Sports Law Analytics

Patrick McEnroe has a new book called Hardcourt Confidential coming out later this year.  Details here.

The New York Times has a great story about the success of a competitive event that is much different than a casual 5K on a Saturday morning. 

Prediction #1 - Events of this type will increase in popularity.

Prediction #2 - At some point in the next five years, the NFL (or some other entity) will start an “NFL Combine Competition” with regional qualifying and a national championship.  The winner of the finals will earn prize money and be given the chance to take part in the actual NFL combine with NFL scouts watching.  They could make a reality TV show out of it! 

In breaking news that comes as no surprise, there was Olympic-level age fraud at the 2000 Sydney Summer Games in the sport of gymnastics.  Coverage by the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Sports Illustrated here, here, and here. 

The official statement from USA Gymnastics (Team USA was retroactively awarded the bronze medal after China’s medal was stripped) is here. 

 While this is good news in the important fight against age fabrication in sports, it seems unlikely that there will be any further inquiry into allegations that surfaced during the 2008 Olympics in China. 

Professor Ben Alamar of Menlo College, in conjunction with the Journal of Quantitative Analysis of Sports, is once again hosting a sports analytics conference in the Bay Area.  I think the event is held every other year.  I was unable to attend in 2008, but look forward to the possibility of attending in 2010.  The date for the conference is October 16, 2010 and further details are here.

The NBA and NBPA will start negotiating a new CBA soon.  Here is a good summary of some of the issues involved.   

Harvard Law School just released the first issue of its new sports/entertainment law journal.   

The Wall Street Journal explores why economists hate the NFL Draft.  Interesting article.

My good friend and University of Washington School of Law classmate Jason Cruz has a great new article on the upcoming NFL Draft.  Jason shines his spotlight on Ed Wang, a Virginia Tech player who will likely be the first Chinese American ever selected in the draft. 

I have yet to read the underlying academic article (forthcoming in Managerial and Decision Economics), but Andy Staples of Sports Illustrated has a feature piece about the research by Jay Coleman, Mike DuMond, and Allen Lynch that looks at subconscious bias among the selection committee for the NCAA men’s Division I basketball tournament.  Fascinating stuff!   

In 2009, I published an article about basketball referee bias in a special issue of European Sports Management Quarterly that was devoted to the “dark side of sports.”  The journal was the first academic publication that I was aware of that provided such a focus.  Michael Rosenberg of Sports Illustrated has an excellent new article that similarly looks at recent scandals in sports (e.g. Big Ben, Tiger Woods, and Jerry Jones).