Category: Sports
Who should a utilitarian root for in the World Cup?
The very excellent Sandor writes to me:
From a maximum utility point of view, who's the right team to root for in the 2010 FIFA World Cup (TM)?
The off-the-top-of-head first order model seems something like
num_native_fans * (joy_of_native_fans_upon_winning –
misery_upon_losing) + num_foreign_fans * (joy – misery),where the second term is probably negligible compared to the first,
except maybe for Uruguay and Paraguay. The "joy" term probably is larger the longer it's been since the team won? But maybe the misery is less for teams that have never gotten far—wouldn't Ghanaians be
pretty thrilled with a loss in the semifinal?What are the second order and higher effects? Germany's lost productivity from a long tournament run is worth more in absolute terms but maybe less in utility terms? Do we need terms for foreign anti-fans?—I've heard a surprising number of people express extreme anti-Germany and anti-Brazil feelings, the former for past crimes, the latter for general arrogance.
I'm attracted to the Netherlands and the two 'Guays, which are probably the lowest three in utility terms. Maybe I'm just a misanthrope.
Does Derek Parfit like football?
My view is that a Brazilian victory does the most to maximize happiness, although I worry about the effects on second-order violence.
If you wish to rationalize the victory of a small country team, try the argument that too many young people invest career time in becoming athletes. By having a small nation grab the glory, this wasteful effect is minimized.
Barbados vs. Grenada, the demand for own-goals, 1994
There was an unusual match between Barbados and Grenada.
Grenada went into the match with a superior goal difference, meaning that Barbados needed to win by two goals to progress to the finals. The trouble was caused by two things. First, unlike most group stages in football competitions, the organizers had deemed that all games must have a winner. All games drawn over 90 minutes would go to sudden death extra time. Secondly and most importantly, there was an unusual rule which stated that in the event of a game going to sudden death extra time the goal would count double, meaning that the winner would be awarded a two goal victory.
Barbados was leading 2-0 until the 83rd minute, when Grenada scored, making it 2-1. Approaching the dying moments, the Barbadians realized they had no chance of scoring past Grenada's mass defense, so they deliberately scored an own goal to tie the game at 2-2. This would send the game into extra time and give them another half hour to break down the defense. The Grenadians realized what was happening and attempted to score an own goal as well, which would put Barbados back in front by one goal and would eliminate Barbados from the competition.
However, the Barbados players started defending their opposition's goal to prevent them from doing this, and during the game's last five minutes, the fans were treated to the incredible sight of Grenada trying to score in either goal. Barbados also defended both ends of the pitch, and held off Grenada for the final five minutes, sending the game into extra time. In extra time, Barbados notched the game-winner, and, according to the rules, was awarded a 4-2 victory, which put them through to the next round.
The full story is here and I thank Solomon Gold for the pointer. Angus also blogged this story, with video evidence as well.
The U.S. Soccer President, Sunil Gulati
Gulati graduated Magna Cum Laude from Bucknell University and earned his M.A. and M. Phil. in Economics at Columbia University. He served on the Columbia Economics Faculty from 1986 to1990 before joining the World Bank through its Young Professionals Program in 1991 and serving as country economist for the emerging country of Moldova.
The full story is here, hat tip Yoram Bauman. Is he still a Lecturer there? This interesting Jonah Lehrer article, via Michelle Dawson, covers the U.S. goalie:
He [Howard] refuses to take medication for [Tourette's] for fear it will make him "zombielike" and impair his motor skills. "I'm very adrenaline-filled, and I wouldn't want to suppress that," Howard said. "I like the way I am. If I woke up tomorrow without Tourette's, I wouldn't know what to do with myself."
Very good headlines
John Isner beats Nicolas Mahut 6-4, 3-6, 6-7, 7-6, 70-68 in Wimbledon epic
What do basketball fans want?
Historically meaningful match-ups between titans:
StubHub.com reported Wednesday afternoon the most demand for NBA Finals tickets in the website's 10-year year history, with the average asking price of more than $1,100 a ticket double what it was for last year's Finals between the Lakers and Orlando Magic. Even as the Lakers faced possible elimination in Tuesday's Game 6, prices for Game 7 remained steady at $1,260 per ticket, according to FanSnap.com. When the Lakers won Game 6, FanSnap.com spokesperson Christian Anderson said the average ticket price quickly jumped to $1,562.71."
The link is here.
Wikipedia on A.J. Ayer and Mike Tyson
He taught or lectured several times in the United States, including serving as a visiting professor at Bard College in the fall of 1987. At a party that same year held by fashion designer Fernando Sanchez, Ayer, then 77, confronted Mike Tyson harassing the (then little-known) model Naomi Campbell. When Ayer demanded that Tyson stop, the boxer said: "Do you know who the fuck I am? I'm the heavyweight champion of the world," to which Ayer replied: "And I am the former Wykeham Professor of Logic. We are both pre-eminent in our field. I suggest that we talk about this like rational men." Ayer and Tyson then began to talk, while Naomi Campbell slipped out.
The link is here and the pointer is from Daniel Klein.
Draw the rational Bayesian inference here
Germany’s BaFin financial-services regulator said it will temporarily ban naked short selling and naked credit-default swaps of euro-government bonds starting at midnight. The ban also includes naked short selling of 10 banks and insurers.
I thank a loyal MR reader for the pointer, my apologies I have misplaced the email and I don't know your name.
