Back to Football: Week Four

Today is the first day since the first game of the season that I have actually turned on my TV and tuned into a game. It also turns out that I have the NFL Network so I can toggle back and forth between the BUF at HOU game and highlights from all current games as necessary. FOX isn't playing any games right now, which doesn't make any sense. Even if Houston is playing on one network, that doesn't mean that the Houston market doesn't care about the NFC games going on. Or maybe it does - I haven't done the research, but I do see a lot of Texans memorabilia around here.

I've also made significant updates to my 2014 Football chart over the last week. Along with analysis of whether the favorite, my picked, or my ideal team wins on a given week and the accuracy of these predictors through a season, I have identified potential earnings (or loss) for picking the favorite, the upset, my gut pick, or my ideal team on a given week and through an entire season. I did a little research about sports betting and made a simplistic, but relatively accurate calculation for winnings.

Each bet costs $6, and if the pick is wrong, I lose that. If I pick the Favorite and that team wins, I get the $6 back and another $5. If I pick an upset and the Favorite loses, I get the $6 back and another $10.

If the home team's number of wins this season is greater than or equal to the visiting team's wins, it is considered the favorite. 

 I picked these numbers based on information that said that if there is no favorite, to win $100 on a straight bet, you need to bet $110. Sports betting is more complicated than I thought it was, so I need to do more research. This calculation will work for now, and I'll refine it as a I learn more.

Now that the 2014 workbook is in order, I decided to update the 2012 workbook. This would give me two years as data-points. The information I'm looking for is if it is more profitable to simply pick the favorites or upsets consistently than to go with my gut picks.

As of Week 3, with my current calculation, I would have lost $18 by picking the Favorites. If I picked my Ideal teams, I would have made $42, my Gut picks would have got me $53, and picking Upsets would have earned $86 on the season. That's an ROI of -6%, 15%, 19%, and 30%, respectively, on the season. 

So there is that. Then, on the NFL Network, there was much excitement over some youth league running through the banner at the opening of the game, but all I could see were the girls looking bored in their cheerleader uniforms and all I could think about was the gender segregation. I wrote about it on Facebook and included my opinions about whether Cheerleading is a sport (spoiler, I don't think it is).

Post: When your little boys are playing a sport and your little girls are the cheerleaders, children learn that men act and women react to that. When they see men playing a sport and women as the cheerleaders, they see that men are supposed to act and women are supposed to react to that.

We can't change society in an instant, though we are, in many ways, moving in the right direction, but we need to pay attention to what our kids see, hear, and what we encourage them to do.

[My] Comment 1: I have a lot of respect for cheerleading - my high school cheer & stunt team brought home several high profile championships and were really fun to watch - but it should not be considered a sport in terms of Title IX. Yes, it can be competitive, but so is Debate, and things like Band competitions, and neither are considered sports. Cheerleading is much more like performance art than sport.

Of course, that also brings up questions about figure skating and gymnastics, which are also more like performance arts than sports. I do need to do more research about the definition of sport to have a fully crafted argument to back up my current opinion. Right now, I consider a sport to be something that involves direct competition rather than being ranked based on a rating of your performance and skill. 

[My] Comment 2: I know that intended, stated purpose of pairing cheerleading with football is to provide a way to get girls involved, but the result (which is often also the unstated intent) is regressive. In the first place, children should not be playing tackle football, and for two, we need to grow up and work on desegregating this game. 

I've gotten some likes for the Post and on Comment 1 from women without children so far. No dialog yet though. I'd really like to hear from parents, since they're the ones that I am really talking to in the Post. But now, right now, at 1:41pm Central time, I believe that I am late to go to a friend's house and watch football with other people. More later.