Research: Close games

T

texbusdave

25+ Posts
Hornfans, I need your help.

I am currently a Ph.D. student in S. Carolina and I'm working on a paper about competition and alcohol consumption.

We're trying to see if "close games" are more likely to lead to traffic fatalities than "blowouts."

Problem is, what defines a "close game"? I have some thoughts, but I want to open it up to my experts to see what you come up with.
 
Interesting. Score is the perhaps the obvious measure. Whether the game went into overtime might be another slightly less subjective variable... What's the actual research question? If it's competition vs. alcohol consumption, you might consider more than just "close games." For example, high-profile matchups (e.g., 2 top-10 teams or rivalry games). And if you're not concerned exclusively with "competition," I might look at night games vs. day games and length of the game as possible explanatory variables for increased consumption.
 
Another obvious variable would be whether or not the sport venue allows for the sale of alcohol. I would think that a blowout would result in more ppl leaving early to hit the tailgate and get hammered again. In a close game, ppl are staying all the way - and if they can't buy beer, then they are sobering up the whole time. Of course, the flask rule is in effect, but you can only smuggle so much booze in.
 
You are looking for the definition of a close game? Football, I presume?
It would have to be within X number of points within Y minutes to play, right?
OK, how about within 14 points with five minutes to play or within seven points with less than three or four minutes to play?
Not many college teams have good two minute offenses, although it may be more common these days with the spread passing offenses.
Or do you mean really close, like a lead change in the last five minutes or less, lead change in the last two minutes?
Pretty nebulous term, hard to define.
 
Thanks for your input so far. Some interesting points.

A couple of points:
1. Score clearly is a good measure, but as we know score can be deceptive. Think about the games where the Horns shut down the offense and the opposing teams score garbage TDs. So I'm thinking about doing an average point differential at each quarter in the game. The higher the average, the more likely that a blow-out is occurring.

2.We're definitely having to throw in a lot of covariates into this model, and you guys have suggested some good ones: college/pro, night/day game, terminal/non-terminal game, etc.

3. accuratehorn has come closest (ironic?) to what I was kind of looking for. If we must go with a subjective measure of "closeness" what do we go with? Within reach at 3/4 of the game, within reach midway through 4th Q?

4. We weren't considering just football, but constraining it to one sport would likely make our analysis a little easier.

5. The main research question we're trying to answer is: "Do close games kill?" (i.e., lead to more fatal car crashes) We're looking at it from multiple angles: biologically- prolonged competition increases testosterone and cortisol levels which may translate to aggressive driving afterward, alcohol consumption is certainly an aspect we're investigating.

Thanks so much for suggestions.
hookem.gif
 
Incidentally, prelim data suggests that baseball games actually keep people OUT of trouble, whereas football and hockey leads to more car crashes.

Could have something to do with vicarious physical contact in those sports.

At any rate, it's hard to find a better project to work on than researching drinking beer and watching sports.


hookem.gif
 
most baseball games stop selling beer after the 6th inning, I think football games sell beer throughout.

baseball is America’s past, where a father can take his son and explain the intricacies of the game, football is where a father meets his drinking buddies to tailgate.

Interesting topic, keep us apprised.
 
I like accurate's measurement, although I might push out the 2-score parameter a little further, maybe within 14 with up to 10 minutes left. The thing is it makes a huge difference whether in that scenario the trailing team has the ball or not, but you'd have a hell of a time collecting that data without going into play-by-play info (which you may be doing anyway)...

As far as variables to measure in relation to fatalities, one that I would look at is the intersection of home vs. away and favorite/underdog (by the point spread coming in). My wild-*** guess is that fatalities are more related to celebration than drowning sorrow, and as such I would expect a close victory by a home underdog to show more instances than any close victory by a road team, or by a favored home team.

I would also consider how "big" the game is; maybe you could add the rankings of the two teams coming in, obviously anything which is single digits combined is a highly-anticipated game....

Whether or not alcohol is served at the venue.

