Last dance

Growing up, Keats was on my Leaving Cert English. One of the poems I loved was Ode on a Grecian Urn. It’s a lovely poem and the last few words are “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,that is all you know on earth, and all you need to know.”
 

That’s what I mean. He epitomises physical beauty in the way he plays and for anything we see that is beautiful in life we always feel there is a certain truth in it. It is an exposing of truth and that’s why people love sport. 
 

In a world of greys where nothing is clear, sport is clear. Sport defines stuff. We get winners and losers, villains and heroes. We get beautiful and ugly. He is the closest definition to beautiful as you can imagine playing any sport. Ali in his prime would have been a beautiful way to watch boxing. Definitely.
 

Roger also reminds me of a super hero in comic books. Real super heroes like Superman; even when he is under extreme pressure he never looks fully extended. If there is an avalanche or he has to lift up a mountain, he never looks like he is straining. 
 

He lifts the mountain with one hand. He never sweats. That’s Federer: you never feel that he is fully, fully extended. You always feel there is something left in reserve.
 

That's Mario Rosenstock on Roger Federer ahead of last weekend's Australian Open showdown with Rafael Nadal.

I stayed up until 5:30am watching the match. I had not seen near peak Federer and Nadal play in ages, and I'd given up hope that it would ever happen again. It felt like a privilege, a one time entry pass to a time machine that would take me to see two greats clash in their prime. I had some caffeine, to which I'm very sensitive, and plopped down in front of my TV for the night.

Perhaps they are a step slower than before. No one would expect anything less given their ages and accumulated wear and tear. And yet, to my eye, they seemed as good as ever.

I agree with Rosenstock that Federer's chief appeal has always been the aesthetic elegance of his game. Every shot of his seems choreographed for slow motion in an art gallery, like a piece of Bill Viola video art. That he never seems rushed or over-exerted implies that when you master the physical action of something, it becomes easy, not just in practice but in form. 

I disagree that Federer has never been fully extended, though. While his physical movements have never seemed strained, it is Nadal above all who has pushed Federer past his redline. I'll never forget the time Federer cried, after losing the 2009 Australian Open to Nadal, another match I stayed up all night to watch. Nadal owns a 23-12 edge vs. Federer head to head, but more than that numeric edge it's the way he's beaten Roger, almost physically overpowering him, to the point where he's seemed to break Federer's will. Rarely do you see Federer concede sets or go on strategic tilt, except vs. Nadal.

It's such a stylistic contrast, Nadal with almost no strokes that seem as effortless as any shot in Federer's arsenal (watch the highlights from their match and note that Nadal grunts after each stroke while Federer never makes a sound except for the occasional squeak of his sneakers). Every shot Nadal hits seems to require his full exertion, none more so than his forehand, which he hits with more topspin than anyone has ever hit a forehand . His follow through is so severe, the racket whipping up over his head and then back down over his opposite shoulder like a priest trying to whip himself on the back, that even without seeing the RPM statistics it is easy to believe they are unmatched in history.

It is that forehand, aimed at Federer's backhand wing, that has been decisive in so many of their matches. The one handed backhand is beautiful, especially Federer's, but it's a stroke uniquely vulnerable to shots with extreme topspin. Because of the way the human body is engineered, it is difficult to handle high balls, but the alternative, to stand closer and try to take those shots earlier off the bounce, requires incredible timing, strength, and coordination.

That's what was so incredible about Federer's win last weekend. In the past, he'd often shank backhands trying to handle Nadal's forehand, but in this match, I've never seen him hit his backhand so cleanly and aggressively. He sometimes won exchanges in which Nadal hit forehands at his backhand repeatedly (see for example the exchange that starts at 5:37 in this video), something that seemed unimaginable in the past.

More importantly, Federer finally changed tactice. Watch the highlights and look at where Federer's feet are in each exchange. Right up against the baseline. Now go back and watch Federer play Nadal in the French Open in 2007, to take an earlier confrontation between the two, and stare at Federer's feet again. He's several feet behind the baseline. He was taking backhands on the rise off the court, and whether it was his new, larger racket, which he switched to in recent years, or just improved timing, he was hitting the backhand as clean and as hard as he's ever hit it.

