Mike,
My Good Lord,
Would prediction market journalism (that is, showing to the normal people on the street that prediction markets can help understand better baseball games, or whatever else, on top of being fun and pure) fit your criteria of non-bogosity and interestingness?
–
Maybe. I’ll have to think about what I consider non-bogus and interesting before I reopen the offer.
I doubt individual baseball games would be interesting, but just maybe fire-the-CEO-manager markets could be.
@Mike Linksvayer: Baseball prediction markets would be interesting for people, since they like baseball. You’d show them probabilities for what matter to *them*.
How about a compromise: a fire-the-general-manager market. One market price pays off if the team makes the MLB play-offs with the same manager as it started the season with; another market pays off if the team makes the MLB play-offs, but fires the manager during the season. The difference in prices should reflects the gain (or loss) in the expected probability of making the play-offs that would come from firing the current general manager.
.
One general manager has already been replaced this season, and Sports Illustrated suggests that another seven are at risk: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.c…..gmhotseat/
Michael, not sure what that’s a compromise over, but that’s exactly what I was attempting to say in a few words at the end of the comment above. Seems like a natural for a sports betting house to take on, though I suppose a think tank could engage with a sports betting house as an educational/outreach project.
@Michael Giberson: Mike, that’s what I had thought Robin Hanson should do. I have always thought that.
@Mike Linksvayer: Finally, some sanity.
I love the playoffs give manager fired concept. But my endorsement probably isn’t the limiting factor here …
Mike Giberson, what does Robin Hanson mean in his second sentence? Please.
@Mike Linksvayer: sorry, I read you too quickly, and thought only that you were endorsing Robin Hanson’s CEO idea.
.
I don’t know enough about the career paths of baseball general managers to guess whether the idea would work. Presumably the managers most likely to be fired during the season would be those of teams that no longer have a chance of making the playoffs. It seems like it would be a risky move for an owner to take a team that has some chance of making the playoffs, and fire the GM because the owner thinks someone else might be better capable of getting to the playoffs.
.
What I’m saying is that it may be the case that teams with a chance at the playoffs don’t fire GMs, but teams that no longer have any chance often do. The set of “making the playoffs” conditional on “firing the GM” may be empty.
.
Maybe someone who follows baseball management would have some ideas. Do we have any sports economists among the readers willing to opine on the topic?
There was supposed to be a strikethrough over “CEO” but that attribute doesn’t seem to stick in comments, so the intent would be easy to miss.
Anyway, I understand that (U.S.) football coaches have more impact on team success than baseball managers because there is more room for strategy, but then I guess a “General Manager” is more of a business than an on-field coach position. In that case a GM’s impact might be more long term such that one might want to know if a team will make the playoffs next year contingent on the GM being fired.
Related post:
If the British legal betting companies offer bets on the sport, it is because there is demand for bets on the sport —and if that demand were not offered in a regulated environment, it would be filled in an unregulated one (like what we see with TradeSports-InTrade and MatchBook in the United States of Arbitrary Morals).
http://www.midasoracle.org/200…..s-betting/
To come back to Mike Linksvayer’s comment, let me disagree. I think that a series of great, rich posts on baseball prediction markets containing:
– baseball news
– charts of baseball prediction markets
– an explainer on how prediction markets work
– some science-based betting advice
… would raise more than awareness for prediction markets among baseball fans, provided that we are able to prove that prediction markets can bring something of value than other publications can’t.
Maybe. I’ll have to think about what I consider non-bogus and interesting before I reopen the offer.
I doubt individual baseball games would be interesting, but just maybe fire-the-CEO-manager markets could be.
@Mike Linksvayer: Baseball prediction markets would be interesting for people, since they like baseball. You’d show them probabilities for what matter to *them*.
How about a compromise: a fire-the-general-manager market. One market price pays off if the team makes the MLB play-offs with the same manager as it started the season with; another market pays off if the team makes the MLB play-offs, but fires the manager during the season. The difference in prices should reflects the gain (or loss) in the expected probability of making the play-offs that would come from firing the current general manager.
.
One general manager has already been replaced this season, and Sports Illustrated suggests that another seven are at risk: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.c…..gmhotseat/
Michael, not sure what that’s a compromise over, but that’s exactly what I was attempting to say in a few words at the end of the comment above. Seems like a natural for a sports betting house to take on, though I suppose a think tank could engage with a sports betting house as an educational/outreach project.
@Michael Giberson: Mike, that’s what I had thought Robin Hanson should do. I have always thought that.
@Mike Linksvayer: Finally, some sanity.
I love the playoffs give manager fired concept. But my endorsement probably isn’t the limiting factor here …
Mike Giberson, what does Robin Hanson mean in his second sentence? Please.
@Mike Linksvayer: sorry, I read you too quickly, and thought only that you were endorsing Robin Hanson’s CEO idea.
.
I don’t know enough about the career paths of baseball general managers to guess whether the idea would work. Presumably the managers most likely to be fired during the season would be those of teams that no longer have a chance of making the playoffs. It seems like it would be a risky move for an owner to take a team that has some chance of making the playoffs, and fire the GM because the owner thinks someone else might be better capable of getting to the playoffs.
.
What I’m saying is that it may be the case that teams with a chance at the playoffs don’t fire GMs, but teams that no longer have any chance often do. The set of “making the playoffs” conditional on “firing the GM” may be empty.
.
Maybe someone who follows baseball management would have some ideas. Do we have any sports economists among the readers willing to opine on the topic?
There was supposed to be a strikethrough over “CEO” but that attribute doesn’t seem to stick in comments, so the intent would be easy to miss.
Anyway, I understand that (U.S.) football coaches have more impact on team success than baseball managers because there is more room for strategy, but then I guess a “General Manager” is more of a business than an on-field coach position. In that case a GM’s impact might be more long term such that one might want to know if a team will make the playoffs next year contingent on the GM being fired.
Related post:
If the British legal betting companies offer bets on the sport, it is because there is demand for bets on the sport —and if that demand were not offered in a regulated environment, it would be filled in an unregulated one (like what we see with TradeSports-InTrade and MatchBook in the United States of Arbitrary Morals).
http://www.midasoracle.org/200…..s-betting/
To come back to Mike Linksvayer’s comment, let me disagree. I think that a series of great, rich posts on baseball prediction markets containing:
– baseball news
– charts of baseball prediction markets
– an explainer on how prediction markets work
– some science-based betting advice
… would raise more than awareness for prediction markets among baseball fans, provided that we are able to prove that prediction markets can bring something of value than other publications can’t.