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Colleges wage feudal war over TV markets, and the Big Ten and SEC won. For football, they are far stronger than other conferences.
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The Big Ten and SEC have the biggest stadiums. Outside the Big Ten and SEC, the biggest stadiums are Clemson, Florida State, and Notre Dame.
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The Big Ten and SEC have TV supremacy. The Big Ten now owns the Los Angeles market, and the SEC owns a chunk of the Texas and Oklahoma markets. Big Ten schools will get $70 million of TV revenue per year, and Pac 12 schools will get much less. TV revenue:
Team Conference Teams/Conference
M$ M$
SEC 40 560 14
Big 10 31.4 440 14
Big 12 20 200 10
Pac 12 21 252 12
ACC 17 240 14
Notre Dame 15 15 1
MW 4 48 12
MAC .6 8 12
Sun Belt .5 7 14
CUSA .45 5 11
The playoffs generate $470 million and total TV revenue is $2250 million.
Big Ten and SEC teams are oligarchs and other teams are plebes. The plebes need to adjust. Some might declare independence. We might see an alliance of independents, and independents might form their own version of a conference championship. They could keep an open week on the schedule for spontaneous games.
Texas Christian University achieved upward mobility by winning the Rose Bowl in the 2010 season, and in 2012 they moved from the Mountain West to the Big 12. They made the national championship bracket in 2022.
European soccer leagues have promotion and relegation. College football conferences have promotion but not relegation.
The Big Ten and the SEC don't need the NCAA. They could secede from the NCAA and go pro. Other conferences will be forced to follow.
Conference realignment saw 5 teams relegated from power conferences and 6 teams promoted to power conferences. The promoted teams are all in the Big 12 and these are TCU, BYU, Utah, Cincinnati, Houston, and UCF. The relegated teams were from the Big East and are Connecticut, Temple, and South Florida.
In 2004, there were 6 power football conferences, one of which was the Big East. The Big East has 12 schools, 9 of which defected to other power conferences. The 3 that didn't were relegated and are now minnows. We went from the Power6 to the Power5.
The Pac 12 once had 12 teams. 10 left for other power conferences, leaving 2 behind. Relegation. We are now down to the Power 4.
The Big Ten and SEC deserve their own tier. We could call them "superpowers".
In the 2020 covid season, during conference championship week, the Big Ten had all teams play a game. The idea wasn't continued the next season.
In the 2020 season, the game between Liberty and Coastal Carolina was canceled, and Liberty scheduled a game with BYU on 3 day's notice.
The Big Ten has 18 teams and the SEC has 16, forcing them to adjust their scheduling systems. Divisions will be scrapped, and the new systems will favor local games and traditional rivalries.
Conference championship week could be more flexible. Sometimes it's strategic to have a conference championship game and sometimes not. Sometimes the conference championship is already decided before the championship game, in which case it's strategic for the top teams to play teams from other conferences. A pre-bowl game.
The Pac 12 is now the Pac 2. Washington State and Oregon State need to make a move. An option is to go independent and dare more teams to follow. Another option is to invite the best of the Mountain West, and this would consist of San Jose State, San Diego State, UNLV, Utah State, Colorado State, Boise State, and Hawaii. Another option is to join the Mountain West.
The bowl system needs reform. There will be teams from the Big Ten and SEC that have losing records but are worthy of bowls. The problem can be solved by letting everyone play bowls.
Traditionally, bowl games are between teams that are equally-matched in strength. College football will adopt a 12-team bracket in 2026, and the first two rounds will typically be mismatches. The college football postseason will look like the college basketball postseason.
In the 12-team bracket, many teams will play multiple postseason games. Teams outside the bracket might demand to do so as well.
To decide bowl matchups, there is rarely enough information from interconfence games to properly compare conferences, suggesting that we need more than 1 round of bowls. Notre Dame is often a vital benchmark for interconference strength. It would be nice to have more independents.
The Australian Football League has a bracket that's better than single-elimination. It has big games early on, and high-seeded teams can take a loss without being eliminated.
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The Big Ten and SEC dominate recruiting. The plot shows recruiting ranks averaged over the past 4 years, along with the AP rank averaged over the past 18 years.
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For 2022, the SEC has 9 of the top 16 recruiting classes, and 15 SEC teams are in the top 32.
Among the top 64 recruiting teams, all are in the Power5. The strongest conferences outside the Power5 are the AAC, the Mountain West, and the Sun Belt.
College football and college basketball dominate the pro minor leagues. For most other sports, pro minor leagues dominate colleges.
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College football conferences are more oligarchic than college basketball conferences.
The plots show the history of college football and college basketball, and the past 18 seasons are used to rate teams and conferences.
