JSM 2015
"Quantifying and Improving Referee Decision-Making in Sports"
Trey Causey
@treycausey
Acknowledgments
Bias across sports
- Altman: Premier League teams average 0.57 points more at home than away
- (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss)
- Home field advantage is huge -- mostly due to refs
Core of the problem
- Principals have goals
- They need agents to act on their behalf
- Incentives don't align
- Monitoring and sanctioning is costly
- ... and cognitive biases
What can be done?
How to provide feedback?
Overall technical comments
- GAMS/CV
- Out-of-sample predictions?
- Effect sizes, p-values, plots
- Inline figures
- Extrapolation to substantive outcomes