Commentators have long remarked that they'd love to see him switch up his strategy to challenge Nadal, his nemesis. Attack more second serves, approach net more, anything but trade with Nadal from the baseline. He did some of that in the Aussie Open final, but quite he was the aggressor while staying at the baseline. It was a surprise. The faster courts in Melbourne helped, but to switch things up at age 35 required, most of all, a fluidity of mind. What is it they say about old dogs and new tricks?

The chief obstacle to seeing them meet like this again is probably their health, and so I hope they start taking more extended breaks between the majors to rest rather than work themselves to death in practice or in other tourneys on the circuit. They've done the grind in the past. What we want now are just the peaks.

Buying shares of people

Fantex, Inc. announced today that it has entered into brand contracts with five Major Leaguers: Phillies third baseman Maikel Franco, Astros right-hander Collin McHugh, Orioles second baseman Jonathan Schoop, Twins right-hander Tyler Duffey and Padres third baseman Yangervis Solarte (as noted on BusinessWire.com).
 

Fantex offers professional athletes an up-front, one-time payment in exchange for a portion of that player’s future earnings both on and off the field. Fantex then sells “shares” of that player to public investors for a set price (thus covering the up-front payment to the player), allowing those investors to turn a profit if said player crosses a certain threshold in his career earnings. Obviously, that creates risk for the investors, who stand to take a financial loss if the player fails to earn enough money in his career to justify the shareholders’ investment. Angels left-hander Andrew Heaney became the first player to enter into an agreement with Fantex last September, taking a $3.34MM up-front payment in exchange for 10 percent of his future earnings. (Notably, the league and the MLBPA each approved that agreement, and Fantex’s announcement seemingly suggests that the same is true of these five agreements.)
 

Hmm. I wonder if this becomes more widespread. I'd heard this idea proposed before but never heard of Fantex. Purchasing shares of Jennifer Lawrence just after you'd seen her in Winter's Bone might feel like scoring a Mantle rookie card, back when baseball cards still had real scarcity (and thus value).

Optimal pricing for bread and circuses

A survey (pdf) by Anthony Krautmann and David Berri has found that most fans in many popular sports pay less for their tickets than conventional economic theory would predict.
 

Which poses the question: are team owners therefore irrational?
 

Not necessarily. There are (at least?) four justifications for such apparent under-pricing.
 

Lots of things in the real world are underpriced. Most popular concerts and sporting contests lose some volume of revenue to aftermarket transactions on sites like StubHub and SeatGeek. It's nearly impossible to get a reservation at some of the most popular restaurants in San Francisco like State Bird Provisions. There's a waiting list for NOMA Sydney that's 27,000 people long.

If you were pricing to maximize revenue, to match supply and demand exactly, you'd boost prices or perhaps auction off all the seats. What would NOMA Sydney have to charge until its waiting list dropped to zero? I can't even begin toguess, but would it surprise you if it was well north of $2,000 a head for dinner?

Given all of that, I was curious to see what this author thought might explain football ticket underpricing.

The first argument is that underpricing tickets leaves more revenue to be gathered through ancillary sales like souvenirs or overpriced concessions. Without data, I'm skeptical. My instinct is that concession and souvenir sales are less elastic with ticket prices than hypothesized.

The second point is that it's better to have a full stadium for team morale and to influence the officiating. But again, you could sell tickets via a mechanism like a Dutch Auction and maximize revenue while still filling the stadium.

The other two arguments are more convincing.

Thirdly, higher ticket prices can have adverse compositional effects: they might price out younger and poorer fans but replace them with tourists – the sort who buy those half-and-half scarves and should, therefore be shot on sight. This increases uncertainty about longer-term revenues: a potentially life-long loyal young supporter is lost and a more fickle one is gained. It also diminishes home advantage: refs are more likely to give dodgy decisions in front of thousands of screaming Scousers than in front quiet Japanese tourists.
 

I went to a couple games at the old Chicago Stadium, during Jordan's early years with the Bulls, and that place was loud. When they moved to the United Center and the ticket prices went way up, the crowd felt different. More wealthy, and definitely not as loud. It could just be the acoustics of the new space, but anecdotally, I saw fewer fans standing and screaming. Also, the rise of the smartphone means more of the dead moments in a game are filled with people scrolling on their phones, quietly.