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1990 Indep → Big 10 Penn State 2004 Big E → ACC Miami Virginia T 2005 Big E → ACC Boston C 2010 M West → Big 12 TCU 2011 Big 12 → Big 10 Nebraska 2011 Big 12 → Pac 12 Colorado 2011 M West → Pac 12 Utah 2012 Big 12 → SEC Missouri Texas AM 2012 Big E → Big 12 W Virginia 2013 Big E → ACC Pittsburgh Syracuse 2014 Big E → ACC Louisville 2023 AAC → Big 12 Houston Cincinnati UCF 2023 Indep → Big 12 BYU 2023 CUSA → AAC UAB Florida Atl Carolina Charlotte N Texas Rice UTSA 2023 Indep → CUSA Liberty New Mex St 2023 Ohio V → CUSA Jacksonville St 2023 WAC → CUSA Sam Houston St 2023 AAC → Sun Belt UCF 2024 Pac 12 → Big 10 UCLA USC Washington Oregon 2024 ASUN → CUSA Kennesaw St 2024 Big 12 → SEC Texas Oklahoma 2024 Pac 12 → Big 12 Arizona Arizona St Colorado Utah
U. Chicago has 7 Big Ten titles. They withdrew from the Big Ten in 1946 and canceled the football team. Football was a distraction to academics.
In college football, the regular season matters. The postseason consists of only one bowl game.
Home field advantage matters more for the NFL than for the NBA, hence the NFL regular season is more
important than the NBA regular season.
For any given sport, the fewer teams in the playoffs, the more important the regular season.
MLB has only 12 postseason teams.
The English Premier League has no postseason. The winner is decided purely by the regular season.
In the NFL, each regular season win tends to increase the playoff seed by 1.
The following table gives the average number of regular season wins for each seed,
using data from 2007-2016. The regular season has 16 games.
Home field advanage can be especially important for cold-weather teams like the Packers.
In the NBA, the regular season has little impact on the playoffs. For example,
suppose the Milwaukee Bucks are the best team and they win the conference and
gain the #1 seed. In the conference playoffs they can expect to face the 8th, 4th,
and 2nd seeds.
If the Bucks decide to slack and place 8th, they can expect to face the
1st, 2nd, and 3rd seeds in the playoffs. But since the Bucks are the best team,
the 1st seed is the 2nd best team, the 2nd seed is the 3rd best team, etc.
The following table gives the average number of games won by each seed, using
data from 2009-2016. The regular season has 82 games.
The difference between the 1st and 8th seeds is typically 20 games. That's a lot
of slack.
The contenders for quarterback GOAT are Manning, Unitas, and Rodgers. Brady has
retired and may be eclipsed by Rodgers.
To quantify quarterbacks, we use Pro Bowls and playoff success.
Everyone with at least 10 Pro Bowl points is in the Hall of Fame.
Among quarterbacks that are active or recently retired, the ones guaranteed the
Hall are Brady, Rodgers, Brees, Roethlisberger, and Mahomes, and Wilson.
Rivers is on the bubble.
There are Hall of Famers with few Pro Bowl points but big postseason success, such as
Bradshaw and Aikman.
Kemp, Lamonica, and Clark should be in the Hall of Fame.
They have overwhelmingly enough points.
Roethlisberger will make the Hall because of postseason success.
Young quarterbacks have won MVPs in recent years, such as Mahones, Newton, and
Jackson. Many young playes make the Pro Bowl.
Ranker.com has a quarterback ranking, which reflects the public's feelings.
The public tends to favor playoff points over pro bowl points.
It has happened only once that a quarterback was MVP but not all-pro 1st team,
and the quarterback is Elway.
The MVP is a quarterback 2/3 of the time.
The NFL MVP award began in 1957, and the first Pro Bowl was 1951.
The NFC and AFC each designae
3 pro bowl quarterbacks. The NFL selects a quarterback as
all-pro 1st team, and another as 2nd team.
Rodgers outclasses Brady head-to-head. For the years in
which they both played the full season:
During this time, Rodgers has 4 MVPs and Brady has 1. Rodgers has 10 pro bowl
appearances and Brady has 8.
Playoff Total
teams teams
MLB 12 30
NFL 14 32
NHL 16 32
NBA 16 30
Seed Wins Privilege
1 13.3 Home field for the quarterfinal and semifinal. Wildcard bye
2 12.1 Home field for the quarterfinal. Wildcard bye
3 10.9 Home field for the wildcard game.
4 9.2 Home field for the wildcard game.
5 11.0
6 10.0
Seeds 1-4 go to division winners and seeds 5-6 go to the best records among the
remaining teams.
Rank of teams played in playoffs
If the Bucks play hard and place 1st in the conference: 2nd, 4th, and 8th
If the Bucks slack and place 8th in the conference: 2nd, 4rd, and 3rd
No matter what, the Bucks will face the 2nd and 4th ranked team. The only difference
between playing hard and slacking is that they have to play the 3rd ranked team
instead of the 8th ranked team.
