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February 9, 2007

Analyzing Superbowl XLI Using Tradesports Data

While I know diddly about football, I was fascinated by a new academic paper out analyzing Superbowl XLI using matching price changes from a Tradesports futures contract on the game result.

The most interesting part? The way it turns common ideas of important events upside-down, with, for example, the game's MVP deemed near-irrelevant.
Four of the top five [Tradesports] impact plays of the game were turnovers, led by Kelvin Hayden’s interception return for a touchdown. These price changes also provide a new statistic for measuring and comparing players’ performances. Despite winning the Most Valuable Player Award, Payton Manning ranks 10th on the list of positive impact players for the Colts. By far the greatest contributor to the Colts’ victory was Rex Grossman, whose poor play for the Bears contributed twice as much as the top performing Colt.
sbowl

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Comments

It would be interesting to see how the TradeSports (http://tradesports.com) data compared to the ProTrade (http://protrade.com) data in regards to the Superbowl. Both TradeSports and ProTrade look at the NFL like a stock market, but with a different set of "investors".