SportsMarch 11, 2016

Are the Warriors the most depressing team in the NRL? A Spinoff data project

Production editor

Is there a more depressing NRL team to support than the Warriors? A man who failed 6th form maths has developed a simple formula to find out.

The New Zealand Warriors’ season was barely 20 minutes old when an all-too-familiar anguish began to ripple through their fanbase. Trailing Wests Tigers 16-0 in a game they were firm favourites to win, it was in some ways a classic Warriors performance. Ever since the club’s arrival back in 1995, they seem to have had a knack for making their fans’ lives completely miserable; their minds a broiling mess of disappointment and dejection. By the final whistle, with a 26-34 loss in the book, the mood has solidified into one of grim resignation: here we go again.

This was only the first game of the season, and I know we shouldn’t read too much into it. But going back to last season, this was the Warriors’ 9th loss in a row. Last time they won an NRL game was July last year. That’s a pretty bad run.

But are the Warriors the most depressing team in the NRL to be a fan of? It sure can feel like Warriors fandom is an inescapable hell dungeon, but how do we prove it objectively? There are so many things that can make sports fans miserable, and a lot of them are intangible. Expectations, the way the club is managed, the stadium experience, the uniforms, just the general vibe – all these factors can contribute to NRL fan misery, and in this highly scientific data project we’re going to ignore them completely.

The main thing that makes any sports fans miserable is and always has been losing – or more precisely, not winning. You haven’t felt true hopelessness and despair until you’ve watched your team lose its 8th game in a row and genuinely wondered: will we ever win again? With this in mind I developed a simple formula to determine each NRL team’s Misery Rating over the course of a season.

Here’s how it works: misery points are designed to reflect the agony of consecutive losses. Teams aren’t punished if they lose one game, but if they lose again in the next round they incur 1 (one) misery point. For every consecutive week the team doesn’t win, misery points double – so 2 points for a 3-game losing streak, 4 for a 4-game streak, 8 for a 5-game streak etc. (A draw counts as a loss, and byes are ignored).

What about the playoffs? Playoff losses don’t count, but playoff wins do. Few things are more joyous and redemptive than a playoff win. For every playoff win a team deducts 4 (four) misery points from their Misery Rating. It is therefore possible for a club to end a season with a negative Misery Rating, indicating a successful season and that great sporting rarity: happy and satisfied fans.

Let’s apply the formula to the Warriors’ 2015 season. Their record looked like this:

LWWLLWLLWWWLLWWWLLLLLLLL

By round 19 they had only accrued 3 misery points. They were on track for a not-too-miserable season. But their 8 game slide to end the season was worth 64 misery points, and brought the Warriors’ 2015 Misery Rating to 67. Oh dear.

Compare that to 2011, when the Warriors made the Grand Final. Their regular season record looked like this:

LLLWWLWWWWWLLLLWWWWLWWLW

That’s a Misery Rating of 6 at the end of the regular season. The 6th-placed Warriors actually lost in the first round of the playoffs, but under the old McIntyre system they got another crack, and won the next two to make the Grand Final. That knocks 8 misery points off to give them a final 2011 Misery Rating of -2. Pretty good.

If we apply this formula to every team we should be able to get a clearer picture of fan misery across the NRL. These are the NRL’s most objectively depressing teams of the past five years:

