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MONEY makes the world go round and it's true in sports too.
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| TEXT/ILLUSTRATION: LARRY HAVERKAMP AND MAROO |
My statistics class at Singapore Management University just completed their term project where they looked at money in sports. They answered any question you can imagine with a statistical technique called 'regression analysis'. For example: Do teams that pay more for their players perform better? Is money a bigger motivator in some sports than others? How about this one: Are football teams that play rough more successful than the 'oh, so nice' clubs that never hit hard? What about the National Basketball Association (NBA)? Have you noticed that no teams have midgets? Not one. Why is that? How important are physical attributes in sports compared with heart and desire? Here are the three best 'Money in Sports' projects: Gold medal: MONEY AND EPL Question: Do the English Premier League (EPL) football teams that spend more for transfer fees perform better? Student: Tang Xiao Jun Data: Transfer fees and points earned for 20 EPL football teams in the current 2008 to 2009 season. For example, Manchester United spent £51 million ($114m) and is near the top of the league in points. Newcastle is more thrifty. It spent only £8m and is near the bottom. Result: Transfer fees explain 80 per cent of a club's performance and a club can expect to earn one additional league point for every £1.25m that it spends on player transfer fees. Prof's comment: Xiao Jun was the only student too shy to present his paper in class. It's okay. It's still a great study. Silver medal: MONEY AND NBA Question: Does the EPL football study apply to basketball too? Students: Ding Chen, Teng Mengfei, Lin Ripeng, Hu Xiaowei Data: The player salaries and win/loss records for 31 NBA teams taken from the website www.nba.espn.com. Result: Player salaries make no difference to an NBA team's win/loss record. Most teams could get away with paying players much less and win just as many games. Prof's comment: Does this contradict the previous study? Probably not since the payment methods are different. The NBA teams pay players directly while EPL payments are made to the clubs. Bronze medal: ROUGH PLAY Question: Do nice guys finish last? This study looked at whether teams that play rough are able to earn more EPL points. Students: Jonathon Khoo, Yueh Yen Chin, Prakhar Andlay Data: EPL points and penalties for five seasons from 2004 to present. Penalties are measured as three points for a red card and one point for yellow. Result: Rough play doesn't seem to matter. It explained only 4 per cent of a team's performance and shows that in the EPL, nice guys really do finish first. Prof's comment: A fascinating result. An extension would be to see if teams pay more for rough players. Honourable mention Two more sports results: There is no relation between the height of a team's basketball players and its win/loss record (although none had midgets). EPL teams which invest in a bigger squad do no better than teams with fewer players. Two non-sports studies: A group of female students found that a person's self-confidence is boosted by her monthly expenditure on clothes. Who would have guessed? Another group found no relation between the death penalty and murder rates in the US. It seems that capital punishment does not act as a deterrent over there. The group said their study could be improved by interviewing someone who had recently been executed. (Huh?)
HOW TO DO IT Regression analysis using Excel is easy. For Windows XP, go to Tools and then Add-Ins. Tick the box 'Analysis ToolPak'. Next, go back and click again on Tools. A new option will appear: 'Data Analysis'. Hit it. Then choose Regression. Now, you are ready to find the relation between anything and anything else. 
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