From the course: Everyday Statistics, with Eddie Davila
The Super Bowl
From the course: Everyday Statistics, with Eddie Davila
The Super Bowl
- [Instructor] 256, 10, and one. That's the number of games that take us to the Super Bowl. 256 regular season NFL games, 10 playoff games, all lead to one single championship game, the Super Bowl, a massive television event and a nationwide party, complete with food, drinks, gambling, and usually, a musical halftime show. At the time of this recording, there had been 52 Super Bowls. Over those 52 seasons, rules have changed, strategies have evolved, players have gotten faster and stronger, and salaries have gone up a lot. So what can we learn from the small dataset of 52 Super Bowls? Let's first look at scoring. The median score for the winners of the 52 Super Bowls is 30.5 points, for the losers, it's 17 points, and the median margin of victory is 12 points. The averages aren't too far off. 30.4, 16.4, and the average margin of victory, 14 points. By the way, in comparison to their regular season games, 34 of the 52 Super Bowls ended as above average scoring games for that season, but in the first 10 Super Bowls, eight of the 10 games were below average in scoring. Since then, 32 of the 42 Super Bowls have resulted in above average scores for that season. That might tell us that in the early Super Bowls, elite teams had great defenses, or maybe elite teams just had poor offense. And since then, because Super Bowls have higher than average scores, perhaps the elite teams require stronger offenses, or maybe defenses just got worse. Let's break up the 52 Super Bowls into four groups of 13. How've things changed over time? Well, if you're an NFL fan, it might seem that in recent years, scoring has become easier than ever. But as far as Super Bowls go, Super Bowls 14 through 26 had the highest scoring winners. During that 13 year stretch, the winner had a median score of 37. The median margin of victory was a whopping 17 points. That means at least seven of those 13 years the margin of victory was 17 points or more. Meanwhile, for Super Bowls 40 to 52, games have been relatively close, a median margin of victory of only six points, which sort of brings us to why this stuff is important to so many on Super Bowl Sunday, betting on the game. For each Super Bowl, oddsmakers choose a favorite and establish a point spread. These betting lines created by oddsmakers are designed to entice betters on both sides of each bet. So, how did the oddsmakers do? In 52 Super Bowls, they've picked 51 favorites. Why only 51? Well, in 2014, oddsmakers thought the teams were dead even, so that year there was no favorite. So how'd they do in the other 51 Super Bowls? Favorites have won the Super Bowl 33 times, 64.7% of the time. 18 times, the underdog has won, 35.3%. How about when we consider the point spread? Twice, the game ended with a favorite winning by the exact spread predicted. That's a push. And in the other 49 Super Bowls, the favorite covered the oddsmakers' point spread 26 times. 23 times, the underdog covered the point spread. Those betting on the favorite would've won 51% of their bets. They would've lost 45% of their bets, and 4% of the time, they would've ended up even. That said, in eight of the last 11 Super Bowls, the underdog would've been the winning bet. There've only been 52 Super Bowls, but even with such a small dataset, getting lost in the numbers can be fun, and if you're a big football fan, you know I'm just scratching the surface. Sharpen your statistics skills, and enjoy your favorite hobbies in ways that you never imagined.