Seed Wins
1 60.8
2 55.9
3 52.2
4 49.9
5 47.6
6 45.2
7 43.7
8 41.9
Rodgers Brady
2009 Pro Bowl Pro Bowl
2010 - MVP
2011 MVP Pro Bowl
2012 All-Pro #1 Pro Bowl
2014 MVP Pro Bowl
2015 Pro Bowl Pro Bowl
2016 Pro Bowl All-Pro #2
2018 Pro Bowl -
2019 Pro Bowl -
2020 MVP -
2021 MVP All-Pro #2
Manning outclasses Rodgers head-to-head, but by a small margin. For the years in which they both played the full season:
Rodgers Manning
2008 - MVP
2009 Pro Bowl MVP
2010 - Pro Bowl
2011 MVP -
2012 Pro Bowl #2 Pro Bowl #1
2013 - MVP
2014 MVP Pro Bowl
2015 Pro Bowl -
Manning has 3 MVPs and Rodgers has 2. Manning has 6 Pro Bowls and Rodgers has 5.
Timeline:
1920 NFL begins 1939-1942 All-Star games 1951 First Pro Bowl 1960 AFL begins 1966 First Super Bowl, between the NFL and the AFL 1969 AFL final season 1970 First season with the NFC-AFC format 1983-1985 United States Football League 1994 NFL salary cap starts 2024 First season of the United Football League
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The official world golf rankings are decided by the OWGR, a board with 7 members. The OWGR is a smoke-filled room whose methodology isn't public. The board consists of:
Board member Tournaments The PGA Tour The Tour Championship, The Player's Championship The PGA European Tour International Golf Federation The US Golf Association U.S. Open The PGA of America PGA Championship Augusta National Masters R&A Golf Club of St. Andrews British Open
Two board seats go to the largest tours, which are the PGA Tour and the PGA European Tour. Another seat goes to the International Golf Federation, which administers amateur golf plus a set of pro golf tours. Four seats go to the owners of the Majors, which are The U.S. Open, The PGA Championship, The Masters Tournament, and the British Open.
Each tour has a season prize money total and a season ranking points total. The LIV is the second largest tour by money and gets no ranking points.
The PGA Tour bans players that play LIV. Nevertheless, many PGA Tour players joined LIV. PGA Tour members are holding conferences to discuss the matter, and there will likely be antitrust lawsuits.
The OWGR is generous to small tours. The smaller the tour, the larger the ratio of points/money tends to be.
Many 2nd tier tours are funded by a 1st tier tour, such as the PGA Korn Ferry Tour.
The European Tour has a set of premier events called the "Rolex Series", namely The Scottish Open, The BMW PGA Championship, The Abu Dhabi Golf Championship, and the Dubai Desert Classic. Each has a purse of $8 million. The European Tour final event is the DP World Tour Championship Dubai, with a purse of $10 million.
Season totals:
Money Points Points/Money
M$ Points/M$
PGA Tour 428 1786 4.2
LIV 225 0 0
PGA European Tour 119 886 7.4
Asian Tour 25 211 8.4
Japan Golf Tour 21 249 11.9
PGA Korn Ferry 20 364 18.2 USA
Korean Tour 14.6 145 9.9
Euro Challenge Tour 7.2 290 40.3
PGA Austalasia 4.4 2.1 .5
PGA Tour China 2.7 78 28.9
Pro Golf Tour India 2.3 50 21.7
PGA Latinoamerica 2.10 72 34.3
PGA Tour Canada 1.53 56 36.6
Japan Challenge Tour 1.53 50 32.7
Asian Development 1.5 60 40.0
Sunshine 1.42 71 50.0 Africa
U.S. Open 17.5 100 5.7 Major
Masters 15 100 6.7 Major
PGA Championship 15 100 6.7 Major
The Open Champ 14 100 7.1 Major. British Open
Player's Champ 20 80 4.0
The Tour Champ - 39 - Final PGA tournament
World Golf Champ 12 74 6.2
"PGA Tour" includes all tour events except the majors and The Tour Championship.
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The Hall snubs steroid cheaters such as Bonds, Clemens, Rodriguez, Sheffield, Ramirez, McGwire, Sosa, and Pettitte. Bonds, Clemens, and Rodriguez have stats that are overwhelmingly good enough for the Hall and were snubbed.
