Power Ranking for Sports Teams
In the late 2000s, a new ranking system, called Power Ranking, for sports teams starting increasing in popularity. This system is now extremely common as Power Rankings for all major sports are typically updated weekly. In football for example, the Power Rank algorithm, at the time the article was written, took into account only two factors, game score and home field advantage. Until Power Rank was created, teams were ranked solely on their win-loss record, however many sports analysts argue that this is not the best way to judge a team. For example, in this week’s ESPN: NFL Power Rankings, the New England Patriots are listed as number one, despite not having the best record, and the Dallas Cowboys are listed at number five, despite having only a 3-3 record. Nowadays, Power Rankings have evolved much from when they were solely determined by two parameters, as Ed Feng did in the article. For example, the Green Bay Packers dropped from number 2 to number 16 in the Power Rankings after a week 6 loss to their division rival Vikings. This significant of a drop due to one game seems unwarranted, however when you research the game, you can assume that this plummeting in the Power Ranking was mainly due to their starting quarterback suffering a likely year-ending broken collarbone injury. As one can see, the Power Ranking system has grown and evolved since its recent introduction into professional sports.
This elaborate Power Rank system was based off of Google’s PageRank algorithm. Power Rank is similar to PageRank in that teams represent the nodes and the games played represent the links between the nodes. A website’s PageRank is determined by the quantity and quality of websites that link to it. “For example, in PageRank, a website becomes highly ranked when other highly ranked websites link to it; similarly, teams earn their rank by beating other highly ranked teams.” Clearly, the idea behind PageRank has influenced many industries other than search engines, including athletics.
https://phys.org/news/2009-12-algorithm-sports-teams-google-pagerank.html