Tag: NCAA

Good OM Reading: Using LP to Schedule NCAA Basketball Tournament Games

What could be more timely than an article in the Journal of the Operations Research Society called “Team Assignments and Scheduling for the NCAA Basketball Tournament.”  The paper, by U. of Alabama professors S.H. Melouk and B.B. Keskin, provides a wonderful example to use in class when you teach linear programming, in Module B.

The authors write: “The buzz of the tournament and the fanatical behavior of the followers of the participating teams serve as our motivation to examine and develop a team assignment model that maintains the integrity of the tournament while also attempting to place teams closer to their campus location, thus making it easier for both fans and teams to travel to the game sites. Observation of game venues shows a decrease in the actual attendance at early round tournament games. In 2010, actual attendance at the early round game sites was, on average, 83.5% of capacity. This statistic is surprisingly low. A likely contributing factor is the long distances that fans must travel to attend games.”

The growing NCAA concern is travel expenses of the participating teams, as the NCAA reimburses each team for their travel to tournament games. Given there are 68 tournament teams, it is a significant expense to transport the players, their equipment, and coaching staffs to game sites. In an effort to curb expenses, the NCAA  requires a minimum distance of 350 miles from a game site before air travel is reimbursable.

The article describes the development of an integer LP program designed to optimize team assignments in the sense of minimizing the total distance travelled by teams to game sites. Results of testing the model against actual tournament assignments  show consistent and significant cost savings and reductions in distance travelled. In fact, 28,202 travel miles were saved in 2010 with use of the LP model.

 

OM in the News: Incentives at Auburn U.’s Football Program

We received so many comments and emails about our blog on NFL Sports Incentives a few weeks ago that we decided to follow-up by looking at how Auburn U. head football coach Gene Chizik did after leading his team to a BCS National Championship. Auburn, which finished the season 14-0 knocked off the #2  U. of Oregon team on Jan. 10, 22-19 ( just in case you were one of the few people  in the country not watching the game).

It turns out Chizik did quite well. In addition to his $2.1 million base salary (which, sadly, is less than 6 other coaches in the SEC, but more than I made in my whole academic career), he had already earned an extra $500,000 for hitting 4 of his incentive targets: 13 wins, an SEC title, SEC Coach of the Year, and a BCS bowl appearance.

He also receives $150,000/year for 5 years to help pay the $750,000 buyout he owes Iowa State U. for departing before his contract ended there.

According to Bloomberg (Jan. 11, 2011), Chizik also made the final incentive of $600,000 by winning the national title, claiming 14 victories, and finishing in the Top 5 in the final AP poll.

Chizik did miss the $150,000 that was attached to his program reaching a score of 1,000 on the annual Academic Progress Rate for student athletes. Nor did he get the $50,000 bonus for a score of 950. The team had a 915 on its most recent evaluation.

How much were the Auburn players paid? The answer, of course, was $0. According to the NCAA website, “Student athletes are students first and athletes second. They are not university employees who are paid for their labor.”

Discussion questions:

1. Are incentives a good idea for professional athletes? For coaches?

2. Are there ethical considerations?