Getting into the Hall requires 75% of the vote, and if you don't make it after 10 years of voting, you're removed from the ballot. The 2022 vote is:
Vote Change Year Steroids Homers ERA
% %
David Ortiz 78 1 541 Inducted into the Hall
Barry Bonds 66 4 10 * 762
Roger Clemens 65 4 10 * 3.12
Scott Rolen 63 10 5 316
Curt Schilling 59 -12 10 3.46
Todd Helton 52 7 4 369
Billy Wagner 51 5 7 2.31
Andruw Jones 41 6 5 434
Gary Sheffield 41 0 8 * 509
Alex Rodriguez 34 1 * 696
Jeff Kent 33 0 9 377
Manny Ramirez 29 1 6 * 555
Omar Vizquel 24 -25 5 80
Sammy Sosa 18 2 10 * 609
Andy Pettitte 11 -3 4 * 3.85
Jimmy Rollins 9 1 231
Bobby Abreu 9 0 3 288
"Change" is the change from the previous year's ballot.
Bonds, Clemens, and Sosa are in their final year and they failed. They're out. The other steroid cheaters are getting few votes and are on their way out.
McGwire is a steroid cheater who's 10 years of eligibility have expired, and the highest vote percent he got was 24%.
Rafael Palmeiro was busted for steroids and only got 4.4% of Hall votes.
Current candidates with a chance at the Hall include Scott Rolen, Todd Helton, Billy Wagner, and Andruw Jones.
Recently retired players with a strong chance at the Hall include:
2023 Carlos Beltran (435 homers) 2024 Adrian Beltre 2024 Joe Mauer 2024 Chase Utley 2025 Ichiro Suzuki 2027 Albert Pujols (703 homers)
Miguel Cabrera (507 home runs) is active and has a strong chance at the Hall.
Carlos Beltran is a member of the Houston Astros team that cheated their way to a World Series win by stealing signs.
Jim Devlin was a pitcher with an ERA of 1.90, but was banned from baseball for colluding with gamblers.
Many home runs were due to steroids. All retired players with at least 493 home runs made the Hall of Fame, except for steroid cheats.
Homers Steroids In Hall of Fame
Barry Bonds 762 *
Hank Aaron 755 *
Babe Ruth 714 *
Albert Pujols 703 Retired in 2022
Alex Rodriguez 696 *
Willie Mays 660 *
Ken Griffey Jr. 630 *
Jim Thome 612 *
Sammy Sosa 609 *
Frank Robinon 586 *
Mark McGwire 583 *
Harmon Killebrew 573 *
Rafael Palmeiro 569 *
Reggie Jackson 563 *
Manny Ramirez 555 *
Mike Schmidt 548 *
...
Gary Sheffield 509 *
Miguel Cabrera 507 Active
Nelson Cruz 459 Active
Aaron Judge 220 Active
Aaron Judge holds the single-season home run record if you exclude steroid cheats.
Homers Year Steroids
Barry Bonds 73 2001 *
Mark McGwire 70 1998 *
Sammy Sosa 68 1998 *
Aaron Judge 62 2022
Roger Maris 61 1961
Babe Ruth 60 1927
Babe Ruth 59 1921
Giancarlo Stanton 59 2017
Jimmy Foxx 58 1932
Hank Greenberg 58 1938
Ryan Howard 58 2006
Mark McGwire 58 1997 *
Luis Gonzalez 57 2001
Alex Rodriguez 57 2002 *
Ranker.com rankings of active players:
1 Mike Trout (346 homers) 2 Mookie Betts 3 Ronald Acuna Jr. 4 Freddy Freeman 5 Jacob deGrom 6 Aaron Judge 7 Christian Yelich 8 Shohei Ohtani 9 Nolan Arenado 10 Cody Bellinger
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The NFL gets revenue from TV and merchandise and shares it equally between teams. League revenue is $344 million/year, 52% of which goes to players and the rest goes to owners. Teams also make their own revenue from tickets and other sources that averages $190 million per team, much less than league revenue.
Teams have widely varying team revenue. Many make more than 300 million/year and many make less than 150 million/year. Owning an NFL team is a secure investment. You could have weak ticket sales and still make money from league revenue, and the league is paying the players. The NFL is a good club to be in.
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Many states don't have an NFL team but lean toward a nearby NFL team. For the Patriots' state population, we include Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. For the Panthers, we include North and South Carolina. For the Chiefs, we include Kansas and Missouri. For the Broncos, we include Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho.
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The United Football League has teams where there is no NFL team, at San Antonio, Saint Louis, Memphis, and Birmingham.
The most obvious place for a new team is San Antonio, because it's a big market, because Dallas and Houstion have big team earmings, and because Texas is the 2nd-most populous state. The states with 3 teams are California, Florida, and New York.
Oklahoma City and Salt Lake City are good places for a new team. Both have NBA teams.
San Diego and Saint Louis once had NFL teams but lost them. Portland and Sacramento are in poor economic shape. Orlando and Columbus don't deserve a team because there are nearby NFL teams and the nearby teams have weak revenue. Birmingham hosted all USFL games but the city lost money and the league had weak revenue. The XFL teams in markets without an NFL team are San Antonio, Saint Louis, and Portland.
