Vega$, The NBA and Competitive BalanceBy David Marasco One of the common laments about baseball is that going into each season only a small handful of teams has a chance at the golden ring. Whether or not this is true (and the success of the Marlins would argue against it), this perception is a problem. But does it really exist? Or is it just another way for sportswriters to bash the National Pastime? Lucky for us, there is a good way of measuring people's perceptions of what a team's chances are. Vegas Baby, Vegas. Betting odds are not set to reflect reality, but people's perceptions of reality. Since we are at the start the NBA season, the current odds for the 2004 NBA Championship give a decent look into how competitive people feel the NBA is. Here are the data from sportsbook.com as it stood on November 29 (after one day of NBA action):
OK, in a theoretical "perfectly balanced" league, every team would go off at 29-1 (OK, a little better than that so Vegas could get their take). But only seven teams in the NBA are going off at better odds than that. There are three other teams that start at between 1-29 and 1-58, which ranges to an "even chance" and half of the "even chance". So the bottom two thirds of the NBA doesn't even come under the category of "half of an even chance". In fact, the bottom twelve teams in the NBA start the season at 100-1 or worse. That means that over 40% of the league is seen as being dead in the water before play really even begins. Let's compare this to odds given at the same sportbook on the 2004 World Series winner. To be fair, these odds will change quite a bit before Opening Day, but I promise an update in my blog when the time comes. Here's what Vegas thinks we think:
Okay, the first thing you do is rub your eyes when you see that two of the top three favorites to take the crown are the Red Sox and the Cubs. Breaking it down like we did for the NBA, 17 teams, more than half of the league, are going off at better than "even chance" odds (remember that only a quarter of the NBA could claim this distinction). Six more teams sneak in at between "even chance" and "half even chance". Hence, at the "half even" checkpoint we have 22 MLB teams, roughly 3/4 of the league. Only 10 NBA teams could claim this distinction. If "most" teams in MLB don't have a chance when the bell rings, and the teams 3/4 the way down the food chain in baseball are seeing the same odds as the worst team in the top third of the NBA, what hope do NBA fans have if they don't follow one of the few select squads? In baseball, only eight teams go off at 100-1 or worse, 27% of the league as opposed to 40% of the NBA. And only 10% of the teams in baseball, the Devil Rays, Brewers and Tigers, truly terrible teams, are worse than 100-1. Nine teams in the NBA, roughly a third of the franchises, are launching at worse than 100-1. Keep this in mind next time the talking heads bring up the impending doom of baseball. Leave feedback on our message board. |
