TRYING OUT FOR THE TEAM - DO EXHIBITIONS MATTER - EVIDENCE FROM THE NATIONAL-FOOTBALL-LEAGUE

A recent article in Sports illustrated argues that the National Footba ll League (NFL) preseason schedule should be eliminated because the ga mes are meaningless, feature subpar players, and are of no interest to fans. In this article we challenge this view, using statistical techn iques to analyze both the outcome of preseason games and their value a s a predictor of regular season performance. Our analysis is based on the application of a rank-order tournament model to the NFL labor mark et. The model explains preseason results in terms of the competition f or positions on teams. Two implications are that the outcome of presea son games should reflect the labor market characteristics of the parti cipating teams and that a team's preseason record should be positively related to its regular season record. Both of these hypotheses are co nsistent with our analysis of NFL data from 1970 through 1991.