MLB, NBA, and NFL Variance

Not the most interesting post in the world..  But, I figured I would go ahead and post it anyways.  Basically I was doing some statistics a little while back and I wanted to attempt to apply a semi-real world application for variance to the three major sports (in the USA), NFL, MLB, and the NBA.  I'm not certain if I actually did it correctly (And I didn't use very much data.)..  I don't really think the charts even provide much information, but here they are anyways.

I'm running into some time constraints, but I think I'm going to end up posting my NFL predictions a while before week 1, and then if there are any small changes I want to make, I'll just change them in a separate post.  I have a couple posts which only need to be quickly edited in order to post, so there will likely be more content in the next week or two.

	Variance	Average game differential from .500	Variance final result	Average game differential from .500	A smaller number means  less parody
NFL - AFC	185	47	0.72	2.9
NFL - NFC	111	36	0.43	2.3
NFL - Complete	296	83	0.58	2.6	0.16
NBA – West C	2438	174	1.98	11.6
NBA – East C	2083	160	1.69	10.6
NBA – Complete	4421	334	1.84	11.1	0.14
MLB - AL	1976	142	0.87	10.1
MLB - NL	2548	162	0.98	10.1
MLB - Complete	4524	304	0.93	10.1	0.06

Main things from the first table..  The most stable leagues, in order, in terms of variance, were: first the NBA, second the MLB, and third the NFL.  Also therefore the leagues with the most parody would simply be reversed.. Hence, NFL, MLB, and then the NBA. (I could be reading variance erroneously, the order may actually be reversed.. And plus it is quite possible that I did something incorrectly..  I think I should have prorated beforehand.. But, yet I don't know if they should have really been on an even playing field or not.  Overall, I don't entirely agree with what I think variance said was true.)

Average game differential from .500 made a bit more sense.  It, combined with the smaller number column (Which was an after-hand prorated version of variance), said that the MLB has very little parody, whilst the NFL has just slightly more parody than the NBA.  That I would agree with.

Average game differential from .500	NFL	NBA	MLB
NFL	2.6	2.2	1,0
NBA	13.1	11.1	4.9
MLB	25.9	22.7	10.1
Variance
NFL	296	863	447
NBA	1517	4421	2290
MLB	2997	8734	4524
NFL	0.58	1.69	0.87
NBA	0.62	1.80	0.93
MLB	0.62	1.80	0.93

The bottom 2/3rds of the chart do not really add much to anything, I am keeping them just in case they could be useful to me at some much later date.  But, the top part is a bit more interesting and just lists what things would be like in terms of differential from .500 if the leagues would hypothetically swap teams. (And those teams would play exactly the same in their new sport as their previous sport..  The likelihood of that is effectively equal to zero.)

As an example, if the teams in MLB were transposed to the NFL, then the average team differential from .500 would only be a one game difference over a given season.  While if the teams in the NFL were transposed over to the MLB, then there would be an extremely large gap between teams and a lot less parody, with an average of 25.9 games separating a team from .500.