I’ve already written here about my enthusiasm for the work of my new colleague Fred Vars, who brings a set of valuable methodological tools to a variety of interesting questions. (Commenters last time asked: is it law? is it economics? My answer — whatever. It’s interesting.) Fred must have a sweet tooth for sports, because following his interesting paper on the optimal targeting of soccer shots, he’s sent along this interesting tidbit on why people watch losers in baseball. Here’s what Fred has to say:
The climax of the baseball postseason this year was not the World Series. It was game five of the ALCS, in which the Red Sox, down by seven runs in the seventh inning, climbed back to beat the Tampa Bay Rays. A surveyusa poll of Boston area respondents showed, tragically, that roughly half (47%) of those watching the game turned it off before the end. Are Sox fans quitters?
In their defense, the probability of a comeback was miniscule. The best estimate I’ve uncovered comes from the Win Expectancy Finder, which compiles data from 1977 to 2006. A home team down by such a margin in the seventh inning won no more than 1.8% of such games. So why did so many fans (53%) keep watching? If we assume that seeing the Sox lose gives fans no pleasure (“no joy in Mudville”), we can calculate how much pleasure not watching the game would bring the median Sox fan. Not watching was just a tiny bit better than seeing a loss. In other words, seeing the Sox come back from that far down gave the median fan about 56 times the enjoyment of the next best use of time. The thrill of victory indeed (even without a championship)!
Comments are welcome. I cannot help but reflect that, having written about missing shots on goal in soccer and the viewership for losers in baseball, Fred may be suffering from some strange illness or homesickness that precludes him from focusing on winners. Fred, remember that the Crimson Tide is 10-0!
Posted by Paul Horwitz on November 12, 2008 at 11:37 AM
Comments
The analysis presented is impressive, but Red Sox fans may be outliers in terms of sports satisfaction. From 1920 until 2004, they had to grasp for fleeting satisfaction, knowing all the time that the season would end in failure: the ball would roll between Bill Buckner’s legs.
Atra cura sedet post equitem.
The 2004 victory was not enough to change such deeply ingrained behavior. Thus their deep satisfaction in Carlton Fisk’s home run in a series that they lost, and thus the joy in the come-from-behind victory on the broad road to ultimate defeat this fall. That Prof. Vars may have overlooked the exceptional nature of Red Sox fans certainly is understandable given his time in the home of the still-doomed Chicago Cubs. Similarly, it is understandable that Prof. Horwitz overlooked this possibility of a blind spot, as he seems to have absorbed the demand for ultimate triumph that pervades Alabama during football season.
Posted by: john tanner | Nov 12, 2008 4:32:52 PM