« Profile of Malcolm Gladwell and *Outliers* | Main | Spin-Free Economics »
Against team players
When one team wins, another loses. If the Celtics win the championship, the Lakers cannot. Sports at the team level, within the context of a single season, is more or less a zero-sum game. But ranking the quality and fame of players is more multi-dimensional and thus it is more positive-sum. Maybe the advent of LeBron James diminishes the luster of Tim Duncan (or maybe it doesn't), but the total amount of fame produced still goes up because of LeBron and his efforts.
Players who maximize team wins are investing more resources into the zero-sum game. (In fact team players in small markets with few fans are especially destructive of human welfare and it is those players who should be most encouraged to become ball hogs.) Players who pursue individual glory -- even if at the expense of the team -- are investing more resources into the positive-sum game and thus they are doing more to benefit society.
So why is it again that we glorify the team players?
Posted by Tyler Cowen on November 12, 2008 at 06:37 AM in Sports | Permalink
Comments
So why is it again that we glorify the team players?
So that we keep everyone burning at 60 watts, like most of us. We don't want to be out-shined by anyone burning at 65 watts, or - gads - 150 watts.
Posted by: at Nov 12, 2008 7:49:40 AM
Because most people value their own personal pleasure over the net gain to society. I want my team to win more than I want society in general to benefit from sports. I'm pretty sure (though I have no sources) that team players help win games - it seems true in my experience as an avid College Football/NFL fan, at least. I want my team to win. Thus, I want team players on my team.
Posted by: Jesse at Nov 12, 2008 7:52:21 AM
Note: my generic team sport is soccer, specifically European club soccer.
Clubs have fame too, and they can't acquire fame without winning competitions. Fans have far stronger loyalty to teams than to individual players, so it's in the interest of the power brokers to favour club gain.
Of course, the players have different incentives and may be looking for better wages etc. at a different club.
And as to aesthetics and entertainment value, while individual brilliance is good, the most memorable events have been team performances. For example, Manchester United beating Bayern Munich in the 1999 Champions League final (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_UEFA_Champions_League_Final).
For another perspective, consider the Italy's performance in World Cup 2006, Fabio Cannavaro was probably the most outstanding player (and FIFA player of the year for 2006). However, he's a defender, so his personal excellence was to the direct benefit of the team.
Posted by: Barry Kelly at Nov 12, 2008 7:54:54 AM
I know you are just being provocative, but still...
"the total amount of fame produced still goes up because of LeBron and his efforts" - no it doesn't. Fame = attention and the only way this can happen is if LeBron attracts people or mindshare to basketball and away from other sports. You assume that people are attracted to basketball by its stars.
"Sports at the team level, within the context of a single season, is more or less a zero-sum game" - no it isn't. Fame = attention and you assume that people are not attracted to basketball by its stellar teams.
From a spectator's point of view there are two phenomena worth noting - watching a star pull off an amazing feat, or watching a team pull off an amazing feat. There's no reason to give these two the ranking that you do.
Posted by: tom s. at Nov 12, 2008 7:57:25 AM
Fame doesn't benefit society. It benefits the players who are famous, to be sure, but other people become less famous; fans can only concentrate on so many people at once. Broadly: to a good approximation, it's more plausible that the supply of fame per fan is constant.
Also, while wins and losses are zero-sum, the fame that results is not, surely!
Posted by: david at Nov 12, 2008 7:57:30 AM
I see that while I was writing Barry Kelly beat me to the same point but made it better.
Posted by: tom s. at Nov 12, 2008 7:58:38 AM
I suggest you watch a few seasons of 'The Wire' to see the results of everyone acting in his own self-interest.
Posted by: Kevin P. at Nov 12, 2008 8:01:54 AM
the economic game isn't winning, but creating value for the fans. Fans have a strong revealed preference for watching and attending competitive team events vs. slam dunk contests.
Posted by: DK at Nov 12, 2008 8:11:25 AM
Apples and oranges. Your thesis that winning and losing is a zero-sum game and that fame and popularity is a positive sum game is weak. The value created by a team that loses every game, but has a great star (Minnesota Timberwolves with KG) is an order of magnitude smaller than the value created by a team that wins lots of games (Celtics with KG). It is hard to argue that a league with few teams with a chance to win a championship (MLB) creates more value than one with many (NFL).
Posted by: TJ at Nov 12, 2008 8:27:55 AM
The economic value of "team play" is better measured by the losers. A team that loses but plays hard and unselfishly will retain more fans than a team that loses through the efforts of one or two selfish ball hogs.
