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College Football Rankings and Market Efficiency

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  • Ray Fair
  • John Oster

Abstract

The results in this paper show that various college football ranking systems have useful independent information for predicting the outcomes of games. Optimal weights for the systems are estimated, and the use of these weights produces a predictive system that is more accurate than any of the individual systems. The results also provide a fairly precise estimate of the size of the home field advantage. These results may be of interest to the Bowl Championship Series in choosing which teams to play in the national championship game. The results also show, however, that none of the systems, including the optimal combination, contains any useful information that is not in the final Las Vegas point spread. It is argued in the paper that this is a fairly strong test of the efficiency of the college football betting market.

Suggested Citation

  • Ray Fair & John Oster, 2002. "College Football Rankings and Market Efficiency," Yale School of Management Working Papers amz2377, Yale School of Management, revised 01 Aug 2007.
    • Handle: RePEc:ysm:wpaper:amz2377
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    File URL: https://repec.som.yale.edu/icfpub/publications/2377.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Trevon Logan, 2011. "Econometric tests of American college football's conventional wisdom," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(20), pages 2493-2518.
    2. Michael Sinkey & Trevon Logan, 2014. "Does the Hot Hand Drive the Market? Evidence from College Football Betting Markets," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 40(4), pages 583-603, September.
    3. Justin M. Ross & Sarah E. Larson & Chad Wall, 2012. "Are Surveys Of Experts Unbiased? Evidence From College Football Rankings," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 30(4), pages 502-522, October.

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    Keywords

    Football Rankings; Predictive Information;

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