How marginal tax rates changed boxing
The 1950s was the era of the 90 percent top marginal tax rate, and by the end of that decade live gate receipts for top championship fights were supplemented by the proceeds from closed circuit telecasts to movie theaters. A second fight in one tax year would yield very little additional income, hardly worth the risk of losing the title. And so, the three fights between Floyd Patterson and Ingemar Johansson stretched over three years (1959-1961); the two between Patterson and Sonny Liston over two years (1962-1963), as was also true for the two bouts between Liston and Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali) (1964-1965). Then, the Tax Reform Act of 1964 cut the top marginal tax rate to 70 percent effective in 1965. The result: two heavyweight title fights in 1965, and five in 1966. You can look it up.
That's Henry Fetter, hat tip goes to Andrew Sullivan.
*Stumbling on Wins*
The subtitle is Two Economists Expose the Pitfalls on the Road to Victory in Professional Sports and the authors are David Berri and Martin Schmidt. I liked this bit (p.21) about the factors which do not explain free agents' salaries in the NBA:
Free Throw Shooting Efficiency
Steals
Turnovers
Size of Market Where Player Signs
Playing the Center, Power Forward, or Point Guard position
Race of Player
Here is previous coverage on their earlier book, The Wages of Wins.
Usain Bolt should be running in the 2040 Olympics
Originally I was going to put this under "Assorted Links" but I decided it deserved its own spotlight. Here is one very good excerpt of many:
During the drive phase, Bolt and the rest of the runners are all leaning forward at an unsustainable tilt, their torsos out ahead of where their feet impact the ground. They are basically in the act of falling down, face-first, but their legs, racing against gravity, are preventing that from happening, propelling them forward so hard and so fast that their bodies, instead of face-planting, begin to slowly rise up into a full upright position. Sprinters often describe this phase, when everything happens correctly, as being analogous to liftoff in an airplane.
Here is another good bit:
His top speed is such a spectacle, so phenomenal, so searing that many who witness this race, who see Bolt cross the line in 9.69 seconds, breaking his own three-month-old world record by three hundredths of a second, don't notice, until they see the replay, what is perhaps the most salient and frightening thing about his performance: Approximately eighty meters into the race, twenty meters from the finish line, Bolt stops trying.
Read the whole thing. For the pointer I thank The Browser.
The iPad
Could this be the medium through which the fabled convergence finally occurs?
Most of all, think of it as a substitute for your TV.
It has the all-important quality of allowing you to bend your head and body as you wish (more or less), as you use it. By bringing it closer or further, you control the "real size" of the iPad, so don't fixate on whether it appears "too big" or "too small."
The pages turn faster than those of Kindle. The other functions are also extremely quick and the battery feels eternal.
So far my main complaint is how it uses "auto-correct" to turn "gmu" into "gum."
While I will bring it on some trips, most of all it feels too valuable to take very far from the house.
On YouTube I watched Chet Atkins, Sonny Rollins, and Angela Hewitt.
Note all the categories on this short post!
Where are the good Scandinavian figure skaters?
John-Charles Bradbury asks:
Scandinavian countries tend to be quite good at most winter sports, which is no surprise given their climate; however, no Scandinavian athlete has won a figure skating medal since 1936.
There's some data at the link. The natural microeconomic hypothesis is to cite David Friedman's work on warm houses in cold climates, and vice versa. Sweden has ice lots of the year, so it's (maybe) less valuable to build ice arenas. That would mean you can skate for only part of the year. Warmer nations build more arenas — otherwise their citizens can't skate at all — but then their skaters have year-round access. Perhaps the 1936 shift point comes because, if you go back far enough, no country is building ice arenas.
Since it's harder to build ski facilities in a warm climate, this effect is concentrated on skating.
I don't have any evidence for this mechanism, it is simply the economic argument which comes to mind. Do you have better ideas or relevant evidence on this question? From which states do the U.S. gold medal skaters come from? How ice-bound are those states? How involved were the fathers in the education and training of the female gold medalists?
Addendum: Scott Beaulier chimes in and John-Charles replies.
Why is there so much falling in top-level figure skating?
Chris Hartman poses this question. He favors higher penalties for errors and thus safer routines. I would think that the optimum (in a lot of other sports, too) has shifted in the other direction. In the old days, everyone watched on TV and suffered through a lot of error-ridden performances. The average quality of performance mattered more. These days the very best performances are reproduced on YouTube and other venues. That indicates we should seek a higher variance of performance quality, since we can keep and reproduce the very best for most of the relevant viewers.
What sports rule changes does this imply?
Less is more?
I found this, from Ric Bucher, on ESPN:
…the harsh reality, says one GM, is that winning a championship this year is not a priority over keeping free-agent-to-be LeBron James. In fact, there's a concern that if James wins a title this year for the Cavs, it might be easier for him to go elsewhere. The best scenario, then, if the Cavs want to make it hardest for LeBron to leave, is give him everything he wants and have their title chase falls short. And if you question valuing LeBron over a title, forget it. James roughly doubles the value of the Cavs' franchise, according to league sources. It might offend winning-is-everything sensibilities, but the truth is $200 million (the value James adds to the Cavs) means more."
What is the implicit model? Is it a behavioral claim about James, namely that he dislikes frustration and wants to finish the job in Cleveland? Or is it about the bidding behavior of other teams, namely they want him most (and there are more dimensions to a deal than just salary-capped $$) if he wins a title and less if they think he will quit on them too?
What if famous filmmakers directed the Super Bowl?
Watch it here, this is very funny. The Godard mock is my favorite. I thank Yana for the pointer.