In Canada, the big markets are Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver.
The places that deserve a new team are San Antonio, Oklahoma City, Salt Lake City, Toronto, Montreal, Europe, and Asia. A weak team could move to a better market. A team could also play in multiple cities, bringing games to small markets.
The Bills could change its name to the Great Lakes Bills and play most of its games in Toronto, while keeping a subset of games at Buffalo.
The name "Carolina" is diplomatic because it doesn't specify a city, and because it encompases both North and South Carolina. The stadium is on the border of the 2 states.
The name "Tennessee" is diplomatic. The team is at the center of the state and it's near the north border with Kentucky. The team could have been called the Appalachia Titans, and could potentially play games in Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, Arkansas, and West Virginia.
The big college stadiums that are far from an NFL team are Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Nebraska, Iowa, Iowa State, West Virginia, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Oregon. There are no big stadiums in Montana or its surrounding states. The big stadiums in Canada are in Montreal, Edmonton, and Vancouver. Toronto's stadium is small.
NFL teams are worth on average $4.5 billion and the Cowboys are worth $7.6 billion. Entering a new team in the NFL would likely cost at least $6 billion.
NFL Europe ran from 1995-2007. In the final season there were 5 teams were in Germany and 1 in Amsterdam. The German teams were Frankfurt, Rhein, Berlin, Cologne, and Hamburg. There were once teams in London, Scotland, and Barcelona, but they were replaced by German teams.
Many nations can support an NFL team, such as Canada, Mexico, England, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and India. These nations have lots of large stadiums. The NFL has played 33 games in London, 5 in Mexico City, and 1 in Germany.
America has a pro rugby league 12 teams and an ESPN contract, and this is an opportunity for markets without an NFL team. At present, all pro rugby teams are in big markets. It costs 4 million dollars to enter a team into Major League Rugby. Most American colleges have a rugby team.
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Green Bay is a small town and the Packers have big team revenue.
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NFL, NBA, and MLB teams tend to be in the same places. The markets with an NBA team and no NFL team are Oklahoma, Sacramento, Portland, Salt Lake City, and Toronto. The markets with an NFL team and no NBA team are Las Vegas, Seattle, Kansas City, Tampa Bay, and Buffalo. We consider Jacksonville and Orlando to be the same market, and we consider Green Bay and Milwaukee to be the same market.
The large markets that don't have an NFL, NBA, MLB, or NHL team are Virginia and Montreal.
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NHL and MLS teams are often in different places from NFL teams.
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Baseball AAA teams exist in places without major league teams.
The biggest stadiums are:
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Teams have an average attendance of 570,000 people/year, the average ticket price is $107, and the average team ticket revenue is $61 million.
In 2022, the Packers got $344 million of league revenue and $235 million of team revenue, totaling $579 million. Expenses were $501 million and profit was $78 million. League TV revenue is $312 million and local TV and radio revenue is $92 million. The Packers' team revenue is:
% Million $
Local TV & radio 39 92
Tickets 20 47
Merchandise 16 38
Property 15 35
Concessions 6 14
Luxury boxes 5 12
The Packers' team expenses are:
%
Players 61
Administration 14
Team expenses 12
Marketing 10
Game expenses 3
Revenue:
Million $
NFL 17000
American college football 4000
Canadian Football League 180
USFL 50
Fan Controlled Football 20
XFL 14
Arena Football League 13
The playoffs are 10% of TV viewership. For 2022,
Viewers/Game Total viewers
millions millions
Super Bowl 112 112
Conference round 50 100
Divisional round 36 144
Wildcard round 29 174
Regular season 16.7 4540
A team needs a city and a stadium. For states without an NFL team, the candidates are:
City Metro pop State pop Stadium Stadium site
Mil Mil capacity
Oklahoma Oklahoma C 2.8 3.9 86112 Oklahoma U
Utah Provo 2.7 3.4 63470 Brigham Young U
Iowa Iowa City .28 3.2 70586 Iowa U
Iowa Ames .89 3.2 61500 Iowa State U
Nebraska Lincoln .26 2.0 86047 Nebraska U
W Virginia Morgantown .11 1.8 60000 West Virginia U
The NFL could open up to interleague play by eliminating the salary cap.
Buying into a league costs money.