Whether or not the game is at a neutral site.

Historical (maybe last 10 year) winning percentage; I'll bet that a hell of lot more people would have had drunken wrecks in Orlando if Central Florida had won that game than (say) after we lost to K-State up there...

Very cool study, keep us posted...
 
That would be an interesting study to read when completed. It seems like a big venues, like in Austin, that if you try to leave right away, you are going three mph for 45 minutes, kind of hard to have much of an accident. If you wait two hours while tailgating, then you may not be affected by what happened in the game too much.
If you really want to study a sport that I think affects people driving home, try car racing. People go nuts after leaving the race track, at least for a short time.
 
I drink a hell of a lot more during a blowout. Close games, I'm too caught up in the action to pretty much do anything else.
 
The problem I see is that a close game in the fourth with x amount of time left, may not be indicative of an acual close game.

If you are going witht eh assumption that people drink more when there is a tight game, then it needs to be collected throughout the game. Example: if it is a 3 point game until there is 10 minutes left in the fourth, then there is a touchdown and a turnover resulting in a 17 point final score. You would still have more drinking througout the game (once again assuming closer = more drinking) then you would with a game that was essentially a blowout followed up by a few points scored towards the end that caused the game to be within 14 points.

This does sound really interesting. Keep us posted!
 
TIME has everything to do with it.

if the game is at 7pm, i'm gonna be more hammered than if the game was at 11am. the outcome of the game has little to do with my drinking. if we lose, i drink. if we win, i drink.
 
Wait a minute, I think we are being played here. If there is a correlation between traffic deaths due to increased alcohol consumption in close football games, that would mean Bob Stoops' policy of running up the score is actually a safety measure for the good of public health-the study may be an evil Sooner rationalization conspiracy plot.
 
Competition induced testosterone, hmmmm. Interesting term, I guess it's true. I always like to run a couple of cars off the road after a good Horns win.
Really, it's a good reason to stay around the stadium and tailgate for an hour or so after games.
Thanks for posting the results of your study.
 
How about breaking it down to 'close second half?'

It a team is down, let's say 21+ points at halftime and come back to make a shootout after it would that have an impact on a +- alcohol consumption?
 
Slinger--are you thinking that being down 21 at the half instigates the "depression drinking" ("Well, we're toast, might as well drink more.")?
 
I think football games sell beer throughout.
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I think the NFL stops selling alcohol in the 4th quarter unless you are in a suite or club.
 
Competition induced testosterone...

interesting, most in the thread naturally thought alcohol consumption would be the biggest factor. maybe it still is.

But i can see how getting amped during a close thrilling down to the wire game would lead to amped behavior behind the wheel of a car after the game.
 
texbusdave,

How did you account for the role that the amount of traffic would play in your findings? Did you measure that?

I'm guessing that there are more people out on the road after the game at the same time after a close game, particularly if the game is televised locally.
 
We thought quite a bit about how the outflow of the game might influence our findings.

One thought, was that during blowouts there is a slow trickle of fans leaving. Although, anecdotally, usually people have some sort of "rule" or heuristic ("If we're up by three TDs going into the 4th quarter, we'll take off to beat the traffic"). So you could also argue that there are still massive simultaneous outflows during blowouts (and perhaps they, trying to "beat" traffic, might drive more aggressively).

You're right, though, in thinking that close games usually means everyone leaves the stadium at the same time. Our thoughts here were that fatalaties should actually be LESS likely to occur, since bumper to bumper traffic is hardly conducive to a fatal automobile accident (the speeds just aren't high enough). Our data show the opposite.

However, the short answer to your question is no. We have no access to outflow numbers (which would actually be kinda cool). So your thought is that more cars = of course more accidents. We do control for attendance at the games and seem to see the same effect.

Also, we don't see the effect for game sites where there are a large % of losers (only winners). We'd expect to see equivalent fatality rates at winner's and loser's stadiums (stadia?) if the # of people on the road was the explanation. In our data, that doesn't seem to be the case.
 
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