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The Wages of Wins
The Wages of Wins
Taking Measure
of the Many Myths
in Modern Sport
.
.
.
An Imprint of Stanford University Press
Stanford, California 2007
Stanford University Press
Stanford, California
©2007 by the Board of Trustees of the
Leland Stanford Junior University
All rights reserved
First edition with fully updated data and Preface to the Paperback
Edition © 2007 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior
University. All rights reserved.
Notes 227
References 269
Index 279
list of figures and tables
2.1 Average Regular Season Attendance, NBA, 1954–55 to 2006–07 18
2.2 Average Regular Season Attendance, NHL, 1960–61 to 2006–07 20
2.3 Average Regular Season Attendance, NFL, 1936 to 2006 22
2.4 Average Regular Season Attendance, MLB, 1901 to 2006 24
2.1 25 Years of Labor-Management Strife in Professional Sports 12
3.1 Linking Payroll to Post-Season Success in Major League
Baseball: 1995–1999 33
3.2 Linking Payroll to Post-Season Success in Major League
Baseball: 1989–1993 37
3.3 Linking Payroll to Post-Season Success in Major League
Baseball: 2000–2006 38
3.4 The Relationship Between Wins and Relative Payroll in Major
League Baseball: 1988 to 2006 43
4.1 Competitive Balance in the American and National League:
Decade Averages, 1901–2006 51
4.2 The Recent History of Competitive Balance in Major League
Baseball 52
4.3 The Average Level of Competitive Balance for a Variety of
Professional Team Sports Leagues 66
5.1 Twenty Years of Competitive Balance in North America 70
5.2 Leaders at the Gate: 1992–93 to 2003–04 78
5.3 What Explains Regular Season Gate Revenue? 80
viii
5.4 The Attendance Leaders on the Road: 1992–93 to 2003–04 82
5.5 What Explains Road Attendance? 83
5.6 Stars on the Road in 2004 85
6.1 Correlation Coefficients for Various NBA Statistics and
Winning Percentage 98
6.2 Teams with the Highest Offensive Efficiency in 2006–07 102
6.3 Teams with the Highest Defensive Efficiency in 2006–07 103
6.4 The Value of Points and Possessions in Terms of Wins 105
6.5 The Value of Various NBA Statistics in Terms of Wins 107
6.6 Evaluating the Player Statistics for Kobe Bryant and
Shaquille O’Neal, 2003–04 109
6.7 Evaluating the Unassisted Wins Produced: Kobe Bryant and
Shaquille O’Neal, 2003–04 112
6.8 Evaluating the Accuracy of Wins Produced, 2003–04
Regular Season 114
7.1 What Explains Current Per-Minute Productivity in the NBA? 120
7.2 Evaluating Wins Produced: Kobe Bryant and Shaquille
O’Neal, 2003–04 125
7.3 Connecting Player Wins to Team Wins: The Miami Heat,
2004–05 127
7.4 Connecting Player Wins to Team Wins: The Los Angeles
Lakers, 2004–05 128
7.5 Analyzing the Contenders for the 2004 MVP Award 132
7.6 Analyzing the Contenders for the 2005 MVP Award 134
7.7 Connecting Player Wins to Team Wins: The Minnesota Timber-
wolves, 2004–05 vs. 2003–04 135
7.8 Fourteen Years of the “Best” Players in the NBA 137
7.9 Twelve Years of Kevin Garnett 140
7.10 Eleven Years of Allen Iverson 141
7.11 Reliving the First Round of the 1996 NBA Draft: Career Perfor-
mances from 1996–97 to 2006–07 144
8.1 The Greatest Team Ever: The 1995–96 Chicago Bulls 151
8.2 Connecting Player Wins to Team Wins: The Chicago Bulls,
2004–05 vs. 2003–04 157
8.3 Evaluating the Top NBA Scorers, 2006–07 162
8.4 Michael Jordan’s Playoff History 165
8.5 Playoff History of Five NBA Stars 166
8.6 Tim Duncan in 2004–05 167
8.7 Analyzing Extended Playoff Performances, 1995–2005 168
ix
9.1 Brett Favre in 2004: Game-by-Game Performance 174
9.2 Factors Impacting a Team’s Offensive Ability 178
9.3 The Value of Various Quarterback Statistics 181
9.4 Tom Brady vs. Donovan McNabb, 2004 Regular Season 183
9.5 Tom Brady vs. Donovan McNabb, Super Bowl XXXIX 185
9.6 Thirteen Years of the “Best” Quarterbacks in the NFL 186
9.7 The Top 40 Quarterback Performances, 1994–2006 188
9.8 Thirteen Years of Brett Favre 190