NRL Misery Points by Season, 2011-2015

1 Eels (Misery Rating: 29.2) 2011: 37 2012: 24 2013: 69 2014: 7 2015: 9

2 Warriors (28.6) 2011: -2 2012: 66 2013: 7 2014: 5 2015: 67

3 Raiders (24.8) 2011: 82 2012: -1 2013: 19 2014: 15 2015: 9

4 Sharks (22.6) 2011: 74 2012: 8 2013: 0 2014: 30 2015: 1

5 Tigers (18.8) 2011: -1 2012: 13 2013: 49 2014: 18 2015: 15

6 Titans (17.2) 2011: 24 2012: 11 2013: 6 2014: 32 2015: 13

7 Dragons (15.8) 2011: 9 2012: 6 2013: 23 2014: 8 2015: 33

8 Knights (15.2) 2011: 7 2012: 10 2013: -2 2014: 34 2015: 27

9 Panthers (9) 2011: 11 2012: 13 2013: 10 2014: -2 2015: 13

10 Broncos (3.4) 2011: -6 2012: 18 2013: 7 2014: 5 2015: -7

11 Roosters (1.2) 2011: 12 2012: 6 2013: -11 2014: -1 2015: 0

12 Cowboys (1.2) 2011: 2 2012: -2 2013: 12 2014: 2 2015: -8

13 Bulldogs (0) 2011: 6 2012: -6 2013: 5 2014: -5 2015: 0

14 Storm (0) 2011: -3 2012: -4 2013: 3 2014: 4 2015: 0

15 Rabbitohs (-0.6) 2011: 7 2012: -2 2013: -3 2014: -9 2015: 4

16 Sea Eagles (-1.4) 2011: -12 2012: -1 2013: -5 2014: 0 2015: 11

As you can see, the bad news is that the Warriors are objectively the second most depressing team to be a fan of in the whole NRL. The good news is that the poor old folk at Pirtek Stadium have had it even worse – the Parramatta Eels are the one team in the NRL with a worse Misery Rating than the Warriors.

THIS MAN'S FEELINGS ARE MATHEMATICALLY ACCURATE. PHOTO / GETTY — THIS MAN’S FEELINGS ARE MATHEMATICALLY ACCURATE. PHOTO / GETTY

The high level of misery in Western Sydney can be traced back to the club’s dire stretch from 2011-13, while the Warriors’ Misery Rating stems largely from the fact that they are the only team in the NRL to have suffered an 8-game losing streak twice in the past five seasons – it happened in 2012.

Only three other teams can claim to have known the true misery of an 8-game losing streak in recent years – the Raiders (2011), Sharks (2011) and Eels (2014). The Raiders’ was part of the most depressing single season during this timeframe – in 2011 they suffered both an 8-game and a 6-game losing streak in the same year.

It looks bad, but all the Warriors’ Misery Rating really proves is that they have tortured their fans worse than almost any other team lately. We can now acknowledge that fact and move on.

What the Warriors’ Misery Rating doesn’t tell us is the future. The beautiful (or cruel, depending on how you look at it) thing about sports misery is that the slate gets wiped clean at the start of every new season. The Warriors are yet to register a single misery point in 2016. [Update 11:53pm: the Warriors only have a mere 1 (one) misery point so far in 2016]

Keep going!

during the first women’s Twenty20 international match between the New Zealand White Ferns and the Australian Southern Stars at Westpac Stadium on February 26, 2010 in Wellington, New Zealand.

OPINIONSportsMarch 9, 2016

How to get more people to watch women’s sports

Madeleine Chapman

Editor

during the first women’s Twenty20 international match between the New Zealand White Ferns and the Australian Southern Stars at Westpac Stadium on February 26, 2010 in Wellington, New Zealand.

Why are so many women’s sports played in near-empty stadiums? Madeleine Chapman suggests some big changes to bring in more fans.

Over the weekend I took a bus to Tauranga to watch the first of three tournaments aimed at deciding the best women’s basketball team in New Zealand. The event was held at ASB Baypark Arena, a huge sporting complex designed to seat big crowds for multiple games at once. I was with a bunch (nine) of my relatives because we had cousins/daughters in the Wellington team. At each game, we made up at least 60% of the crowd.

It’s not like the basketball was bad. There were a lot of great players. It’s just no-one was there to see them. My aunties are famous for being very vocal towards the referees during games. Last weekend they had intimate conversations with the ref every time a foul was or wasn’t called. Typically by the end of each game, the stands would start to fill up a little. But it was just the next batch of teams arriving early before their games. And so it was there, sitting in a huge stand, surrounded by empty seats, that I tried to figure out why people just aren’t interested in watching women play sport.

