Infojocks: Working out a formula.

When starting to answer the question of "Who is the true City of Champions?" it was important to find a way to equate different sports championships in different eras with each other. Because of the huge number of variables that would appear to make some championships worth more than others, the development of a formula was necessary to provide a way to level the playing field. The issues that needed to be resolved were as follows:

1. What leagues should be used?
The big four, sure. But what about the Canadian football league? What about the WNBA and the MLS?

2. What year should we start in?
The graphic should be about the modern era. All those championships the Montreal Canadiens and New York Yankees won when there were less than ten teams in the league shouldn't count, right? There wasn't even free agency back then.

3. What defines success?
What defines championship caliber success? Surely, winning it all. And being the runner-up. What else? Divisions? Playoffs?

After defining the problem, the next step would be answering these questions. After a lot of deliberation and careful analysis, these were the answers.

1. Use just the Big Four.
After taking a look at the stability of franchises, as well as attendance and revenue figures, the NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL easily distinguish themselves as being in a category all to their own. The most recent team to fold in these four leagues were the NHL's Cleveland Barons way back in 1976, a mark of consistency and success.

2. Start in 1967.
With the playing of the first NFL-AFL Championship game in 1967, for the first time, one legitimate champion was crowned in all four major sports. League expansion would follow immediately after, with all four leagues stretching out west. A year later, the NHL doubled it's 'Original Six' teams, and in 1977 the NBA swallowed up the ABA to solidify it's hold and expand it's size. We saw this as the start of the modern era in sports, with free agency, balanced play, and league parity.

3. Points for championships, playoffs, and winning seasons.
With the other considerations figured out, the biggest question was to decide on how to reward the points. Because winning championships in different leagues in different times should mean more, we developed a way of awarding the appropriate number of points for successful season. It should be noted that we did not award any points for divisional championships. The size, alignment, and strength of divisions has shifted so many times in the four leagues that there was no way to reconcile those differences in a way that was fair to all franchises. However, since divisional crowns have always been automatic qualification for the playoffs, we are comfortable letting the points won for playoff qualification replace the points not awarded for divisional crowns.

Championships.
Points for winning the Stanley Cup in 1966 and the Lombardi Trophy in 2008 can’t be awarded the same points when the NHL only had 6 teams then and the NFL now has 32. We award points for a championship equal to the number of teams in the league for that year. Being a runner up in a given year is awarded half points.

Playoff qualifiers.
Making the playoffs in the 1980 MLB where only four teams make the postseason should be weighted differently than the 2008 NBA and NHL where over half the teams make it. We award points for making the postaseason that are weighted depending on how many teams make the playoffs in that league in that year.

Winning seasons.
This was actually the easiest out of them all. In any league, in any season, a winning season is a winning season. Making it above .500 is rewarded the same points in any year.

Be sure to check back in the next few days as we show how we've taken this raw data and started to develop ways of illustrating it. In the meantime, check out our earlier posts about the development of this graphic: