Sports...By the Numbers

This Article Is Brought to You by the Number 8 Monday, 16 January 2012 10:36 Written by Pi Hole

With a new year ahead of us, many people make New Year’s resolutions and the sports world should be no different. Here are eight resolutions the sports world should follow:

#1: Be mindful of your public relations.

With the recent lockouts of the NFL and the NBA, entire seasons were almost lost because the players and the owners argued about how much money each wanted. While it seems that neither will face any long-term damage in the public eye, all sports leagues should remember the strike that brought the 1994 MLB season to an abrupt end. It took baseball many years to get back their attendance. 1995 experienced a 20% drop in attendance from the previous year. It wasn’t until 2006 (12 years after the strike) when the average attendance was back up to where it was before the strike.

#2: Be mindful of your financials.

It has been said that 20 out of the 29 NBA teams were in the red last season and the owners blamed the “soft” salary cap. Keep in mind that owners are allowing their staff to sign absurd contracts for undeserving players. It doesn’t seem like the recent deal in the NBA solved anything as Kwame Brown who is a career 6.8 PPG, 5.6 RPG will be making $7 million this year.

#3: Set an individual salary cap.

This is primarily geared towards baseball as we just saw Albert Pujols sign a contract that will allow him to make $30 million when he turns 41, which would have 50% of 6 MLB teams entire team salary last year. While I realize that MLB most likely won’t ever set a team salary cap in the near future, most fans will soon only be able to pay for a ticket in Los Angeles if they take out a second and third mortgage.

#4: Be accountable for yours and others around you.

If the Jerry Sandusky and Barney Fine scandals have taught us anything, it should be that people should really cover their own behinds. These scandals have not only affected the lives of these people’s families, but also the lives of Joe Paterno, Jim Boeheim, and the Penn State president.

#5: Don’t lose sight of your fanbase’s financials.

It was reported that the average ticket price at a Bears’ game is $244.64, which does not include what you pay for parking, food, etc. Just ten years ago, the average Bears ticket was $42.70, which is a rise of 472.93% or about 139 times inflation.

#6: Institute a playoff system for college football

The recent BCS Championship Game didn’t solve anything as now LSU and Alabama are tied with one win a piece in the season series. A win-win situation for everyone could be to use the BCS rankings as playoff seed numbers and use the BCS bowl games as the playoff games.

#7: Hire more people to counsel athletes on their behavior.

Former NFL wide receiver Sam Hurd is alleged to attempt to buy tons of drugs from an undercover police officer. This is just another example on the coat tails of Ndamukong Suh, Plaxico Burress, Michael Vick, and Ray Lewis (remember that?). While these are grown men, clearly they need babysitting.

#8: Ban reality shows with the athletes’ wives and girlfriends.

This is more of a personal favor. I don’t really care what rich women are doing with their lives.

*** Stats provided by baseball-reference.com, hoopsworld.com, huffingtonpost.com, Wikipedia, Yahoo!

This Article is Brought to You By the Number 1,312 Monday, 21 November 2011 10:58 Written by Pi Hole

In about the last ten days, college athletics has had one of its all-time low points, but also a quality high point.

The big talk around the sports world is the scandal around former Penn State University football coach Joe Paterno. By now, most people, even those not involved with sports at all, have heard about the allegations against former assistant coach Terry Sandusky. The reason why Paterno is involved with this is because of what he failed to do as a major figurehead in University Park, PA.

This scandal is quite a dark cloud over the illustrious career of the winning-est football coach in Division I college athletics. Paterno stands alone in the world of Division I-A (or what is now known as the Football Bowl Subdivision) in the 400 win club with 409 victories.

The general public now associates this scandal with him, but the majority of the college athletic world will see his legacy as a great mentor, coach, and individual.

Numerically speaking, he worked for Penn State for 62 years, of which 46 of them were as the head coach. He won 24 bowl games, also most in history, and obtained two national championships in 1982 and 1986. He also made sure his athletes graduated as the graduation rate at Penn State according to a 2008 report was 78% versus the rest of the Division I world at 67%. Paterno has also donated over $4 million to Penn State and helped raise over $13 million for a library expansion.

In my opinion, the best way to get over tragic news is to be notified of not-so-tragic news.

On November 15, 2011, Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski surpassed 903 victories becoming the all-time winning-est basketball coach in Division I. Krzyzewski’s coaching greatness has somewhat surpassed Paterno.

