Does the coin toss determine the outcome
July 24, 2018 3:04 PM Subscribe
Does the winner of the NFL opening coin toss win the games more often? Which team has the highest win percent of the coin toss? Excluding any OT games.
I would think the toss has no impact on the games outcome. Even if Cleveland wins the toss it lost the game or New England lost the toss yet wins the game. But does a team have more luck at the toss than others? Does a record exist of winning the toss consecutively? Understanding the Visiting teams make the call.
I would think the toss has no impact on the games outcome. Even if Cleveland wins the toss it lost the game or New England lost the toss yet wins the game. But does a team have more luck at the toss than others? Does a record exist of winning the toss consecutively? Understanding the Visiting teams make the call.
It's worth noting that the 95% confidence interval on the statistics that General Malaise posted, is something in the region of 1.5%. (So if you were to rerun all the NFL seasons from 1999-2015 100 times, under the assumption that the probability of the team that won the coin toss winning the game was exactly 50%, you would expect about 95 of those runs to come out with results between 48.5% and 51.5%).
So while there might appear to be a very slight advantage, there's not a strong statistical argument that the advantage is real and not just a matter of blind chance.
posted by firechicago at 3:56 PM on July 24, 2018 [6 favorites]
So while there might appear to be a very slight advantage, there's not a strong statistical argument that the advantage is real and not just a matter of blind chance.
posted by firechicago at 3:56 PM on July 24, 2018 [6 favorites]
If you want a sport where the coin toss does have an impact, look into test cricket.
posted by biffa at 3:58 PM on July 24, 2018
posted by biffa at 3:58 PM on July 24, 2018
FWIW even in OT, where a lot of people assert that the game will depend on the outcome of a toss, it's only 55/45 in favor of the winner. It's a marginal impact there.
posted by mark k at 10:04 PM on July 24, 2018
posted by mark k at 10:04 PM on July 24, 2018
i would be interested to know if there is more data to determine home/away team toss win on the outcome.
posted by lescour at 10:19 PM on July 24, 2018
posted by lescour at 10:19 PM on July 24, 2018
Under the old sudden death NFL overtime rules the winner of the coin toss usually won the game (61% vs. 39%).
posted by kirkaracha at 2:59 PM on July 25, 2018
posted by kirkaracha at 2:59 PM on July 25, 2018
This thread is closed to new comments.
There are a million other variables at play, so this data set doesn't exactly answer the question adequately. I'd be interested if there's any more analysis of this.
posted by General Malaise at 3:43 PM on July 24, 2018 [5 favorites]