Statistics can be used to analyze, illuminate, or ridicule any subject, even mullets. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (the ABC) provides a moderately high-level example, with hairstyles of players in the Australian Football League (AFL). The report bears the headline: The mullet is alive and well in AFL The ABC investigates the numbers behind football’s most […]
It has been said that (in some cases) court judges are more lenient on those accused of crimes if the date of the court hearing falls on the defendant’s birthday. But can things also work in the reverse direction? What if, for example, the judge’s favorite football team have just lost a match? Would they dish […]
Julien Blondeau, who researches thermodynamics and fluid dynamics at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, writes us about his most unusual research project: I can now perfectly explain why, for instance, field hockey players score more than football players, although the fields have approximately the same size, the number of players is exactly the same, the goals […]
The search continues, to find timely meaning in soccer (football) and childbirth: “More Goals, Fewer Babies? On National Teams’ Performance and Birth Rates,” Luca Fumarco and Francesco Principe, IZA DP No. 14448, June 2021 The authors, at Tulane University, IZA, the Tinbergen Institute, and ECASE, explain: “Does national team performance boost birth rates? We compiled […]