9.9 Percentage of Current Performance We Can Explain with
Past Performance 191
9.10 What Explains Current Per-Play Productivity in the NFL? 193
10.1 Ten Years of Glenn Robinson 202
10.2 Fifteen Most “Underrated” Players in 2006–07 204
10.3 Fifteen Most “Overrated” Players in 2006–07 205
10.4 Fourteen Years of the “Best” Rookies in the NBA 208
10.5 Unanimous Selections to the All-Rookie Team, 1995–2007 208
10.6 What Explains an NBA Player’s Salary? 214
preface
Every day sports are played. Teams win and teams lose. Joyous fans celebrate each
win while losers dream of better days. With each event, numbers are recorded.
These numbers tell us who won, who lost, and more importantly, these numbers
tell us why some fans are so happy and others so sad. The question “why?,” though,
is difficult. To know why, one has to understand the stories the numbers tell.
This is where we step into the picture. As professors of economics, we have
been trained in the art and science of statistical analysis. In fact, this is our job.
Our job is to use statistics and math to study economics. Of course, no one told us
what specifically we should study. So while sports fans go to work each day at a job
they may love or hate, we go to work every day applying our skills to the study of
professional sports. Yes, we get paid to study sports.
What have we learned from our studies? We have learned that the numbers
generated by sports are poorly understood. Much of our research, which employs
the standard tools of economic theory and statistical analysis, contradicts what
we hear repeated by sports writers and the players and coaches working in profes-
sional sports.
Much of this research has appeared previously in such academic journals as the
American Economic Review, Economic Inquiry, Applied Economics, and the Journal
of Sports Economics. Unfortunately, these journals are not generally read by many
people. So the stories we have told have not been widely heard. And that is the
basic problem. Although there may be “fans” of our work, we think we can count
the number of “fans” on one hand—and we probably do not have to use all our
fingers. Granted, it is not the size of the audience but its enthusiasm that matters.
Nevertheless, we would like to bring our work to a wider audience.
xii
Hence we come to the purpose behind this book. We wish to explain to as gen-
eral an audience as possible the findings we previously only presented in academic
journals and at academic conferences. Given that our work is about sports, and
many people find sports to be both fun and interesting, there is some reason to
believe such a book will be of interest to people outside of academia.
We do face one problem in telling our story. All of our writings to date have
been written for a very tiny audience of fellow academics. We were quite certain
that the approach we offered in our academic articles could not be used in a book
for a general audience. Hence we faced a dilemma. How can we explain what we
have done in economics and sports without using the math and statistics we have
grown to love and adore?
Our answer was found in Freakonomics, the book by Steven Levitt and Stephen
Dubner. Levitt and Dubner collaborated on the story of Levitt’s academic research,
and in the process, wrote a best-selling book. What lesson did we learn from this
work? In economics, math and statistics rule the day. From Levitt and Dubner we
learned that one can tell the story of research in economics without relying on
any technical details. Although our story is about the numbers sports generate,
the math and statistics we employ will be relegated to our academic work, the
endnotes, and the web sites [www.wagesofwins.com and dberri.wordpress.com]
associated with the book. If you are not interested in the technical details, your
ability to enjoy our story will not be impaired.