League Revenue Buy-in Average Attendance New team Year Teams Teams outside Candidates
B$/year M$ pay (M$) average USA
Football NFL 19 ~4000 2.7 67000 ? Future 32 0 No near-term candidates
Baseball MLB 11 ~2000 4.2 27000 ? Future 30 1 Vegas
Basketball NBA 10.3 ~2000 7.7 18000 ? Future 30 1 Vegas, Seattle, Vancouver
Hockey NHL 5.3 650 3.2 18000 Seattle Kraken 2018 32 7 Houston, Kansas City, Quebec C, Toronto
Soccer MLS 1.6 325 .051 21000 San Diego 2025 30 3 Vegas
Rugby MLR ~.4 4 .04 2200 Miami Sharks 2024 13 1 No near-term candidates
Football NCAA 4.0
Football UFL .04 8 0
Football USFL .050 .053 8 0
Football FCF .020 8 0
Football XFL .014 .05 8 0
Football Arena .013 16 0
Basketball WNBA .54 50 .12 5700 ? Future 12 0 No near-term candidates
Soccer NWSL ? 50 .038 7900 Utah Royals 2024 14 0 Cinn, Austin, Columbus, Nashville
Hockey PWHL ? ? .015 Montreal Force 2022 7 2
Soccer England 1 6.6 400 38000 20 20 Promotion/relegation system
Baseball Japan 1 1.18 31000 12 12
Cricket India 1 1.18 30000 12 12
Rugby Australia 1 .96 33000 18 18
Rugby England 1 .25 14500 11 11
Football Canada 1 .18 23000 9 9
Las Vegas and Seattle just built NHL stadiums, which can also be basketball stadiums. A hockey sideline is 5.5 meters farther out than a basketball sideline. They just established NHL teams and they're looking to establish NBA teams
NFL teams range in value from 3 to 8 billion dollars. English Premiere League soccer teams are worth between .5 and 5 billion dollars.
Moves and exits:
Old team New team Year
Football NFL Oakland Raiders Las Vegas 2020
SD Chargers LA Chargers 2017
St. Louis Rams LA 2016
Houston Texans Tennessee Titans 1997
LA Raiders Oakland 1995
LA Rams St Louis 1995
St Louis Cardinal Arizona 1988
Baltimore Colts Indianapolis 1984
Oakland Raiders LA 1982
Basketball NBA New Jersey Brooklyn 2012
Seattle Oklahoma City 2008
Charlotte New Orleans 2002
Vancouver Memphis 2001
Soccer Women's Utah Kansas City 2020
Boston Breakers Exit 2017
Kansas City Utah 2016
W New York Flash North Carolina 2016
Rugby MLR Austin Exit 2023
Los Angeles Exit 2023
Colorado Exit 2020
Basketball Women's San Antonio Las Vegas 2018
Tulsa Dallas 2016
Detroit Tulsa 2010
Sacramento Exit 2009
Houston Exit 2008
Charlotte Exit 2006
Utah San Antonio 2003
Orlando Connecticut 2003
Cleveland Exit 2003
Miami Exit 2002
Portland Exit 2002
Regions with lots of teams:
Football Basketball Baseball Hockey Soccer Rugby Soccer Basketball
Women's Women's
New York City 2 2 2 3 1 1 1 1
Los Angeles 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1
San Francisco 1 1 2 1 1 1
Chicago 1 1 2 1 1 1 1
Philadelphia 1 1 1 1 1
DC 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
Boston 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
Dallas 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
Minneapolis 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
Miami 1 1 1 1 1 1
Denver 1 1 1 1 1
Phoenix 1 1 1 1 1
Milwaukee 1 1 1 Packers included
Houston 1 1 1 * 1 1 1
Atlanta 1 1 1 1 1 1
Detroit 1 1 1 1
North Carolina 1 1 1 1
Tennessee 1 1 1 1
Seattle 1 * 1 1 1 1 1 1
Tampa Bay 1 1 1
Indianapolis 1 1 1
New Orleans 1 1 1
Kansas City 1 1 * 1 1
Baltimore 1 1
Las Vegas 1 * 1 1 * 1 Will likely add teams
Saint Louis 1 1 *
Toronto 1 1 1 1 1
Salt Lake City 1 1 1 1
Oklahoma City 1
San Antonio 1 * 1
Portland 1 1 1
San Diego 1 1 1
Montreal 1
Football Basketball Baseball Hockey Soccer Rugby Soccer Basketball
Women's Women's
A "*" indicates that an expansion team is under consideration.
The table shows the contributons for stadium constructon.
Team Public Private Total Year
M$ M$ M$ M$
Buffalo Bills Buffalo 350 850 200 1400 Future NFL
Tennessee Titans Nashville 840 500 760 2100 Future NFL
Las Vegas Raiders Las Vegas 1100 750 0 1850 2020 NFL + college football + Las Vegas Bowl
Los Angeles Rams Los Angeles 5500 2020 NFL + LA Bowl
Las Vegas Knights Las Vegas 56 0 319 375 2017 NHL
Atlanta Falcons Atlanta 1500 2014 NFL + Peach Bowl + SEC conf champ game
Minnesota Vikings Minneapolis 1100 2013 NFL
San Francisco 49 San Francisco 1300 2012 NFL + San Francisco Bowl
New York Giants E. Rutherford 1700 2010 NFL + XFL
Dallas Cowboys Dallas 1480 2009 NFL + Cotton Bowl
The sports industry has inertia that protects existing sports and inhibits new sports. Most sports have awkward rules and better sports are possible. The most glaring need is for a better tackle sport, because the rules for football and rugby are awkward.
