“I must say, with all due respect, I find it very hard to see the logic behind some of the moves you have made with this fine organization. In the past 20 years, you have caused myself, and the city of New York, a good deal of distress, as we have watched you take our beloved Yankees and reduce them to a laughing stock.”
– George Costanza upon meeting Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, Seinfeld, “The Opposite” (season 5, 1994). Quoted in Stumbling on Wins: Two Economists Expose the Pitfalls on the Road to Victory in Professional Sports.
A lot of sports fans are just like George Costanza, watching their favorite teams make the same mistakes over and over again, while the perfect solution seems obvious all along. (If it’s that bad for the Yankees, the winningest pro franchise in U.S. sport history, just imagine how bad it is in Milwaukee.) In their new book Stumbling on Wins, the economists David J. Berri (Southern Utah University) and Martin B. Schmidt (William & Mary — the alma mater of a certain NFL head coach) explain this phenomenon while revealing sports decision-makers’ big mistakes. They also identify the sports stats that are truly useful, explore the role of great coaches, and determine whether black quarterbacks are underpaid.
Berri and Schmidt are also the authors, along with Stacey Brook, of The Wages of Wins: Taking Measure of the Many Myths in Modern Sport. They blog?here.
They have agreed to take your sporting questions, so fire away in the comments section below. As always, we’ll post their answers in short course. It is an exciting moment in the annual sports calendar — basketball and hockey beginning their playoffs, the baseball season still fresh enough to inspire enthusiasm in nearly every quadrant, and (sadly) a very active police blotter for Pittsburgh Steelers fans to follow.
Addendum: Berri and Schmidt answer your questions here.
and 
. You can also watch it on 
Have you analyzed specific situations under the new NFL overtime rules?
Should NFL teams go for it on 4th down more often? Should they go for a 2 point conversion more often?
Do you think it’s a good idea for the financial health of a league to have a salary cap similar to that of the National Hockey League (which limits the amount a single player can be paid, a rookie can be paid, and a team can pay out in salaries)? Or do you think leagues without a salary cap (such as the English Premier League – soccer) are a better idea for the financial health of a league?
Would a salary cap in baseball work? And would bringing teams like the KC Royals to par (in spending and seemingly wins) with the Yankees actually be good for baseball?
Could you summarize your 2-3 key pionts as they apply to: (1) amateur athletics; (2) business.? oOunds like an intriguing book, but want to know how to apply it. Thanks. Edward…
Can the sports gambling markets be beaten?
Can baseball teams such as the Florida Marlins and the Tampa Bay Rays ever turn a profit? Or is the only good business model the one of the Red Sox and the Yankees (live in a great sports city and have a huge payroll)?
“Old-school” decision makers in sports are often reluctant to change, despite overwhelming evidence that their current strategy is flawed. Which often-repeated mistake is most frustrating to continue to observe?
What do you think the value of momentum going into the playoffs is? The Lakers have been awful recently; will this impact their performance in the playoffs