Numerically speaking, included in his 903 wins are four national titles (twice as much as Paterno), 13 conference championships, 11 Final Fours, and three gold medals. Krzyzewski also graduates more student-athletes at 91% in a 2006 study.

Altogether, these two coaches have amounted 1,312 victories. They have coached phenomenal athletes that have gone pro. Paterno had guys like Lavar Arrington, Kerry Collins, and KiJana Carter and hall-of-famers like Jack Ham, Franco Harris, and Mike Munchak. Krzyzewski had JJ Reddick, Shane Battier, Grant Hill, and Christian Laettner.

After the cloud that is the Sandusky controversy clears, Paterno will hopefully be remembered by the majority in the same light as Krzyzewski, but only time will tell.

This Article is Sponsored by the Number 744 Thursday, 03 November 2011 14:26 Written by Pi Hole

This fall brought an end to the Red Sox regime of Manager Terry Francona and General Manager Theo Epstein. On September 30, 2011, the Red Sox announced they would not pick up the team option on Francona’s contract. On October 25, 2011, the Chicago Cubs announced Epstein as their new team President of Baseball Operations.

Epstein was introduced as the Red Sox General Manager in the winter of 2002. At that time, he was the youngest GM in the game at the ripe age of 28. Epstein is big believer in what is known as sabermetrics, or statistical analysis of baseball players.

Francona came to Boston just before the 2004 season. He had been a failed manager in previous seasons from his days with the Philadelphia Phillies where he never scored at least a .500 season.

Altogether, these two won 744 games together and two World Series titles, ultimately breaking the “Curse of the Bambino” in 2004.

Unfortunately for them, baseball is in a “what have you done for me lately” society. In the last two seasons, the Red Sox failed to make the playoffs. Even more devastating was the incredible withdrawal of a 9.5 game lead at the beginning of September to the eventual Wild Card winner Tampa Bay Rays.

While the fate of Epstein has been resolved in saving another franchise from a curse, Francona has yet to find a job for next year. There are options for Francona including those beyond managing in the dugout.

During the ALCS, he commentated on the game alongside Joe Buck for Fox Sports. In my opinion, managers and coaches give better perspective about the game than former players and Francona didn’t disappoint.

While good jobs for Francona still exist, including coming together again with Epstein in Chicago, there’s no doubt in my mind he will land on his feet. I personally will never forget the history these two made together.

This Article Is Sponsored by the Number 13,000,000 Friday, 28 October 2011 13:19 Written by Pi Hole

There is an ongoing debate that football is overtaking baseball as “America’s Pastime”. There are many ways to prove that one can out-duel the other. Most recently, there was a battle during primetime television when primetime football faced off against primetime baseball on Sunday, October 23 and again on Monday, October 24.

Based on the Nielsen Ratings, the World Series beat out Sunday Night Football on Sunday, October 23 at the hours of 8pm, 9pm and 10pm with baseball peaking at 13.99 million viewers and football at 11.3 million. On Monday, October 24, the World Series did the same thing to Monday Night Football as baseball attracted 13.0 million and football had 7.5 million.

Recent history shows baseball trumps football, but if you look further, you’ll see a different story. Last year, Sunday Night Football averaged 21.8 million viewers and Monday Night Football averaged 14.6 million. Meanwhile, the World Series averaged 14.3 million last year.

It may not necessarily be fair to compare playoff baseball against regular season football, especially considering the Super Bowl last year attracted about 111 million viewers. Another argument is that the World Series is stretched over a multi-game series and the football games are all winner-take-all format. 

You could also take into account the number of people who watch the games. In the 2011 season, a total of 73.5 million people attended MLB games, or an average of 30,532 per game. Meanwhile, last season the NFL drew 17.3 million people, or an average of 67,509 per game.

So which is it? This will definitely be an ongoing debate as there are many different arguments for both when taken into different statistical categories. Gallup News Service actually polled people on whether or not they were baseball and/or football fans. In 2004, 64% of people polled said they were football fans and only 52% said they were baseball fans.  

Finally, I turn to the immortal George Carlin who spoke highly of both sports. Of the two, he would sum things up with the following:

“The objectives of the two games are completely different:

In football the object is for the quarterback, also known as the field general, to be on target with his aerial assault, riddling the defense by hitting his receivers with deadly accuracy in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use shotgun. With short bullet passes and long bombs, he marches his troops into enemy territory, balancing this aerial assault with a sustained ground attack that punches holes in the forward wall of the enemy's defensive line.