Basketball: Bias Refs?

Reported March 2010

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- With March Madness underway, as you watch the games, you know refs on the basketball court can take a lot of heat from fans, coaches and players, for what may seem like unfair calls. Referees aim to be neutral, but are they?

In basketball, there aren't too many people on the court who get accused more of being unfair than the referees.

"Some people might not think a ref is fair because of the call," Kerah Nelson, a player for the Women's NCAA College Basketball team, the IUPUI Jaguars, told Ivanhoe.

An official's job is to be objective and fair, but Kyle Anderson, Ph.D., an economist at Indiana University in Bloomington, Ind., says biased basketball refs can be found on just about any court.

"It's much more likely for the team with fewer fouls to get the next foul called on them," Dr. Anderson explained.

Researchers looked at college basketball games and found refs tend to try and keep the foul count even between teams. For example, at half time, if team 'A' has 10 fouls and team 'B' has two fouls, by the end of the game, both teams will end up with close to the same amount of fouls.

"But that's not really what we want as, you know, fans, or players, or coaches," Dr. Anderson said. "What we want them to do is call what's going on in the court, not necessarily make it even out."

The probability of a foul being called on the visiting team is 7 percent higher than on the home team. There is a 6.3 percent chance that a leading home team will have the next foul called on them. If the home team has five or more fouls than the visiting team, there is a 69 percent chance the visiting team will hear a whistle for the next foul.

"I think if officials are aware of the pattern and aware of this bias, then maybe they can work against it, and say, I'm not going to let that influence and I'm just going to call the fouls as I see them," Dr. Anderson said.

Researchers believe referees do not intentionally influence foul counts. Basketball is a hard game to officiate, which is something almost anyone can agree on.

"Whatever the refs call, I'm going to agree with it," Janna Eichelberg, a Women's NCAA College Basketball Player for the IUPUI Jaguars, said.

Right, wrong, or indifferent, the ref's decision is the only one that matters.

The researchers also found that the crowd really doesn't influence the refs at all because the crowd affects both teams.

Click here to Go Inside This Science or contact:

Kyle J. Anderson
Kelley School of Business
Indiana University
Purdue University Indianapolis
kyjander@indiana.edu

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