I’ve been an NBA fan since my childhood following the Bulls dynasty, and started studying Economics at Colgate in 2003. In 2007 I found a way to connect the two, making an independent study on “Determinants of Success in the NBA” my last semester of school. I wrote a short paper, but unfortunately did not finish my research.
Post-graduation I have submitted to two conferences on sports statistics, each of which has turned me down on the fair grounds that its not clear I’ve finished my research. Recently I have been taking notes about my big curiosity, “How to build an NBA dynasty” but have yet to make it into a formal research paper.
These ideas have been on my mind lately, because I am thinking about submitting work for the next Sloan Sports conference in March 2012. The internet gave me a helpful push on how linking basketball and econ can be done well (albeit not academically) via Malcolm Gladwell‘s first piece for Grantland “‘Psychic Benefits’ and the NBA Lockout“. I particularly like how he takes current economic theory and writes in a way that’s accessible to everyone.
In a recent academic paper, the economist Jonathan Lanning has also shown that almost without exception integration in the 1940s and 1950s had an immediate and significant positive impact on a team’s attendance — even in cities where you might not think the fan base would be enthusiastic. Lanning calculates, in fact, that almost no team in baseball had as much to gain financially from bringing in black players as the Red Sox, particularly since they were losing money in the 1940s. Yawkey’s bigotry left millions of dollars on the table.
Been a bit since I’ve posted around here. Was feeling guilty about it, then I saw that one of my inspirations, Joi Ito, hasn’t been blogging either. He does share a helpful reason to start again:
as the years of not blogging have started to pile up, more and more of my thoughts are no longer online. Back in the day, I blogged nearly everything so giving someone my perspective on any topic required only that I copy/paste a URL into a chat window or an email. … As I begin what is might be the biggest transition in my life in my new role as the Director of the MIT Media Lab, it seems like my blog would be a good place to document my thoughts through this transition.
He then links to an older post with blogging advice whose first tip is right up my alley. “1 – You’re probably stupid”
As I continue the exciting transition in my own life sharing more thoughts here would probably be wise.
Had my 7th lesson at the Korean Cultural Center of Chicago, or KCCoC this morning. Worked our way through formal and informal telephone English again. Below is a video of the 5th lesson to give you more context about how we work. If you can’t see the video, click here to watch.
If you have any ideas to improve the lesson, please leave them in the comments or e-mail them to charles@danoff.org … We’re going to talk about formal + informal telephone English again next week, so if you have any ideas for example conversations, please share them.
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