins, while there tends to be a positive and statistically significant relationship between relative payroll and team performance, the relationship is not really very large enough to conclude that spending by teams is related to on-field performance.  While the book was published in 2006 (and updated in 2007), I like to try to keep up to date on these topics and thus the reason for this blog post.

So, I downloaded the NFL regular season team standings data and NFL team payroll data to run this analysis for just the 2014 season.  Before I present the results, I want to discuss the payroll data.  Using the link above you can see that I am using "cash" and not there salary cap option.  The reason is that I want to focus on actual spending by the team on the players as opposed to how money is attributed to payroll regulations.  For those interested in doing this on there own, here is a step-by-step guide to payroll and performance analysis in Microsoft Excel.

So for the 2014 NFL regular season team payroll and performance is positive and statistically significant, but the amount that payroll explains team performance is about 25%.  Meaning that there is 75% unexplained.  If I wanted to know why teams wins, using only payroll seems to be a limited resource.

Monday, December 29, 2014

NFL Competitive Balance 2014

Now that the NFL regular season is wrapped up, it is time to take a look at how competitively balanced the NFL was last season.  In order to do this, I am going to look at the NFL season statistically as a sample and as a population - mainly for comparison purposes.  Additionally, I will take a look at the conferences separately in terms of competitive balance.  The data comes from profootball-reference.com.

There are a lot of ways to measure competitive balance, and I have chosen to use a simple measure called the Noll-Scully Competitive balance measure.  By competitive balance we are looking at how well a league's standings are in relation to a league where wins and losses are determined randomly.  Here is a step-by-step guide if you want to calculate this on your own.  As a reference, here is the Noll-Scully using a sample or a population for the NFL from 1981 to 2012.

For the NFL in 2014 the Noll-Scully was 1.562 (population) and 1.587 (sample).  If you click on the link in the last sentence above, you will notice that the NFL's competitive balance for this past season is very similar to recent seasons. 

Since the 2000 NFL season, competitive balance in the NFL has been fairly stable as shown below:

 

 

Monday, December 15, 2014

2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 for Week 16

With only one game this past weekend, it may not matter much whether this game is included in the overall dataset, but I thought that I would be through as I have been in the past so I have included the latest rankings after the Army-Navy game.  So using the data from cfbstats.com here is the last regular season ranking for 2014.  As you can see the ranking is similar to the previous week's ranking, with Oregon still the most productive team in all of college football.  So here is the final regular season top 25 using the Complex Invasion College Football Production Model.

Rank Team
1 Oregon
2 Marshall
3 TCU
4 Baylor
5 Ohio State
6 Michigan State
7 Alabama
8 Georgia
9 Louisiana Tech
10 Boise State
11 Mississippi State
12 Georgia Southern
13 Georgia Tech
14 Northern Illinois
15 Wisconsin
16 East Carolina
17 Mississippi
18 Memphis
19 Florida State
20 BYU
21 Arizona
22 Cincinnati
23 Oklahoma
24 USC
25 Western Kentucky


Previous 2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 Rankings
2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 for Week 15
2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 for Week 14
2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 for Week 13
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, December 8, 2014

2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 for Week 15

The college football regular season has now finished week 15.  As you can see the Oregon Ducks are the most productive team in all of college football using the Complex Invasion College Football Production Model using data from cfbstats.com.

Of the top 4, the model only has one of those chosen by the College Football Playoff committee - Oregon.  Ohio State is #5, Alabama is #7 and Florida State is #19 in terms of overall productivity.

Here is the Top 25.

Rank Team
1 Oregon
2 Marshall
3 TCU
4 Baylor
5 Ohio State
6 Michigan State
7 Alabama
8 Georgia
9 Louisiana Tech
10 Boise State
11 Mississippi State
12 Georgia Southern
13 Georgia Tech
14 Northern Illinois
15 Mississippi
16 Wisconsin
17 East Carolina
18 Memphis
19 Florida State
20 BYU
21 Arizona
22 Cincinnati
23 Oklahoma
24 USC
25 Western Kentucky

Previous 2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 Rankings
2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 for Week 14
2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 for Week 13
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, December 1, 2014

2014 NCAA Football Top 25 for Week 14

The college football regular season has now finished week 14.  As you can see we have a new #1 team in all of college football using the Complex Invasion College Football Production Model using data from cfbstats.com - the Oregon Ducks.

