ALLPARK FIGURE

Michael Coulter in The Sunday Age:

A watching brief: confessions of a sporting tragic

Comfortingly, or disturbingly, depending on your point of view, I'm not alone. More than 6.7 million people went to an AFL game in 2012, while in the past few weeks the top-rating shows in Australia were the AFL and NRL grand finals. Meanwhile, in the rest of the world, Americans buy upwards of 270 million tickets to sporting events each year, while England's Premier League is watched by 4.7 billion people in more than 600 million homes.

When you see "more than 6.7 million people went to an AFL game in 2012" do you think 6.7 million individuals attended an AFL match in 2012, or do you think 6.7 million is the gross gate for 2012 with many people attending multiple matches? Personally, I think it means exactly 3.85 million people went to two games each in 2012.

Comments

[Tony Tea]

I like this:

■American commentators are 50 to 100 per cent better than their Australian counterparts.

[Tony Tea]

And this:

■American commentators are 50 to 100 per cent better than their Australian counterparts.

[Professor Rosseforp]

I could guarantee that Australian Aussie Rules commentators are 50-100% better than American Aussie rules commentators -- if I had a reliable means of measuring sporting commentator performance.

I like "■Sport has nothing to do with fairness: it is designed so that the better player or team will win almost every time." -- I would refer the author of the article to the match-fixing system in the rugby league known as the "salary cap" (not sure if AFL works the same way), where teams are nobbled to make sure that either team could win on any day, but virtually no teams can draw a match ever. See also "Gambling in sport -- Connections to administration".

[Tony Tea]

Well, whaddaya know?!?!?!? I just noticed I posted the same comment twice. (If indeed you can "post the same comment twice. Does that mean I posted it three times?)

[Tony Tea]

I meant to post this dot point:

■Despite what commentators tell you, winning is not about ''wanting it more'', it's about being better than your opponent.

C&P Fail.

[Big Ramifications]

"The storm damage and power outages cost the Victorian economy 6 brazillion dollars."

Love it how storms many rungs below "disaster" status seem to cost so much money. Love to have a list of names of the blowhards who came up with the $figures for each event.

** Use data for the worst possible scenario.
** Multiply by 1.1
** Opportunity cost counts as actual money. Go silly with opportunity cost estimates.
** When in doubt, double count.