Ethical quandary: Why do we make sports predictions and what are they supposed to prove anyway?

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SB50 predictionPrediction accountability is important. I’m borrowing a phrase here from Eric Single, my coworker at SI. For him it’s sort of like a catchphrase, as a quick Twitter search shows. Although I think he’s half-kidding.

Predictions are a staple in sports media. They’re in newspapers, magazines, websites, pre-game shows, podcasts and everywhere else. Whether you’re a reporter, analyst, writer, commentator, studio host or fan on Twitter, you make predictions. Before the season, before each week, before the playoffs, before the championship. Predictions, predictions, predictions.

Here’s something I’ve been wrestling with for a few years now: Why? What is the purpose of making a prediction?

I mean, I think we all know why. It’s because people want to prove how smart they are. People who want their opinions taken seriously want to be right, and they want to be right more often than anybody else. They also want the credibility that comes along with it.

It’s why I picked all 17 weeks of the SuperContest on Twitter even though I didn’t even join the actual contest. (Went 48-36-1, thank you very much.)

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Whenever I make a prediction, I always think about what the strategy is supposed to be. Am I supposed to tell people what I think will happen? Or am I supposed to pick what is statistically more likely to be correct and make me look good?

I tweeted about this before the baseball playoffs, because I always think about it then. For years, I’ve made my April World Series prediction with the same philosophy: Pick the two teams I think are most likely to win their division. Then come October, pick two division winners because picking a Wild Card is statistical suicide.

Midseason predictions (and pre-postseason predictions) open up new ethical gray areas because you typically already have predictions on record.

I don’t know if ethics is the right word—it’s probably too weighty— but let’s go with it. Let’s go with the train of thought that predictions are about credibility between a reporter/analyst and his/her audience. So when somebody offers a prediction they’re holding up their end of a social contract that the audience can trust it’s getting a real opinion.

So back to that ethical gray area.

I don’t think a lot of analysts really, truly, objectively tell you what they think will happen. I think a lot of times they spend the whole season stumping for their preseason picks, hoping to look smart at the end.

If a guy on X-pregame show has the Colts in the Super Bowl, he’s going to keep picking them every week, even as their season crumbles apart. Maybe it’s confirmation bias and he thinks he sees them turning it around. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking and he’s rooting for his own picks.

Maybe making an objective prediction is just really hard, particularly when predictions have manufactured a reason not to be objective.

Lots of times I’ll see a commentator go against his preseason pick, or the team he’s been riding all season, and get called out for it. They’re a flip-flopper, or they’re gutless.

That always bothers me. What do you want them to do? Are they supposed to stick with their pick from September just to show guts? Or are they supposed to use actual work and analysis to make an informed decision to share an expert opinion?

When somebody tunes into a Super Bowl pregame show, I assume they’d rather know who the expert picks, not who the expert picked in September.

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So after years of thinking about this, why do I bring it up now?

Because here we are on the morning of the NFL playoffs and my preseason pick is intact.


Steelers 27, Packers 20, Antonio Brown MVP.

So now what?

I think I’m “supposed” to make a prediction before the playoffs start. I still like the Steelers a lot, but I don’t think the Packers are going to sniff the Super Bowl. That said, if my Steelers/Packers prediction is right I’m sure as hell going to brag about it.

Here’s an honest question… If predictions are a skill that supposedly proves intelligence (or football knowledge, or whatever), then which makes you look smarter: Picking the Super Bowl before the season? Or picking it after you’ve seen the teams for 17 weeks?

If we acknowledge they both require some degree of both skill and luck, which takes more skill and which takes more luck? Would you be more impressed by somebody looking at two teams in August and guessing who’ll be good, who’ll stay healthy and who’ll survive the slog of the season? Or by the person who looks at the 12 remaining teams in January and identifies the two best? You can see both sides of the coin.

So let’s say hypothetically that I pick the Panthers over the Broncos (the two top seeds) today. Then I’m technically correct if it’s Panthers-Broncos or Steelers-Packers.

Is that cheating? Or hedging? Does anybody care? Why do we make predictions?

I’ll use Eric as an example again, because he provides a good one. Coincidentally, I’ve actually been making fun of him mercilessly in the office for a couple months. His preseason Super Bowl pick was Eagles-Ravens. Didn’t work out, but OK, fine. The bad part is that when the SI staff ran a midseason predictions roundtable, Eric doubled down and stayed with the Eagles (though he popped the Patriots in for the Ravens). Even though, as I told him, the Eagles were terrible.

But prediction accountability is important. And at least he wasn’t a gutless flip-flopper.

So I have three options today:

1) Not make a prediction

That’s no fun.

2) Double down

Let the original prediction ride. This would be done just out of stubbornness and ego, but it would make it more satisfying to be right.

3) Make a new prediction

Prove to myself and the world that I’m a good football-watcher-person, and that spending the last 17 weeks obsessing over the league has given me unique insight into who will win over the next month.

I was in a similar situation on Super Bowl Sunday two years ago.

Does anybody care? Probably not about my prediction, because I’m not famous. But people do care about predictions in general.

I spend a lot of time running SI’s main Twitter feed, and lots of that time hearing from angry fans. I remember hearing from Royals fans the night they clinched the division and the night they won the World Series because SI had picked them to miss the playoffs. Fans celebrated their championship by yelling at SI on Twitter.

Redskins fans are still mad “we” (it’s wasn’t me, mind you) picked them to win something like three games. People are mad SI had the Ravens winnings the Super Bowl and the Indians winning the World Series.

I think the two things sports fans love the most are when they’re right and when other people are wrong. And I’m not sure I have those two in the right order.

But we don’t have a right and a wrong unless we have the concept of predictions to begin with. I’m just not sure what a prediction is supposed to prove anyway.