When most people think of athletes, they mainly believe that thinking is not a critical part of being an elite athlete. However, a recent CNN article highlighted a Swedish study that “suggests that elite soccer players outperform players in lower divisions in tests of certain cognitive abilities, and both groups bested the general public.” While this was a small study (only 57 male and 26 female Swedish professional soccer players), it does highlight an interesting idea that Block Six Analytics has started to examine as well. Athletes are continually becoming bigger, stronger, and faster than compared to their counterparts in the past. For example, the Washington Redskins offensive linemen called the “Hogs” anchored the team’s three Super Bowl Winning teams in the 1980s and 1990s. Hogs are not known for the svelteness and these massive players were not different weighing in at an average of 279 pounds. Yet the hogs would be considered lightweights in today’s NFL. Last year’s Green Bay Packers’ offensive linemen weighed an average 314 pounds.
Even as size and overall athletic performance continues to increase, the proliferation of strength and conditioning coaches as well as advances in nutrition and dietary habits (and performance enhancing drugs in some cases) make the differences between athletes increasingly small. In the NBA, the average player height is 6’6”. Yet, a player who is 6’8” is often considered too small to be a center or even power forward despite there is only a 5% difference in height between a 6’8” player and a 7’0” player. During the NFL Combine, running a 4.3 second 40-yard dash and running 4.6 second 40-yard dash (or a 7% difference) could earn a draft pick hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars. In baseball, a “power” pitcher throws 95 mph while pitchers who throw 90 mph need to focus on their “control”. Because the difference in athletes has become smaller, many professional sports organizations are making spending millions of dollars for only relative minor perceived or actual increases in performance.
Making larger bets on smaller differences is similar to what has caused many of the greatest financial disasters in American history. In 1998, a company with future Nobel Prize winning economists called Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM) almost caused global panic. Prior to 1998, the firm made been successful making bets on the fluctuations of different currencies that generated outsized annual returns (around 40%) for its investors. As more people discovered and employed LTCM’s strategies, the returns on these trades decreased. This required the firm to invest capital in much riskier transactions with smaller margins. The company went bankrupt and lost hundreds of millions dollars of investors money because it made a large bet on the increase in value of the Russian Rouble that failed after a default by the Russian government on its outstanding loans (meaning the currency rapidly declined in value). Because many of the nation’s largest investment banks had invested millions of dollars in LTCM, they also suffered huge losses. There were have been a global financial panic had the US government not stepped in to help these companies (does this action sound familiar to the bailouts of the financial services and automobile industries that are going on today?).
Unfortunately for sports organizations, it is unlikely that the government will bail them out if they keep making decisions primarily focused on athletic performance. Therefore, teams should examine new areas where they can gain competitive advantage when evaluating current and perspective players other than athletic performance. Identifying differences in intelligence and decision-making ability is likely to be an area where teams can receive significant return on investment. Teams that can identify athletes who are smarter and make better decisions, even if they are not superior athletic talents, will be able to make more cost-effective personnel decisions. For example, quarterbacks have the highest annual salary of any position in the NFL. Yet, an examination of the league’s best quarterbacks shows that most of the top-performers are not top-athletes. Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, Tom Brady, Philip Rivers, Matt Schaub, Eli Manning, Peyton Manning and Philip Rivers may be underrated for their athletic ability. However, it is difficult to argue that their athletic ability is the reason they are successful at their position. It is their ability to analyze the field and make quick, accurate decisions that has been the critical element to their success. A recent Grantland article about Gerald Greene supports this idea. While Green has always had superior athletic ability (he once dunked over a line of teammates during a high school dunk contest) his current success now comes from being a “student of the game”. He also said that “These guys at this level…are too smart” to allow someone with great athletic ability to become a star player without taking time to understand the game. Green, the ultimate athlete, has recognized how important intelligence, preparation, and analysis is to being a successful NBA player.
Numerous intelligence and decision-making tests are already on the market that teams and leagues can use to examine a potential player’s intelligence. For example, The NFL requires all draft picks to take The Wonderlic Cognitive Ability Test. A recent controversy emerged when it became public knowledge that LSU cornerback Morris Claiborne had scored a 4 out of 50 on his Wonderlic exam. On the Yahoo! blog Shutdown Corner, author MJD stated, “Why I know [Claiborne’s score], I'm not sure. Why I'd ever want to know it, I have no clue.” MJD is right in saying that the Claiborne’s Wonderlic score should not have been released to the public. However, there is significant value in knowing a player’s cognitive abilities especially related to decision-making ability. While it makes common sense to judge athletes on their athletic performance, sports organizations should think more about evaluating players on their intellectual ability.
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