Steve Miller on Scorecasting

My fun spring break read this year was a book on analytics in sports entitled

"Scorecasting: The Hidden Influences Behind How Sports Are Played and Games Are Won."

Written in tandem by a University of Chicago economics professor and a sports journalist, Scorecasting's format looks suspiciously like award-winning bestsellers "Freakonomics" and "SuperFreakonomics." If you're a sports fan and like the statistical sleuthing of Steven Levitt, this book's for you.

Among the fast moving, self-contained chapters are incisive analyses debunking "the hot hand" for basketball shooters, demonstrating racial bias in the hiring of NFL head coaches and explaining the lost century for the Chicago Cubs. Alas, consistently incapable management and a clientele that responds more to beer prices than wins and losses appears to undermine the Little Blue Machine.

I was most intrigued, though, with the two chapter analyses of home field advantage. The authors' point of departure is an unequivocal performance advantage for home teams across sports and times. The home field advantage ranges from just above 53 percent victories for home teams in major league baseball to over 69 percent in college basketball. The authors debunk the conventional wisdom explanations for home advantage of crowd support, rigors of travel and scheduling, and unique home field characteristics.

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