Rules should be simple and elegant. Good examples include soccer, hockey, and tennis, and bad examples include football, rugby, baseball, and basketball.
Football has the negative that it requires many coaches.
A sport should accomodate a diversity of body types. Rugby has roles for everyone, regardless of size. Basketball overemphasizes height.
A sport should minimize equipment. Football and hockey require excessive equipment, whereas soccer requires only a ball.
For football, the XFL courageously experiments with the rules.
Rugby and soccer have too many players. Either the number of players can be reduced or the number of balls can be increased.
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In the plot, points are normalized so that the rank #1 team gets 1 point. The un-normalized point systems are:
Rank World F-1 Indy NASCAR Tennis Golf Bowling Tour de Science
Cup ski ATP PGA PBA France Olympiad
1 100 25 50 10 2000 600 7500 50 60
2 80 18 40 9 1200 330 4500 30 59
3 60 15 35 8 720 210 3450 20 58
4 50 12 32 7 720 150 2850 18 57
5 45 10 30 6 360 120 2550 16 56
6 40 8 28 5 360 110 14 55
7 36 6 26 4 360 100 12 54
8 32 4 24 3 360 94 10 53
9 29 2 22 2 180 88 8 52
10 26 1 20 1 180 82 7 51
11 24 1 19 180 77 6 50
12 22 18 180 72 5 49
13 20 17 180 68 4 48
14 18 16 180 64 3 47
15 16 15 180 61 2 46
16 15 14 180 59 45
32 2 5 90 28 29
64 45 4.76
128 10
For the Tour de France, points are awarded for each stage, and at the end of the tour, the points winner is honored as the sprint champion.
The NASCAR and Science Olympiad functions are goofy because they give too little emphasis to top finishers. The tennis and golf functions give too much emphasis to top finishers.
The Science Olympiad function is for 2001 and after. Before 2001, the Science Olympiad used NASCAR scoring.
Ideally, the score function should have a linear shape in a plot where the X axis is logarithmic. Sports with a sensible scoring function include Formula-1, Indy racing, and World Cup skiing.
Suppose there are 64 players. A point function that gives a linear shape in the plot is:
Rank Points 1 6 2 5 4 4 8 3 16 2 32 1 64 0
In a single-elimination tournament with 64 players, points corresponds to the number of games won.
This can be expressed as
Points = -log2(Rank/64)
Tennis and golf give big money to players outside the top 128.
Numbers are season winnings for 2021 season, in k$.
A hypothetical golfer that makes par on every hole would be 183rd in the money rankings.
Rank Golf Tennis Bowling
PGA ATP PBA
1 11215 9069 497
2 7167 7466 370
4 5821 3504 188
8 4878 2231
16 3909 1618
32 2596 1031
64 1491 669
96 967 492
128 738
160 468
192 211
208 157
224 75
240 17
256 7
Total 371260 170000
Average 1485
 |
|---|
International rugby is well structured. Some of its strengths are:
Within conferences, teams are well balanced in terms of strength.
Conferences make sense geographically.
Each conference completes a single or double round robin each year. Conference results carry weight because the World Cup occurs only once every 4 years.
There are abundant interconference matches, both between top-tier teams and between top-tier and lesser teams.
Conferences are flexible and there exists upward mobility. For example Argentina established itself by making the World Cup semifinal in 2007 and was invited to join the Tri Nations in 2011, since known as The Rugby Championship.
Teams can take temporary leave of absence from conferences.
Teams can play in multiple ocnferences. For example the USA, Canada, and Japan often compete in the Pacific Nations Cup.
Teams can schedule games with whoever they want, and there is no limit to the number of times two two teams can play per year.
There are several national #2 teams, such as New Zealand #2 and Argentia #2.
There are subregional conferences such as "Europe 6 Nations B" and "Asian Division 1".
There exist teams independent of nations, such as The Barbarians and The British & Irish Lions.
Each team plays around 12 games per year and these games are chosen wisely. Matches are almost always compelling because both conference and interconference results carry weight.
Matchups between top teams occur frequently enough that a world champion can be meaningfully defined using results from the previous 2 years.
Championships
Oklahoma State 34
Iowa 24
Penn State 9
Iowa State 8
Oklahoma 7
Minnesota 3
Ohio State 1
Arizona State 1
Michigan State 1
Northern Iowa 1
Cornell College 1
Indiana 1
Big Twelve 49
Big Ten 39
Other 3
Few schools outside of the Midwest have won championships.
