WWE Sabermetrics: Racial Inequality at the Royal Rumble

by Chris Marshall:

I planned to write this article about a month ago; the Royal Rumble¹ was just about to take place, so it actually made sense to do it back then. Of course, if you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans. I kept pushing it off because it seemed like a lot of work for such little reward. After doing the data analysis, however, I think I might have found something interesting.

The original idea was to treat the Rumble as if it were an actual athletic competition and perform a statistical analysis² in much the same way as I would for a legitimate sport. For example, how much does starting position affect a wrestler's finishing position? Does the number of opponents eliminated by a wrestler have any bearing on how far they make it?

The first draft of this article addresses these issues, and it will eventually become another part of my Royal Rumble Sabermetrics series, but I decided that they could wait. At first I had no demographic variables, so I added two: race and age³. In order to make it possible to run a t-test, I dichotomized the racial variable into white and non-white. I ended up creating a second racial variable, black and non-black, for reasons I will explain later. Anyway, the results were a little troubling.

Tennis Does Not Have a Steroid Problem

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by Chris Marshall:

I recently caught wind of a blog that is dedicated solely to the cause of “exposing” the use of performance enhancing drugs and blood doping in the tennis world. The appropriately named Tennis Has a Steroid Problem has been on a three-year crusade to demonstrate that there is a widespread problem that plagues professional tennis.

The slight problem, though, is that they have no proof. I admittedly have read only a handful of the 1,000+ posts on the site, but at first blush, it seems like a tinfoil-hat outfit. Since 2008, a very small number of tennis players have been found guilty of doping violations, and it is true that most of them are low-ranked players. THASP argues that this is a whitewash, a way for the International Tennis Federation to point to the fact that their tests are indeed effective at exposing evildoers within the pro ranks.

The Tennis Futures Market: Australian Open Men's Recap

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by Chris Marshall:

For American tennis fans, the Australian Open often becomes the forgotten Grand Slam event. It is four months removed in either direction from any other major, and the time difference between the eastern United States and Melbourne, Australia, makes it difficult to watch for all but the most dedicated and deranged fans. Luckily I fall into that category.

Despite the lackluster response it gets from casual fans, though, the tournament sets the basic narrative for the entire season. On the men's side, it feels like more of the same. The Big 3.5 of Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, and Andy Murray will continue to dominate every tournament. Anybody who saw the last three matches will realize there is nothing bad about this development; rarely will you ever see such sustained excellence as was on display in the semis and the final.

For a few fleeting moments it seemed like Murray might break through and win his match against Djokovic, but Nole just has an extra gear that he can kick into when the match is on the line. At last year's U.S. Open he hit an incredible, go-for-broke return winner when down match point against Federer. In the semi against Murray this year, he bounced back from blowing a fifth set lead, and in the final against Nadal, he climbed back from a break down in the fifth. This ability is almost more damaging to an opponent's psyche than blowing them out, because with Djokovic, even if you are in the match, you still feel like there's no way you can beat him.