When people think about betting markets, it typically evokes feelings of either fun and excitement or fears of addiction and loss. Where betting markets are unambiguously valuable, however, is in conveying information about the future. The following dashboard presents some valuable information about week 1 games in the NFL. As we anxiously await live sports to return, I’ve created a “Watchability Index” for the week 1 games based upon betting market point spreads and totals for the week 1 games and the season win totals (over/unders) heading into the season. All of these “prices” are taken from Heritage Sports Book and are active wagers that could be placed by bettors.
For those without much background in betting markets, the point spread is how much one team is favored over the other team. Similarly, the totals market (over/under market) is the posted combined number of points scored by both teams where a bettor may choose to wager on the over (more points will be scored) or the under (fewer points will be scored). Season win totals are proposition bets based upon the regular season. They work just like the total (over/under) mentioned above, except the bettor is wagering on if the team will win more games than the posted win total (over) or fewer games than the posted win total (under). Under conditions of market efficiency, which is assumed and generally has been shown to be reasonable in empirical research, these prices represent forecasts of game (or season) outcomes.
This information can be combined to peer into the future and think about what games are the most “Watchable” games for week 1. The top visualization in the dashboard shows the absolute value of the point spread (simply noted as “Line”) on the horizontal axis and the total (over/under) on the vertical axis. Additionally, the sum of the win totals (home team plus road team) is noted by color with yellow being the highest sums and red being the lowest sums. The shape reveals the start day and time of the game (legend in lower right of this visualization).
What types of NFL games people like can differ, but I’ll assume based upon my own and others’ research that fans generally prefer games that are expected to be close and high scoring. Preferring to watch close games (especially if a fan does not have a strict rooting interest for their team in the game) directly relates to the uncertainty of outcome hypothesis where games between evenly matched teams are likely to be more interesting and exciting to viewers. Also, higher scoring games are typically more exciting to the average fan, especially with intense interest growing in fantasy football through both regular leagues and daily fantasy games (i.e. Draft Kings, Fan Duel, etc.). The upper left-hand quadrant reveals the games that are expected to both be close and high scoring. Among this group of games, it appears Tampa Bay at New Orleans and Dallas at the LA Rams are two of the best games on the slate as each also appears yellow in terms of its color. Whereas the combined season win totals of Tampa Bay and New Orleans is higher than Dallas and the LA Rams, the Dallas/LAR game is expected to be slightly higher in terms of scoring.
Moving rightward to the upper right-hand quadrant, these are games that are expected to be high scoring, but not especially close. Both defending champion Kansas City and Baltimore are big favorites in week 1 as they are expected to be among the top teams in the league again. Even though they are big favorites, their opponents (Houston and Cleveland) are not expected to be poor teams, as is evidenced by the yellow/orange color of the representative symbols. The star power in this game for KC and Baltimore (i.e. Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson) may make these games even more enticing for some fans, as the draw of these players and their offensive prowess make these high priority viewing.
The lower quadrants are not-quite as enticing games. My assumption is, all else equal, fans would prefer close lower scoring games to less-close lower scoring games, so they are likely to prefer the lower left-hand quadrant games to the lower right-hand quadrant. My vote for the least-enticing game to watch (which I still plan to have on one of my many screens during opening week) is the New York Jets at Buffalo Bills game, where Buffalo is a considerable favorite (for the NFL) and it has the lowest expected scoring on the docket.
Below the main visualization are simple bar charts showing the expected season win totals for both the home and road teams in week 1. In addition to the size of the bar, the color illustrates teams which are expected to be more successful in the 2020 season with darker colors noting higher win totals. Hope you enjoy the information the betting market conveys and can use the dashboard to help you determine what game(s) you plan on watching (or how many new TVs you may want to order).
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