Posted by: Steve at Nov 12, 2008 8:37:00 AM
How about this: if owners (especially in smaller markets) field teams with single superstars but repeatedly end up with losing records, those teams will lose their fan bases. The end result is that the market contracts.
I don't see how that's a net positive for the sport.
Posted by: meter at Nov 12, 2008 8:45:08 AM
That Washington, DC is a "small market" is news to the people of: Milwaukee, Sacramento, Orlando, San Antonio, Denver, Phoenix...
Posted by: at Nov 12, 2008 9:01:47 AM
People who are fans of NBA teams may also be fans of the NBA, as a whole. They get more enjoyment from watching well-functioning teams rather than star players. How much people care about basketball overall and the individual players might be a function of how good the teams are, and therefore how well the teams are playing. so if a player spends more time concentrating on individual goals, the teams may suffer and people might care about basketball less. This could have a negative effect on society.
Posted by: chris huth at Nov 12, 2008 9:30:43 AM
The league and the teams in it are not zero sum -- over a longer context than the one season you list.
Can you even name the pro soccer league in the US or more than the team in your own city?
Who cared about the NFL in the 1920's, when it was the Green Bay Packers against the Decatur Staleys? Very few people.
What about the pre-Russell/Cousy, etc. NBA, with the Fort Wayne [now Detroit] Pistons and the Syracuse Nats [now 76ers]?
The point is that these leagues prospered and everybody became more wealthy.
Other sports of that era faded: if I recall correctly, the Chicago Stadium (later home to Bobby Hull and Michael Jordan and the only indoor NFL championship game) was originally home to lots of bicycle racing. And how about roller derby?
Posted by: ZBicyclist at Nov 12, 2008 9:32:10 AM
I don't quite get your model. It seems to require that team play is both conducive to winning and uninteresting to spectators. Doesn't that require that the spectators be extremely undiscriminating? Ball hogs and players seeking personal glory then look like the sports equivalent of junk food. Tasty, if it's all you know, but ultimately unsatisfying.
(I'd also endorse earlier commentators who claim that having more competitive teams increases interest--you don't want to take this so far: anyone could win in any given year can be a bad thing. Dynasties, or at least consistently high level teams are exciting).
Posted by: Justin at Nov 12, 2008 9:33:51 AM
Well, if you think of winning the championship as the goal of every season, team sports are probably negative-sum. Most teams (all but 1) will not win the championship and will be disappointed.
Luckily for sports, people don't simply watch them to see their team win (or to see individual player performances). They want to see good football.
Oh wait, basketball? Yeah, I'm not sure why people watch that.
Posted by: Zac at Nov 12, 2008 9:57:08 AM
Because there is no man named "society." Most sports fans have a team he/she prefers. He'd like the players on his team to play for his interests, and hence maximize team wins. Maximizing fame and ability in so far as these things compete with team wins has benefits to the team's fans, but those benefits are dispersed througout society. The effects of the zero sum game are more sharply felt.
Posted by: simpsonian at Nov 12, 2008 9:57:54 AM
The premise that the success of the team is a "zero-sum game" seems to be the problem.
If I am a Sacramento Kings fan, I derive satisfaction from the Kings winning and satisfaction from the Lakers losing. So, I value players that help achieve this result. The fact that a Laker fan feels the opposite is of no real concern to me.
On another level, as an afficionado of basketball in general, I may like to watch LeBron James play and create gaudy statistics and highlight film.
I think you'll generally see good team players appreciated locally, and flashy stars appreciated nationally.
I think it is also somewhat incorrect to assume that becoming a ball hog is going to make someone of decent talent into a star who attracts national fame. Many fans appreciate that a guy scoring 20+ points per game while shooting 38% isn't all that special. (Antoine Walker comes to mind.)
Posted by: diz at Nov 12, 2008 10:05:04 AM
True but the 1970-1974 NY Nicks were a beautiful thing to behold.
Posted by: floccina at Nov 12, 2008 10:05:39 AM
Fans are entertained only because someone is trying to win. Outside of that context, performance a basketball game is comparable to a performing in a movie, circus or symphony. If we accept your assumptions, the logical conclusion is to play season of exhibition games (and don't even bother keeping score) that should be as highly attended and rated on TV as the competitive season.
