I got an interesting comment from Matt about the popularity of women's tennis in general compared to other women's professional sports. I'll focus my comments to US sports as I have no knowledge of how popular women's soccer is in Brazil or women's curling in Canada.
My research dug up the following women's professional sports:
Tennis
Golf
Softball
Football
Basketball (WNBA)
Boxing
Soccer (the WUSA apparently has plans to start again after disbanding)
There may be other professional leagues, but I didn't find any so even if they exist I doubt they are at a very high level.
Of these sports, I would presume that only tennis, golf, and maybe the WNBA could make a female athlete a "star". Now I don't have a well defined explanation for star, but lets just say that the women in the other sports are not getting endorsement deals and I cannot name any of them. I can name female soccer players, but thats just because I'll watch the US national team play.
I think its a safe statement that women's tennis is the biggest of these 3 based on the following criteria:
Money: The WBNA top salary is $100,000. In golf, 79 players have $100,000 so far this year with 5 over $1,000,000. In tennis, 114 women have earned $100,000 this year with 7 over $1,000,000. From these numbers tennis and golf are close.
Name recognition: I'm not a representative sample as I'm a very big tennis fan, but I'd imagine even the casual sports fan knew the Williams sisters and Sharapova and probably a couple of others like Henin or Hingis. For golf, Sorenstam is a big name, as is Michelle Wie, but I think it gets tough after that. If I tried hard enough I could come up with a few WNBA players, but I don't feel there is nearly as much name recognition. Of course, name recognition is very country dependent as the media focuses more on American athletes
So the question becomes why does tennis have the strongest women's sports program? Some possibilities:
1) Tradition: Women's tennis has been around longer than other sports and has gained a foot hold in the sports media.
2) Sex Appeal: Tennis players are more fit than golfers and more feminine (for lack of a better term) than many basketball players. I'm not sure how much of an effect this has but its certaintly something.
3) Similarities to men's game: In this regard, I think golf is more similar between the sexes, other than the distance they are hitting the ball. Tennis is somewhat similar between genders although the increases atheleticism in males has some effect on the playing styles.
Now if we compare the men's and women's version of any given game, tennis also has to be the closest in popularity. In fact, you could argue that at any given time women's tennis can be MORE popular than men's tennis, at least amongst people who consider themselves tennis fans. This depends of course on who the top players are, how deep the field is, blah blah blah.
So what does it all mean? I'm not sure, but the people at the WTA are definitely doing something right.
Showing posts with label basketball. Show all posts
Showing posts with label basketball. Show all posts
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Who wants to be a commissioner?
Being a commissioner seems like it should be a great job. You're in charge of a sport that you presumably love. You get to attend any game of that sport, and probably most of any other sport as well. You know all the owners, players, etc.
But then there is the downside, summed up as public relations. Right now we have Bud Selig dealing with the unpopular Bonds, David Stern dealing with crooked refs, and Roger Goodell dealing with troublesome atheletes. Then you have Gary Bettman dealing with a lack of media attention, but thats a whole different problem.
Steroids are a problem, but I don't want to go into that topic in this post. Also, the majority of people only seem to care when it comes to records. No one pays any attention when Matt Lawton or Jason Grimsley get suspended. The Michael Vick and Pac Man Jones problems in the NFL are stupid individual players and to the NFL's credit, they are quick to suspend players for off-field activities. The NFL as a business is such a juggernaut that they will not be affected as long as they don't let people like Vick play.
The worst of these is obviously the ref betting on basketball games. If there is one thing any sport needs its impartial judges/refs/umps. A ref who does this once is impossible to catch, but those who are consistently altering point spreads can be monitored to some extent. First, if the spreads for games by one ref change more than expected, this can be a problem. Secondly, if the final score (in relation to the spread) does not follow the pattern of other refs, this should also be flagged. Here's a link to an article talking about an example of using data to watch a ref. Warning: its an ESPN article written for the layman, not a statistical article. There is a link to some data for games he reffed, but without the same data for other refs its kind of useless. If I find that data anywhere, I'll be sure to post it.
Of course, basketball is not the first sport to have issues with refs (recall the figure skating fiasco from recent olympics). And if this is truly the only ref involved, the league will be ok, but if not they better have some great PR guys.
I think that basketball is probably one of the most likely sports to be victim to this corruption. Primarily because calling a foul leads directly to points, the amount depends on who shoots the free throws. In baseball, the home plate ump will affect balls and strikes, but other umps have maybe 1 or 2 close plays a game, which is not reliable enough for someone trying to fix a game. Plus, betting in baseball is not nearly what it is for basketball or football. In football, refs can throw flags, but this does not directly lead to points. Plus the point system in football makes games harder to control. If you help the offense, they may score 3 or 7, but you can't necessarily control which one.
