regressing Page 25 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Mike Trout Has Finally Broken Baseball's Math
For the past few years, Mike Trout has been the biggest steal in sports. He's had two otherworldly seasons, and he's only 22. So on the surface, news that the Angels are trying to lock him up to a six-year deal worth about $150 million makes sense. But it's actually remarkable for how much sense it ...
So, Which Countries Had The Worst Olympics?
After the usual agonizing about who's winning the Olympics—Do you use medal count or gold count? What about something weighted? WHAT ABOUT GDP?—Russia made things relatively easy at the end of the day, seemingly establishing itself as the consensus winner....
No, Fast Tempo Isn't Endangering College Football Players
The concerns over head trauma have been splashed across the front pages of newspapers and magazines for the past five years, and have led to a host of rule changes in college football. But one proposal for a new change—called the Tempo Rule—has caught the public's attention for, well, not making ver...
Has Any Player Been Screwed On Deadline Day As Badly As Danny Granger?
When Danny Granger woke up yesterday, he played for the Pacers (41-13), one of the best teams in the NBA. By the end of the day, he played for the 76ers (15-40), one of the worst. That's a drop in winning percentage of nearly 50 points. Getting traded midseason is always, in the words of Marcin Gort...
Which Winter Olympic Sport Has The Biggest Athletes?
Originally published on Mode Analytics....
Do Safer Cars Make NASCAR Drivers Behave More Recklessly?
In 1975, Dr. Sam Peltzman hypothesized that more automobile safety regulations lead to offsetting behavior by participants; that is, as drivers gain comfort through safety enhancements, they drive more recklessly. This phenomenon is known as the Peltzman Effect, and with the Daytona 500 just a few d...
Why You'll Never Make A Living Playing Live Poker Tournaments
In a recent Card Player article on the importance of keeping costs down while playing on the tournament circuit, Bryan Devonshire runs down how hard it's become to make money playing high stakes tournament poker. He's right, but maybe even more than he knows for the average player. ...
Quantifying Hustle: How Many Runs Does Cano's Slacking Cost His Team?
Originally published on Baseball Prospectus...
Iowa AD: Paying Players Is Too Complicated For Me And My $450K Salary
From a piece on the Iowa and Iowa State ADs' opposition to athlete unionization comes this doozy from Iowa's Gary Barta:...
How A Century-Old Skate Design Completely Changed Modern Speed Skating
Equipment can be a funny thing in sports, as we've seen with the ongoing Under Armor race suit debacle. But that's nothing compared to what happened in 1996, when the International Skating Union allowed skaters to begin using clap skates (or slap skates, depending on who you ask) in competitions. ...
How Jingoistic Was NBC's, CBC's, BBC's Olympics Coverage On Thursday?
On Wednesday, our Jingometer started tracking how often NBC was mentioning the U.S./USA/America/Americans/United States, and found that, at peak coverage, over 40 percent of the network's participant mentions were for the Land of the Free. But this number doesn't mean much in a vacuum. How does NBC'...
Is A Crappy Under Armour Race Suit Slowing Down U.S. Speed Skating?
The U.S. has sucked something fierce in speed skating so far at Sochi. Through more than half of its races, Team USA still hasn't medaled. This is astonishing, because speed skating is traditionally one of the U.S.'s strongest winter sports. One explanation for the dip? As the Wall Street Journal fi...
Which NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL Teams Have The Best Local Fan Bases?
Nielsen released its annual "Year in Sports Media Report" last week, a fascinating look into who consumed sports in 2013 and how they did so. There's tons of great trend data if you're into this sort of thing—TV viewership is down for the NBA while every other sport has grown; mobile devices are tak...
Mark Cuban Is Fighting To Make HGH Legal In The NBA
Mark Cuban is an ideas man, and he's got a hell of an idea. In late November, Cuban announced that he had asked the NBA Board of Governors to consider letting injured players use synthetic human growth hormone (HGH) while rehabbing and that he was willing to fund the necessary clinical studies to en...
How Jingoistic Was NBC's Olympics Coverage On Tuesday?
One of the fun, dumb joys of the Olympics is the opportunity the Games offer for unbridled jingoism. So what if you don't care about cross-country skiing? Kikkan Randall is TEAM USA. Forget the difference between short- and long-track speed skating? Doesn't matter—it's just twice as much TEAM USA. ...
The Evolution Of The Halfpipe: Faster, Higher, Safer?
The men's halfpipe final was sort of a disaster today, as a terribly maintained Sochi course led to falls (or at least slips) for most of the major competitors. But, hey, no one got hurt! ...
Speed Skaters Have Gotten A Lot Faster Since 1924
Similar to what The New York Times did for the 100m dash in 2012, The Wall Street Journal has developed a great graphic to show just how much faster the top speed skaters have gotten over the years. The still above is part of an animation pitting every male 500m gold medalist against each other; the...
Map: Where In America Can You Watch Canada's Great Olympic Coverage?
It's no secret that NBC's Olympic coverage kind of blows, especially compared to what our northern neighbors are getting. Leaving aside issues like lack of live coverage, schmaltzy human interest stories, and Bob Costas's eye, Canada simply gets more Olympics: 1,519 hours on the Canadian Broadcastin...
Here Are This Year's Sloan Finalist Papers—And Their Biggest Issue
The eight finalists for the paper contest at MIT's Sloan Conference—the most prestigious and most branded sports analytics conference in the U.S.—were announced this week. They're a fascinating mix of creative problem solving and impresario number-wrangling, and if you read through them, you'll see ...