Redskins Football Games Predict Election Winner

jangobongo writes "The folks that investigate urban legends at Snopes.com have looked into the rumor going around on the internet that says, "The outcome of Washington Redskins football games has correctly predicted the winner of every U.S. presidential election since 1936." Their findings? It's true! The predictive game for this year will happen on October 31 vs. Green Bay. Which team are you gonna root for?"

Comments

Redskins!!

[sithkhan]

Redskins! or, the Lower Potomac Basin Indigenous peoples, if you will ....

Quirks of history

[BandwidthHog]

Those little reflections in the matrix also have something to say about a President elected in a year that ends in 0, yet I never hear *anyone* mention that these days.

Re:Quirks of history

[ConceptJunkie]

That's because Reagan dodged that bullet... literally and figuratively.

Besides, these days, I suspect everyone is a little sensitive about the idea. A little superstition like this seems really immature in this context (as if it ever didn't).

Re:Quirks of history

[Guppy06]

"Those little reflections in the matrix also have something to say about a President elected in a year that ends in 0"

Because you're hanging out with the wrong crowd to find people that have heard of the Curse of Tecumseh.

Besides, it's more discriminatory than that, or else Bad Things would have happened to Jefferson (1800) and Monroe (1820). It began with W. H. Harrison, hence the "Curse of Tecumseh" name. And even then, while they may have been elected to a prior term in a year divisible by 20, occasionally Bad Things happened during a later term (Lincoln died after the 1864 election and F. D. Roosevelt died after the 1944 election, who wouldn't even have run in 1940 if he hadn't broken the two-term precedent).

Complexity

[dtfinch]

15 correct predictions: 1/2^15=1 in 32768
Some ways to interpret:
incumbent vs challenger
republican vs democrat
the inverse of each
=4, making it 1 in 8192
X big teams (I have no idea how many, not a sports fan). Lets say 64.
So 1 in 128 of a big sports team randomly predicting 15 elections in a row correctly, or somewhat greater considering the average odds of winning (team or president) is not exactly 50-50.

And there are easily a couple hundred other possible predictors that people could identify with.
So lets say the odds were 0.99 in 1 of finding something like this.

Re:Complexity

[ewithrow]

If I read the article correctly, I counted 17 correct predictions, so that adds another couple powers of two to the odds.

Also I think its significant that this is a Washington DC team, and there certainly aren't that many pro sports teams in DC

Still, I think its just a big coincidence. Interestingly, both teams are at the bottom of their division with only 1 win since the start of the season, so it should be interesting to see if the rumor holds true.

Re:Complexity

[syrinx]

there certainly aren't that many pro sports teams in DC

Besides the (American) football, soccer, basketball, and baseball teams?

Granted, only the football team has existed continuously since 1936, but that's probably true for most American cities (only one or two teams continously existing for that long), so there's nothing special about Washington.

Re:Complexity

[ewithrow]

It's true that the chance of either team winning this game is 50/50 assuming that they are of equal skill level, however I think the parent was differentiating the odds of this happening so many times in a row. Certainly if you started flipping a penny it would be highly unusual to see heads come up 17 times in a row, and there is a certain probability to how often this occurs if the penny is flipped continually.

Re:Complexity

[Deliveranc3]

As someone in stats I think the most interesting thing is the actual effect the game has on voter opnion.

Which is very real in a race where people don't follow the actual issues. Conservatism vs Progress Pessimism vs Optomism.

Re:Complexity

[grammar nazi]

Shut up with your logic.

I want REDSKINS to lose for two reasons:
1. I support Kerry - Edwards
2. I have Ahmed Green (GB) on my fantasy football team.

Re:Complexity

[Paradise Pete]

It's true that the chance of either team winning this game is 50/50 assuming that they are of equal skill level

Even that's not true. Among equal teams, the home team will win over 60% of the time.

Re:Complexity

[grammar nazi]

B = Bush wins

R = Redskins win

L = Lions win

Then,

P(B|R) = P(B|L,R) * P(L|R) / P(L|B,R)

It's a true statement! The election depends upon the Lions game outcome!! But wait...

M = your mamma

P(B|R) = P(B|M,R) * P(M|R) / P(M|B,R)

Wow! Ugh oh... Whether Bush is reelected also depends upon your mamma! Dammit Bayes Rule!! I thought I was the only one depending your mamma for a piece of...

Re:Complexity

[rherbert]

It's AHMAN Green. Sheesh, get to know your players a little better than the A. Green on the summary page.

In Communist Russia...

[MasterDirk]

...the incumbent party decides what the outcome of the games are...

OK, not funny, I know, mod me down...

It's unbeatable!

[ghostlibrary]

It's true, I swear. Every election year the Redskins win, someone also wins the presidency.

And I'll lay money that the same happens this year.

Re:This has to be a coincidence.

[Prowl]

thanks for clearing that up...

packers, hey packers!

[Mr.Coffee]

man, i'm glad they're playing green bay. for a while there i was worried bush was gonna get re-elected.

Re:Third party?

[britneys 9th husband]

The game ends in a tie.

I think I understand..

[Klowner]

So if they win, then a presidential election will result in a win by one of the delegates? That's absolutely fantastic, and very very scientifically confusing at the same time.

If this were true. . .

[Daikiki]

If this were ture then the Redskins would have won the game by scoring a touchdown with four minutes of play left in the fourth quarter of their october 30th, 2000 game against the Titans while the referee wasn't watching. ESPN would have reported that the Redskins had won two minutes after the end of the game, but Fox Sports would clain that the game was too close to call until midnight, when they'd claim that the Titans had been victorious.

Two days after the game, Jeff Fisher, the Titan's coach, would have mailed a red flag to NFL headquarters, thereby challenging the play. The NFL commisionner would have informed him that the referee on the field that day had final discretion. The referee would have been Jeff Fisher's brother, Jeb Fisher. Jeb would have claimed that the tocuhdown never happened.

Steve Spurrier would then appeal the decision with Paul Tagliabue who, after long deliberation, would have ruled that the final decision lies with the scorekeeper. The scorekeeper would have been found to be keeping tally of the score using marbles. He would eventually admit that he wasn't quite sure how many marbles had been on his table and how many of them had been in which team's box. He would however claim that he was almost entirely certain that there had been more marbles in the Titan's box than in the Redskin's. Eventually everybody would have been confused to the point of desperation and the Titans would have been handed the victory by the gist of having won three of the four quarters.

Considering the facts...

[binaryspiral]

The Packers have been playing like sh!t with a quaterback on his last leg who is under the crosshairs of anyone who can get past the offensive line...

Mike Sherman's playbook was posted online somewhere in PDF format - because no team has been surprised at anything they've been doing.

I'm a nerd, but I support my team - I just wish they didn't suck ass this year... :(

Re:Redskin's chances

[jlanthripp]

Yes, but the Packers managed to lose to both the Panthers and the Bears...Washington and Green Bay are both bottom-of-the-barrel teams this year.

Kind of like the major-party presidential candidates.

Nader Has A Bye Week

[notmtwain]

I'm rooting for Nader but he has a bye that week. Chat It Up With Nader