Contents
-
-
-
Political polls3m 14s
-
(Locked)
Different sports, different stats4m 42s
-
(Locked)
Test scores2m 59s
-
(Locked)
Data collection2m 40s
-
(Locked)
Birthdays in the USA3m 15s
-
The house always wins4m 1s
-
(Locked)
Wisdom of the crowd3m 12s
-
(Locked)
The pay gap at Uber3m 58s
-
(Locked)
Cancer survival rates4m 22s
-
(Locked)
Television ratings4m 15s
-
(Locked)
Historic stats stories4m 28s
-
(Locked)
The one percent3m 58s
-
(Locked)
New Year's Eve3m 28s
-
(Locked)
Influenza3m 17s
-
(Locked)
Winter is coming3m 11s
-
The Super Bowl4m 39s
-
(Locked)
Genetics3m 45s
-
(Locked)
Relationships3m 48s
-
(Locked)
The box office2m 39s
-
(Locked)
Unemployment2m 41s
-
(Locked)
Waiting in lines4m 29s
-
(Locked)
Sleep2m 56s
-
(Locked)
March Madness4m 43s
-
(Locked)
Measuring what's important in business3m 28s
-
(Locked)
Baseball4m 41s
-
(Locked)
Income tax statistics1m 49s
-
(Locked)
College waiting lists4m 26s
-
The normal distribution is everywhere2m 53s
-
(Locked)
Horse racing statistics3m 45s
-
(Locked)
Statistics and the insurance industry2m 35s
-
(Locked)
Restaurant statistics2m 43s
-
(Locked)
Catching criminals with statistics2m 55s
-
(Locked)
Getting directions from statistics2m 43s
-
(Locked)
Lyme disease2m 55s
-
(Locked)
Quality control in manufacturing2m 36s
-
(Locked)
Zoo animal statistics2m 41s
-
(Locked)
Earthquakes2m 54s
-
(Locked)
Statistics of hunting2m 48s
-
(Locked)
Transcontinental convoy2m 7s
-
Moon landing3m 44s
-
(Locked)
Summer movies2m 56s
-
(Locked)
Reliability3m 47s
-
(Locked)
Woodstock3m 44s
-
(Locked)
Hurricanes2m 47s
-
(Locked)
P-hacking2m 49s
-
(Locked)
Salaries2m 51s
-
(Locked)
Dow Jones3m
-
(Locked)
Population3m 23s
-
(Locked)
Epidemiology2m 55s
-
(Locked)
Rock stars3m 44s
-
(Locked)
Acceptance sampling3m 18s
-
(Locked)
The value of my change4m 42s
-
(Locked)
In-game win probabilities3m 39s
-
(Locked)
Stock market ups and downs3m 18s
-
(Locked)
Prohibition3m 30s
-
(Locked)
Bayes' theorem4m 15s
-
(Locked)
Divorce3m 35s
-
(Locked)
The U.S. Census3m 26s
-
(Locked)
English3m 8s
-
(Locked)
Santa Claus3m 47s
-
(Locked)
Parenting3m 6s
-
Proportions of coins4m 53s
-
(Locked)
Safe travel3m 23s
-
(Locked)
Election polling methodologies2m 57s
-
(Locked)
Is your data any good?3m 44s
-
(Locked)
Storytelling with data2m 41s
-
(Locked)
The middle of my data3m 21s
-
(Locked)
The ubiquitous bell curve3m 23s
-
(Locked)
Decoding polling results3m 27s
-
(Locked)
What is an outlier?3m 15s
-
(Locked)
Statistical bias3m 45s
-
(Locked)
The importance of regression analysis3m 38s
-
(Locked)
Understanding probabilities3m 23s
-
(Locked)
Statistics tools3m 19s
-
Modern organizations use statistics3m 16s
-
(Locked)
Combinations3m 46s
-
(Locked)
Measuring variation3m 55s
-
(Locked)
Sample space3m 51s
-
(Locked)
Election win probabilities3m 41s
-
(Locked)
Cognitive bias4m
-
(Locked)
Forecasting3m 13s
-
(Locked)
Toilet paper4m 5s
-
(Locked)
Winning streaks3m 6s
-
(Locked)
Coffee3m 6s
-
(Locked)
Vaccines2m 44s
-
(Locked)
Superfans2m 50s
-
(Locked)
US Presidents2m 51s
-
(Locked)
The cost of owning a pet2m 45s
-
(Locked)
Funny movies3m 23s
-
Success in the music industry2m 23s
-
(Locked)
Home Improvement3m 4s
-
(Locked)
Youth sports3m 30s
-
(Locked)
Mental health2m 43s
-
(Locked)
Chocolate2m
-
(Locked)
Baby statistics2m 30s
-
(Locked)
Books2m 48s
-
(Locked)
Commutes2m 43s
-
(Locked)
Farms2m 15s
-
(Locked)
Hip hop2m 50s
-
(Locked)
Mass transit2m 43s
-
(Locked)
Major league baseball3m 19s
-
(Locked)
Placebos2m 54s
-
(Locked)
Podcasts2m 13s
-
(Locked)
Social media2m 44s
-
(Locked)
Supply chains2m 51s
-