Here is the Top 25.

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

Previous 2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 Rankings
2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 for Week 13
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 

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  

Friday, October 31, 2014

2014 NCAA Football Top 25 for Week 9

For some reason, I have been unable to post this week.  Most likely human error on my part.  Anyway this seems to work, so here is the top 25 at the end of last weekend using the Complex Invasion College Football Production Model using data from cfbstats.com.
Again, we have a new number one team:  Marshall Thundering Herd!

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

Previous 2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 Rankings
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 

Thursday, October 30, 2014

BYU AD on CFB Scheduling

Last Fall semester I taught a First Year Freshman Seminar on College Football and one of the topics we talked about was the economic reason for athletic conferences (and the incentives for schools to move between conferences).  One of the reasons I discussed was that conferences reduce transactions costs of scheduling.  Here is a really good article about BYU (independent) on football scheduling.

Monday, October 20, 2014

2014 NCAA Football Top 25 for Week 8

We are now halfway through the 2014 NCAA football season.  Here is the latest top 25 based on the Complex Invasion College Football Production Model using data from cfbstats.com.  Notice that we have a new number one team in the Michigan State Spartans.

Rank Team
1 Michigan State
2 East Carolina
3 Nebraska
4 Marshall
5 Baylor
6 Wisconsin
7 USC
8 Mississippi
9 Houston
10 Minnesota
11 Alabama
12 Maryland
13 Georgia
14 Memphis
15 Penn State
16 Iowa
17 Utah State
18 TCU
19 UCLA
20 Oregon
21 Northern Illinois
22 Georgia Southern
23 UAB
24 Auburn
25 LSU

Previous 2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 Rankings
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, October 13, 2014

2014 NCAA Football Top 25 for Week 7

Here is the latest Top 25 based on the Complex Invasion College Football Production Model using data from cfbstats.com.  Of the top four teams, Auburn has dropped from #4 to #7 and Georgia Southern has moved into the top 4.  Yes, that is a shock to me as well.

Notice that the SEC has 7 teams in the top 25, and that Florida State is back in the top 25 at #24.

Rank Team
1 Baylor
2 Michigan State
3 Marshall
4 Georgia Southern
5 Georgia
6 Mississippi
7 Auburn
8 East Carolina
9 Louisville
10 Alabama
11 Duke
12 Mississippi State
13 Oklahoma
14 Oregon
15 Nebraska
16 Wisconsin
17 Kentucky
18 Texas A&M
19 TCU
20 Miami (Florida)
21 LSU
22 Stanford
23 Clemson
24 Florida State
25 Notre Dame

Previous 2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 Rankings
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 

Friday, October 10, 2014

MLB Pay and Performance 1988 to 2014

With the MLB regular season in the books and the playoffs underway, I thought that I would get back to looking at MLB pay and performance.  As we state in our book, The Wages of Wins, while there is a positive and statistically significant relationship between relative payroll and team performance (as measured by winning percent); the variation that is common between the two variables is not a lot.  So what I will do here is measure both the relationship and the amount of common variation (using r-squared) for the MLB regular season over a few different time periods.

If you are interested in performing your own payroll and performance analysis, here is a step-by-step guide to analyzing payroll and performance.

First, the two variables are MLB regular season winning percent, which I grabbed from ESPN and MLB team payrolls which I got from USA Today's MLB team payroll page. 

Second, as I have explained previously, I am using relative payroll because average payrolls have been increasing over time and average winning percent is constant over time.  Hence if I use total payroll instead of relative payroll, I will find a weaker relationship since MLB total payrolls are increasing and MLB winning percent is constant.  If I use relative payroll (a team's total payroll divided by that seasons average payroll) then I will be comparing two variables that are stationary to each other and get better results.

