Wednesday, February 15, 2012

How do you calculate winning percentage in sports, including tie games?

Most leagues consider ties something like a half-win. So if a team goes 5-3-2, you would add up with wins to get to six (5 + half + half) and divide it by the total number of games, 10, to get a winning percentage of .600.



The NFL used to do it so that ties did not count, and a percentage of wins and losses only was used for winning percentage. Therefore, a team that was 14-0 was just ahead of 13-0-1 -- which makes sense. The problem with that -- A team that went 1-0-13 was better than a team that went 13-1. The league finally realized that made no sense and went to the half-win system. Of course, with overtime ties are very rare in the NFL.How do you calculate winning percentage in sports, including tie games?
Add up all the games to get a total amount played. Then divide the number of games won by the total number played.



For instance, if a team went 9-5-1, you'd add up 9+5+1 = 15.



In order to add in the tied game, you break it into halves. Since a tie is neither a win nor a loss, you break each tie into 1/2 a win, 1/2 a loss.



So, you'd add half a win to the total wins: 9.5 divided by 15 total games.



The winning percentage of a 9-5-1 record would be .633 (or 63%).
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