Fourthly, high ticket prices can make life harder for owners. They raise fans’ expectations: if you’re spending £50 to see a game you’ll expect better football than if you spend just £10: I suspect that a big reason why Arsene Wenger has been criticised so much in recent years is not so much that Arsenal’s performances have been poor but because high prices have raised expectations. 
 

It's hard to lower prices. Some sports teams may have done it at some point, but I've never seen it. You can raise prices when the team is good and on the rise, but those prices tend to stick when the team declines, and that's when stadiums start to empty out.

Saison is the restaurant in San Francisco that feels closest to pricing to match supply and demand. When I first moved to San Francisco, I had a meal there for $79. The next time there, the meal price had jumped over $100. Then the next time, it was up to $149. Later I heard the tasting menu had risen yet again to $248. The last time I went, thankfully on some banker's expense account, the price was $398 for dinner.

The dining room is usually full, but it's usually possible to get a table the same week. It feels like they've finally reached a price that about as close as you can get to where the supply and demand curves meet. Since the number of seats and turns is limited each night, perhaps this is revenue maximizing pricing, but the margin of error is razor thin.

My guess is that optimal pricing is somewhere below the price that matches supply and demand perfectly. Always being sold out adds a feeling of exclusivity, and no one knows how sold out you are, so being just sold out may be as good from a perception standpoint as being having a massive waiting list.

At the same time, I have a sneaking suspicion continuing to raise the price of a dinner would actually raise demand at some high end restaurants. There may be some Veblen-like qualities to restaurant pricing.

Stephen Curry

Perhaps the most remarked upon aspect of Curry’s game, other than its Platonic beauty, is that it appears to lack the kind of merciless ferocity that characterized the often brutal genius of Michael Jordan, who, when he wasn’t soaring through the air, punched a teammate or two and trash-talked heckling fans. Curry makes impossible, throat-cutting plays that somehow look both human and imbued with a kind of sweetness, if not mercy.
 

“What made Jordan so great,” Miller told me, “was that he could get the ball way up in the air and finish it. But you don’t have to dunk to be like Steph. Every kid looks at Steph and thinks: I can shoot and dribble. I can do that. You don’t have to be like Mike anymore. You know, Mike was an asshole. I was an asshole, too. But you don’t have to be an asshole to be successful. Steph is living proof.”
 

Reggie Miller on Stephen Curry's game (in The New Yorker of all places; they are stepping up the volume of their sports coverage, though in that distinctive New Yorker style).

I worshipped Jordan as a child because I grew up in Chicago when he came to the Bulls and became a star. But he's the type of player you idolize because of his competitive spirit and demonic will to win, not because his game is one you can emulate.

Watch video of Jordan's jump shot and you see a jumper released at the apex of his jump. I couldn't shoot like that, and neither can most recreational players. It relies on great athleticism and strength, and it helps to have gigantic hands. I had neither. Shooting that way I could only really shoot from the free throw line in. What made Jordan's jump shot so effective was that he jumped so high it was nearly impossible to block.

Later in his career, as his athleticism declined, he added a variant: the fadeaway. Falling away from the defender, it was still impossible to block even with his decreased vertical leap. It was the primary weapon that allowed him to post up any guard in the league, and even most small forwards, until the day he retired.

[Earlier in his career he'd post up players on either block and then spin baseline and blow past the defender for a dunk or layup, but officials started to call that a travel, and later he lost the explosiveness to execute it consistently anyway.]

Stephen Curry has a jump shot but it looks more like a normal human being's jump shot, which is more of a set shot. It's a style of shooting that involves the legs and core more, and as a Bulls fan the players that come to mind who've shot in that style include Steve Kerr, Craig Hodges, Ben Gordon. It's how I have to shoot from that distance.

What sets Curry's shot apart from others who shoot that way, however, is the speed at which he can get the ball out of his hands. It's truly stunning to watch, whether on TV or in person. Estimates are that his release takes just .4 seconds. So despite releasing the shot from a much lower vertical distance than Jordan's jumper, Curry's is still very difficult to block.

Curry's version of Jordan's fadeaway, his unfair additional advantage, is his ball handling. If Curry needs an extra bit of separation from the defender, he can throw in a jab step or step back at any time, and literally in the blink of an eye (estimated to be 300 to 400 milliseconds, or exactly how long he takes to shoot) the ball is out of his hands.