Men's hockey:
Varsity Club Championship teams:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varsity_Cup_Championship
Numbers are for 2001-2017. All teams with at least one placement in the top 3 are
included.
A stadium can be suspended, and the luxury boxes can be close to the field.
The largest stadiums have 1 deck. The Michigan stadium is mostly below ground
level. One could make a large cheap 1-deck stadium by digging a hole and
pouring concrete.
The highest a football pass can go is 24 meters. You want as
many seats as possible to see the top of
the pass, and these are "highball seats". You also want seats that go further back and can see the
opposite sideline. The "lowball seats".
You want abundant lounge space so you can be at the stadium all
day and be comfortable. The stadium should have a commercial district.
You can have tickets that give access to the stadium but don't have
a stadium seat. You can watch the game in a lounge on a
jumbotron and be a part of the stadium crowd. Many lounge seats have
partial visibiity of the field.
Suspending a stadium deck is easy. The Golden Gate Bridge span is
1280 meters and a stadium span is 200 meters.
A hockey and basketball stadium can be combined. The hockey sideline is 5.5 meters out from the
basketball sideline. In basketball mode, seats can be added. The basketball court is lower than
the hockey ice.
It's not easy to combine a football stadium with a soccer or rugby stadium. Compared to a football
sideline, a soccer sideline is 9.5 meters further out and a rugby sideline is 10.5 meters further out.
Field width is more important for rugby than for soccer, so a football stadium can work for soccer by
using a narrow field, but it can't support rugby.
Championships Frozen Four
Michigan 9 24
North Dakota 7 21
Denver 7 14
Wisconsin 6 12
Boston College 5 24
Boston University 5 22
Minnesota 5 21
Lake Superior State 3 4
Michigan State 3 11
Michigan Tech 3 10
Cornell 2 8
Maine 2 11
Colorado College 2 10
RPI 2 5
Minnesota-Duluth 1 4
Harvard 1 12
Providence 1 4
Bowling Green 1
Northern Michigan 1
Union 1
Yale 1
St Lawrence 9
Clarkson 7
New Hampshire 7
Dartmouth 4
Women's hockey:
Championships Final
Minnesota-Duluth 5 6
Minnesota 5 7
Wisconsin 4 6
Clarkson 1 1
Harvard 4
Arizona State Air Force Arkansas State BYU California
Cent. Washington Clemson Dartmouth Navy Notre Dame
Oklahoma Texas UCLA UTAH
Division 1-A Rugby:
East: Army, Delaware, Kutztown, Penn State, Wheeling Jesuit
St. Bonaventure, Iona, University at Buffalo
Mid-South: Lindenwood, Life University, Davenport University
California: Cal Poly, Saint Mary's, UC Davis, San Diego State,
UC Santa Barbara, Santa Clara, Sacramento State, Stanford
West: Colorado, Colorado State, Wyoming Northern Colerado, New Mexico
Championships
California 25
BYU 4
Air Force 3
Harvard 1
San Diego State 1
The Varsity Club conference was formed in 2013.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Division_1-A_Rugby
Champ 2nd 3rd
Manchester U 7 3 3
Chelsea 5 4 3
Arsenal 2 4 4
Manchester City 2 2 2
Liverpool 3 3
Tottenham 1 1
Leicester City 1
Newcastle U 1
1st deck 2nd deck 3rd deck 4th deck Total Seats Seats/Row
rows rows rows rows rows
Dallas Cowboys AT&T 22 15 16 30 83 80000 964
Texas A&M U Kyle 33 38 37 108 102733 951
NY Giants MetLife 35 14 26 75 82500 1115
Houston Texans NRG 36 22 25 83 72220 870
La Rams So Fi 38 14 22 74 70000 946
Ohio St. U Ohio Stadium 80 50 130 102780 791
LSU Tiger 65 29 94 102321 1089
Tennessee U Neyland 64 23 87 101915 1171
Texas U Royal 78 25 103 100119 972
Michigan U Big House 98 98 107601 1121
Penn St. U Beaver 80 80 106572 1332
UCLA Rose Bowl 88 88 92542 1052
Green Bay Pack Lambeau 78 78 81441 1044
Indian Cricket Narendra Modi 132000 Largest stadium dedicated to cricket
Michigan soccer Big House 107601
FC Barcelona Camp Nou 99354 Largest stadium dedicated to soccer
LA Dodgers Dodger Stadium 56000 Largest baseball stadium in the world
U.S. Open tennis Arthur Ashe 23771 Largest tennis stadium in the world
Montreal Canadiens Bell Center 21105 Largest stadium dedicated to hockey
Philippine BBall Quezon 20000 Largest stadium dedicated to basketball
Japan sumo Ryogoku Kokugikan 20000 Largest stadium dedicated to sumo