Although we are economists, the stories we tell are first and foremost about
sports. So as you turn the pages you will see the names of Ty Cobb and Tony
Gwynn, Michael Jordan and Allen Iverson, Brett Favre and Peyton Manning, and
many other sports stars from yesterday and today. We will also mention the work
of many great writers, like Bob Costas, Allen Barra, Alan Schwarz, and John Hol-
linger. We need to emphasize, though, that this book is also about economics, so
we will be mentioning major names in our disciplines, such as Adam Smith, Alfred
Marshall, John Kenneth Galbraith, Ronald Coase, Douglas North, and Herbert Si-
mon. And finally the book is about sports economics, so we will also mention the
“stars” of our field. Hence we will discuss the work of Simon Rottenberg, Andrew
Zimbalist, Gerald Scully, and Roger Noll, as well as many others.
Much of this work could not have been completed without the help of many,
many people. We wish to thank the people who took the time to generously review
earlier drafts of this work: Our list of reviewers includes Richard Campbell, Stef
Donev, John Emig, Rodney Fort, Michael Leeds, Jim Peach, and Dan Rascher. The
suggestions each offered greatly enhanced this work.
xiii
January 9, 2006
preface to the
paperback edition
the text from the original was not changed. We strived to seamlessly integrate the
updates with the original text.
Although our basic stories survived the updates, there is one sentiment ex-
pressed in the hardcover that did change. In Chapter Four we discuss our hatred
of the New York Yankees. In our original text we did not make much effort to dif-
ferentiate New York and the Yankees. Since the hardcover has been published we
have not changed our attitude toward the Yankees. But if we had any ill feelings
with respect to New York, those have gone away completely.
The change in our attitude toward New York began with Malcolm Gladwell, a
writer for The New Yorker and author of the best-selling books The Tipping Point
(2002) and Blink (2005). Gladwell wrote an excellent review of The Wages of Wins
for The New Yorker in May 2006. This very positive review did more than anything
else to take the book to a much wider audience. Gladwell also mentioned The
Wages of Wins more than once at his blog (Gladwell.com), which again did much
to promote our work.
Our link to New York, though, goes beyond Gladwell. Joe Nocera wrote a fairly
positive review of The Wages of Wins for The New York Times. Additionally, Berri
was invited by The New York Times to write an op-ed. And both Schmidt and Berri
have written several Keeping Score columns for The New York Times.
The New York Times is not the only place our words have appeared. In April of
2006 we launched—at the urging of J. C. Bradbury—The Wages of Wins Journal
(dberri.wordpress.com). The WOW Journal is our blog, and in little over a year
has had over 250,000 page views. Although we had little familiarity with blogs be-
fore starting our own, our experience has been quite positive. In essence, the blog
has allowed us to connect with our audience in a way that would not have been
possible in the days before the Internet.
Beyond our blog, Jason Chandler has created a site entitled NBA Babble and
Win Score (winscore.blogspot.com). Chandler noted in describing his site that
his blog is designed for him to “offer thoughts about the NBA, using Win Score
(a stat proposed by the book The Wages of Wins) to back up my ideas.” Chandler
went beyond just starting a blog by also creating the Win Score Stats Site [www.
winsproduced.com/basketball], which has updated Win Score stats throughout
the NBA season. With this site he also created the first Win Score based fantasy
game for the 2007 NBA playoffs. It’s important to remember that Win Score and
Wins Produced were created to further our research into professional sports. To
see these metrics being used to inform and entertain NBA fans is both interesting
and gratifying.
to the paperback edition xvii
In writing the hardcover edition we thanked a host of people. To this list of peo-
ple we wish to add all the people who take time out of their day to read our mus-
ings at The Wages of Wins Journal. Additionally, we wish to thank Alan Harvey,
Margo Crouppen, and Puja Sanger of Stanford Press. Both Alan and Margo were
the guiding forces behind the paperback. We also wish to thank J. C. Bradbury,
who again was the inspiration behind The Wages of Wins Journal. Additionally,
Justin Wolfers took the time to review some of the updated analysis of NBA free
agents. We thank Justin for his most generous assistance. And of course, we wish
to once again thank our families for letting us spend our time watching—we mean
researching—sports (and economics).
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