Overall, I'd probably still want to be a baseball commissioner, I'd just need to drink more to deal with the stress.
UPDATE - I rarely ever trust online polls, but there is currently a poll on CNN-SI's website asking people to vote for what they think is the worst form of cheating in sports. Option 1 is gambling/point shaving and option 2 is steroids/drugs (steroids are drugs, so I don't entirely get that one) and option 3 is other. As of about 1:15, option 1 has 65% and option 2 has 33%. This is somewhat surprising to me that drugs is getting that many votes. Doing steroids may be cheating, but fixing a sporting event makes it an exhibition, not a sport at all. I wonder how the poll results would differ if the HR record was not in the forefront of the media.
But then there is the downside, summed up as public relations. Right now we have Bud Selig dealing with the unpopular Bonds, David Stern dealing with crooked refs, and Roger Goodell dealing with troublesome atheletes. Then you have Gary Bettman dealing with a lack of media attention, but thats a whole different problem.
Steroids are a problem, but I don't want to go into that topic in this post. Also, the majority of people only seem to care when it comes to records. No one pays any attention when Matt Lawton or Jason Grimsley get suspended. The Michael Vick and Pac Man Jones problems in the NFL are stupid individual players and to the NFL's credit, they are quick to suspend players for off-field activities. The NFL as a business is such a juggernaut that they will not be affected as long as they don't let people like Vick play.
The worst of these is obviously the ref betting on basketball games. If there is one thing any sport needs its impartial judges/refs/umps. A ref who does this once is impossible to catch, but those who are consistently altering point spreads can be monitored to some extent. First, if the spreads for games by one ref change more than expected, this can be a problem. Secondly, if the final score (in relation to the spread) does not follow the pattern of other refs, this should also be flagged. Here's a link to an article talking about an example of using data to watch a ref. Warning: its an ESPN article written for the layman, not a statistical article. There is a link to some data for games he reffed, but without the same data for other refs its kind of useless. If I find that data anywhere, I'll be sure to post it.
Of course, basketball is not the first sport to have issues with refs (recall the figure skating fiasco from recent olympics). And if this is truly the only ref involved, the league will be ok, but if not they better have some great PR guys.
I think that basketball is probably one of the most likely sports to be victim to this corruption. Primarily because calling a foul leads directly to points, the amount depends on who shoots the free throws. In baseball, the home plate ump will affect balls and strikes, but other umps have maybe 1 or 2 close plays a game, which is not reliable enough for someone trying to fix a game. Plus, betting in baseball is not nearly what it is for basketball or football. In football, refs can throw flags, but this does not directly lead to points. Plus the point system in football makes games harder to control. If you help the offense, they may score 3 or 7, but you can't necessarily control which one.
Overall, I'd probably still want to be a baseball commissioner, I'd just need to drink more to deal with the stress.
UPDATE - I rarely ever trust online polls, but there is currently a poll on CNN-SI's website asking people to vote for what they think is the worst form of cheating in sports. Option 1 is gambling/point shaving and option 2 is steroids/drugs (steroids are drugs, so I don't entirely get that one) and option 3 is other. As of about 1:15, option 1 has 65% and option 2 has 33%. This is somewhat surprising to me that drugs is getting that many votes. Doing steroids may be cheating, but fixing a sporting event makes it an exhibition, not a sport at all. I wonder how the poll results would differ if the HR record was not in the forefront of the media.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Franchise futility
The Phillies don't play tonight, but this weekend will likely be their 10,000 franchise loss. The city is buzzing.
So what are the marks of futility in other major sports? Keep in mind that no league plays as many games in a season as baseball.
In the NBA, the Golden State Warriors have 2562 losses. The Sacramento Kings are next with 2427
In the NFL, the Arizona Cardinals have 658 losses. The Lions are next with 544.
In the NHL (according to wikipedia), the Maple Leafs and Blackhawks BOTH have exactly 2391 losses, the most in history!!! This is remarkable. However, due to recent rules, we now also have overtime losses, and Chicago takes that tiebreaker 44 - 37.
So congrats to Philadelphia, Chicago, Phoenix, and Oakland. Your teams lose a lot.
So what are the marks of futility in other major sports? Keep in mind that no league plays as many games in a season as baseball.
In the NBA, the Golden State Warriors have 2562 losses. The Sacramento Kings are next with 2427
In the NFL, the Arizona Cardinals have 658 losses. The Lions are next with 544.
In the NHL (according to wikipedia), the Maple Leafs and Blackhawks BOTH have exactly 2391 losses, the most in history!!! This is remarkable. However, due to recent rules, we now also have overtime losses, and Chicago takes that tiebreaker 44 - 37.
So congrats to Philadelphia, Chicago, Phoenix, and Oakland. Your teams lose a lot.
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