Much of modern basketball is predicated on ball movement or actions like a pick and roll that create a temporary "power play" for the offense. The Miami Heat championship teams were really effective at using athletic and lanky lineups to smother the ball handler on a pick and roll and force the offense to reset, nullifying the pick and roll. With Stephen Curry, even if you double him off a pick and roll he can get a great shot off. That makes him as dangerous a weapon as there is given the modern three point line (I've referred to the 3 point shot as the NBA's modern arbitrage opportunity because it's worth 50% more than a 2-point shot but is nowhere near 50% as difficult to execute, not just for Curry but many NBA players).

Is there another feat in sports more suited to deliberate practice (popularized with the 10,000 hour rule) than the basketball jump shot? It's trivial to toss up a jump shot, and the feedback on whether you performed properly is near immediate. That's about as clean an instance of deliberate practice as there is, like playing a musical piece on the piano. You either play the right notes or you don't.

The difference between playing a piano and shooting a basketball, however, lies in that brief gap of time between the release of the basketball and its arrival at the basket. In that moment after Curry releases the basketball over the defender's head, as it traces its parabolic arc through the air and all the opposing players on the court have no recourse but to join everyone in the stadium in watching the ball flight, hope, anticipation, resignation, and appreciation meld for an instant. There is nothing to do but wait, knowing that the laws of physics have already determined whether the ball will go in the basket or miss, and there's nothing anyone can do about it any longer. It's just enough time to inhale, or exhale. Or to hold one's breath.

Lip reading as a service

Plenty of pieces have been written about the scuffle between the Washington Nationals' Bryce Harper and Jonathan Papelbon. For baseball fans who missed it or those who care nothing about sports, the summary is that Harper popped up a pitch he thought he should have hit harder and so he didn't sprint to first base because there was a 99% chance it would be caught easily. Papelbon yelled at him for not running, Harper yelled back, and then Papelbon grabbed Harper's throat and attacked him until teammates broke them up.

I thought this piece in Grantland contained a unique twist I'd love to see more of: author Ben Lindbergh asked a deaf friend who can lipread to see if he could figure out what Harper and Papelbon were shouting at each other.

A few years ago, I asked Evan Brunell, a deaf writer and skilled lipreader, to help me transcribe manager-umpire arguments. I asked Evan to take a look at this confrontation, too. Here’s what he thinks was said:
 

Papelbon: … fucking go! On the fucking … Yeah, run the fucking ball out. [Obscured swearing] … goddamn ball out.
 

Harper: … the fuck up! Are you fucking kidding me? Chill the fuck out, man. Let’s fucking go! I’ll fucking go right —
 

If that transcript is accurate, Harper didn’t exactly deescalate, but this was all posturing until Papelbon charged without waiting to find out what would happen when Harper said “now.”
 

That is fantastic. More sports coverage should include the services of lip readers to help bring us where microphones don't go. Hearing what players say on the field adds an entirely new layer to the narrative of most sporting contests, as anyone who has watched archival footage, with on-field or on-court audio added back in, can attest. Sure, some (much?) of the language is salty, but I'd pay extra for an uncensored audio feed.

Yes, players would probably self-censor once such coverage became common, but even without all the cussing, much of the trash talk or psychological wordplay is amazing. What I wouldn't give to hear some Michael Jordan trash talk from back in the day.

One show comes really close: HBO's Hard Knocks. It's a show I never think I want to watch because it's always about a team I care little about, and then once I start in on the season premiere I inevitably find myself at the end of the five episode miniseries in no time at all. This season was no different. I found myself carried along by Bill O'Brien's constant expletive-filled tirades, J.J Watt's John Bunyan-like athletic feats, and Brian Cushing throwing up for what seemed like half an hour straight. And, as with every season, perhaps the best part of the show, the end of training camp cuts, when one player after another is let go by either the head coach or one of his assistants.

If a Hard Knocks-style of program were produced for every team in the NFL, MLB, and the NBA, I suspect the aggregate ratings across the franchise would be gigantic, and fans' relationships with players and coaches would be deeper, if more complicated. When it comes to sports, a lifetime of being fed clichéd narratives by mass sports media has left me hungry for less mediated coverage. Why settle for a reporter telling us what Bryce Harper is like? Why not let us see him on and off the field and let us judge for ourselves?