Posted by: Bill Nichols at Nov 12, 2008 10:11:34 AM
I also don't think the model makes sense. In real life, the NFL is by far the most successful American sports league, and most would agree that this is primarily due to the amount of parity or variance in team success in most years. In addition, the NFL offers less identification with individual players relative to other sports (e.g., helmets covering faces), which suggests that the "fame" of sports leagues is based less on individual players and more on overall quality of play or competitiveness.
It may indeed be the case that for an individualistic sport like basketball, a gifted dominant player can redeem an otherwise aesthetically bad team (see the Lakers post-Shaq and pre-2007), but this is hardly the scenario described by the model.
Posted by: derek at Nov 12, 2008 10:25:58 AM
1) I know of very few people who would watch a basketball game (outside of the finals or, stretching it, the playoffs) unless his/her home team were involved.
2) While the GM, the Players Association, and groups like ESPN rely on a general high level of interest in the sport, owners have a much greater interest in expanding their individual fan bases (though they also benefit from the former).
3) LeBron James may be great for the sport of basketball, and right now great for the owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, but wait until a few years from now when he moves to a new team. Cleveland's fan base will shrink immensely, while whatever larger market he falls into will enjoy an expanded fan base. In *that* sense, he will be a net plus for basketball. But that has more to do with the local market.
4) None of this speaks to markets outside the US, in which superstars play a much greater role in expanding interest in the sport. Yao Ming is a national hero in China.
Posted by: meter at Nov 12, 2008 10:27:42 AM
In the NBA team play is often the best way to highlight a star player. i.e. teams without much chance of success will build a team around a star player to highlight that players talents. Also if the Cavs want to retain a player like LeBron they must give him incentives to stay, some in the form of compensation, some in the form of players who help him gain endorsements, and some in the form of making the team look competitive (so the LeBron brand is not associated with losing).
Manny Ramirez, currently of the Dodgers is in many ways the anti-team player. But the marginal benefit that he provides to a team that is close to contending (ie the four to five extra games he will win for you in a season compared to alternatives) encourages competitive teams to take a risk on him and encourages teammates to tolerate his negative antics. Teams that will not contend have little to gain and risk clubhouse trouble, so they will pass. His marginal cost far exceeds his marginal benefit.
A lot depends on the local market. The Cubs have always tried to have star players that casual fans can quickly identify. That suits a fairly large % of their fans. The A's and Twins have had more consistent success on the field, while skimping on marquee players, but they also suffer at the turnstile. But there is little evidence that a splurge in salaries would help either team increase their respective gate revenues. If they win, they attract a few more fans. If they lose, regardless of star players, they don't draw as well. The Marlins payed big salaries, won the World Series and still had modest attendance. They showed that buying a World Series isn't that hard, but doing it profitably is.
Posted by: DanC at Nov 12, 2008 10:41:42 AM
You know, it's always puzzled me before how those notorious ball hogs, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, between them pretty much brought the NBA back from the dead in the '80s. Amazing what a little bit of theory can do for you, thanks Tyler.
Posted by: The Sheep Nazi at Nov 12, 2008 10:47:41 AM
I think it is also somewhat incorrect to assume that becoming a ball hog is going to make someone of decent talent into a star who attracts national fame. Many fans appreciate that a guy scoring 20+ points per game while shooting 38% isn't all that special. (Antoine Walker comes to mind.)
diz makes an important point. One thing studying games more, and particularly studying the statistics of games and making a real attempt to understand what does and does not help teams win, has taught me, is that the idea that stars are more likely to be selfish "non-team" players is a myth. Yes, there are things players can do to help teams win that don't show up in the more common statistics and don't look flashy, and by the same token there are players who have gaudy common stats, but a closer look at their overall performance reveals some weakness in their game. But on the whole, fans tend to recognize much of this, and if anything have a tendency to go overboard dismissing gaudy stats, even when those stats correlate very strongly with winning games.
The fact is, for the most part, the superstars *are* the best team players (in the sense of who is doing the most to make the team better/win), and careful analysis bears it out. "team player" as a colloqualism refers to somebody who is merely better than their stats make them look. No serious fan would rather have some random "team" guy than LeBron James or Kevin Garnett on their team.
It's also true that team players often make champions, in the sense that under a cap system, you can only have so many big stars, and the difference between the best teams and the mediocre teams is sometimes not as much in their big stars, as in the quality of the supporting cast.
But the whole stars vs. team players thing is bs. It's a very rare star that isn't also one of the most valuable members of his team.
Posted by: michael e sullivan at Nov 12, 2008 11:07:42 AM