How much in common is the variation in relative payroll and the variation in winning percent by season?

1995-2014:  18.1%
2000-2014:  14.8%
2005-2014:  13.7%
2010-2014:    8.4%
2014:  relative payroll is statistically insignificant.

Over different time periods we see that the explanatory power of relative payroll on team winning percent has been declining since 1995.

Monday, October 6, 2014

2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 for Week 6

This past weekend has had more movement than an bowl of jello in an earthquake.  We have seen teams at the top (including the model's top team) lose.  Again this ranking is based on the Complex Invasion College Football Production Model Top 25 ranking using data from cfbstats.com.

After all the changes the model has the following four teams in the college football playoff:  1.  Baylor; 2. Michigan State; 3. Marshall; and 4. Auburn.

Surprises:
1.  Florida State is no where to be found in the top 25 and some teams
2.  Marshall is a playoff team and Georgia Southern is in the top 10.
3.  Mississippi State is ranked below Texas A&M, and
4.  The B1G has six teams in the top 25.

Rank Team
1 Baylor
2 Michigan State
3 Marshall
4 Auburn
5 Louisville
6 Mississippi
7 Georgia
8 Georgia Southern
9 East Carolina
10 Nebraska
11 TCU
12 Texas A&M
13 Oklahoma
14 Mississippi State
15 Alabama
16 Duke
17 Oregon
18 LSU
19 Clemson
20 Missouri
21 Wisconsin
22 Notre Dame
23 Minnesota
24 Ohio State
25 Penn State

Previous 2014 NCAA FBS Top 25 Rankings
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, September 30, 2014

Kansas Jayhawks under Charlie Weis

ESPN reports that the Kansas Jayhawk's have fired head football coach Charlie Weis who was in the third year of a five year contract.  Here is my analysis of the Kansas Jayhawk's under former head football coach Weis' tenure using the Complex Invasion College Football Production Model.

In the chart below, I have graphed the Complex Invasion College Football Production Rankings since 2008 by the team's total rank, offensive rank, defensive rank and worst team in the "league".  The first two seasons (2008 & 2009) were under Mark Mangino, the next two seasons (2010 & 2011) were under Turner Gill, and the last three seasons were under Charlie Weis.  As you can tell from the production rankings, Kansas has been a very poor performing football program for a number of seasons.


 
2014* Through the fifth week of the 2014 season.

I am only going to focus on Kansas under Charlie Weis for this blog.  I hope to come back and go back to the 2008 season at a later time.

2012
In his first season at the helm of the Kansas Jayhawks football program the Jayhawks finished at 1-11 and were bowl ineligible.  This season the Jayhawks again played against a "tougher" strength of schedule (SOS) as compared to the "league" average, meaning that their SOS was between one and two standard deviations below the "league" average SOS.  The Jayhawk's only victory was over FCS South Dakota State and their worst game was a loss to #72 ranked Iowa State.  Overall, the Jayhawks had the #117 ranked team with the #106 ranked offense and the #118 ranked defense out of 124 FBS teams.

2013
Kansas finished the regular season at 3-9 and were again bowl ineligible.  Kansas again played against an "average" strength of schedule (SOS) as compared to the "league" average, meaning they were plus or minus one standard deviation from the league average SOS.  Kansas's best game was their victory over #88 ranked Louisiana Tech and their worst loss was to #109 ranked Iowa State.  Overall, the Jayhawk's had the #114 ranked team with the #122 ranked offense and the #79 ranked defense.

2014
In what ended up as only four games coached by Charlie Weis, the Jayhawks were 2-2.  As of the end of the fifth week, Kansas has the #112 (out of 128) ranked team overall with the #123 offense and the #86 defense.


2014 NCAA FBS Head Coaching Changes (to date):
June Jones at SMU