I thought about Valerie Adams. She and Tom Walsh can both throw the shot put over 20 metres and it’s bloody impressive. It’s equally exhilarating to see their power and strength in action.

But if we gave Valerie a men’s shot put – 7.7kg instead of the women’s 4kg – and she threw it considerably less than 20m, it just wouldn’t be as exciting, despite showcasing the same power and strength.

Therein lies the problem with some women’s sports. We have tried to practice gender equality in a number of codes, particularly cricket, basketball, and rugby, and have only been rewarded with small crowds and little-to-no interest. What women’s sport needs more than equality is equity; for watching women play to feel equal to watching men.

The WNBA has become moderately successful thanks to a major boost from their affiliated men’s league, the NBA. But even with all the sponsorship and media, the women’s league doesn’t bring in the numbers to be even closely comparable .

There’s a simple explanation. Basketball players love to watch the Spurs go through a set play, executed perfectly with fluid ball movement, and finish with a soft touch off the glass from Timmy D. But most viewers would rather see LeBron James rudely put his crotch in another man’s face while dunking on him.

DENVER, CO - DECEMBER 29: LeBron James #23 of the Cleveland Cavaliers goes up for a dunk against the Denver Nuggets at Pepsi Center on December 29, 2015 in Denver, Colorado. The Cavaliers defeated the Nuggets 93-87. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Doug Pensinger/Getty Images) — Crowd pleaser (Photo by Doug Pensinger/Getty Images)

Put simply, the men’s game has something to offer that the women’s game can’t compete with.

Tennis is an exception. Few sports have successfully navigated the gender terrain as well as that game, and it’s no surprise that seven of the 10 highest earning female athletes of last year were tennis players. Sadly, the blonde, short skirt wearing may be a factor, but for the sake of my sanity I will say that it is also because the dimensions and equipment in tennis are perfect. Everything is just the right size. The fact that there is such a thing as mixed doubles is proof enough. Can you imagine a mixed game of basketball or a mixed game of international cricket?

Tennis has cracked the gender code (Photo: Getty Images)

Yet even in the game of tennis where everything is so beautifully equal, men play five sets and women play three. And it works. People don’t scoff at Serena Williams because she plays fewer sets than the men. They sit back and enjoy her astounding athleticism within a shorter game.

Golf found the one area where women struggled against men – the long drive – and moved the tee-off mark forward because it makes perfect sense. It’s not patronising, it’s smart.

The playing field needs to be evened before the players set foot on it, not explained away after nobody has watched them play.

I watched the White Ferns beat Australia in a Twenty20 match at the Basin last weekend. There was one six hit the whole game. Now I know for a fact that women can hit sixes. I’ve seen it happen many times off my own bowling. And I could argue until I am blue in the face that it’s far more impressive for a woman to hit a six because the bowling is a lot slower and so the ball connects with the bat at a much lower velocity, requiring far more power to hit the ball over blah blah blah. But if you just watched two of the best teams in the world play a Twenty20 and hit one six between them, my ranting probably wouldn’t convince you to tune in next time.

A great dismissal that nobody saw (Photo: Getty Images)

The fact that a lot of people watch netball proves they do enjoy watching women play sport. Netball is in the wonderfully unique position of not having to compete with a male equivalent. Who knows what would happen if men started playing the sport professionally. Perhaps they would be in a similar position to some female teams now; struggling to keep up and perform within rules and structures clearly designed for the opposite sex.

If women’s cricket and basketball want to see viewing numbers increase, something needs to change. While some sporting bodies (sorry, pun) have capitalised on their athletes’ aesthetics, for others it may merely be a case of modifying the women’s game so that the action is on par with the men’s.

Lower the basketball hoop to nine feet. Take 10 grams off the cricket ball and bring the boundaries in so that most women can throw the ball into the keeper on the full. Make small changes so viewers don’t feel that the women’s game is lacking in comparison.

No-one cares that Valerie Adams throws a lighter shot put than the men. They care that she throws it just as far.