NEW YORK (AP) - An academic study of NBA officiating found that white referees called fouls at a greater rate against black players than against white players, The New York Times reported on its Web site Tuesday night.
Analysis:
The study by a University of Pennsylvania assistant professor and Cornell graduate student also found that black officials called fouls more frequently against white players than black, but noted that that tendency was not as pronounced.
Justin Wolfers, an assistant professor of business and public policy at Penn's Wharton School, and Joseph Price, a Cornell graduate student in economics, said the difference in calls "is large enough that the probability of a team winning is noticeably affected by the racial composition of the refereeing crew."
The study, conducted over a 13-season span through 2004, found that the racial makeup of a three-man officiating crew affected calls by up to 4 1/2 percent.
The NBA strongly criticized the study, which was based on information from publicly available box scores, which show only the referees' names and contain no information about which official made a call.
"The study that is cited in the New York Times article is wrong," president of league and basketball operations Joel Litvin told The Associated Press on Tuesday night. "The fact is there is no evidence of racial bias in foul calls made by NBA officials and that is based on a study conducted by our experts who looked at data that was far more robust and current than the data relied upon by Professor Wolfers.
"The short of it is Wolfers and Price only looked at calls made by three-man crews. Our experts were able to analyze calls made by individual referees."
Litvin said the NBA's study, using data from November 2004 to January 2007, included some 148,000 calls and included which official made each call. The Times said the NBA denied a request by Wolfers and Price to obtain that information, citing its confidentiality agreement with the officials.
The study also found differences in everything from a decrease in scoring to a rise in turnovers depending on the officials' race.
"Player-performance appears to deteriorate at every margin when officiated by a larger fraction of opposite-race referees," Wolfers and Price wrote.
But the key finding was in regard to foul calls, saying "black players receive around 0.12-0.20 more fouls per 48 minutes played (an increase of 2 1/2-4 1/2 percent) when the number of white referees officiating a game increases from zero to three."
The NBA has an observer at each game and closely monitors its officials, who are required to file reports after each game they work and are expected to be able to explain each potentially controversial call they have made.
Litvin said in an original version of the paper, dated March 2006, Wolfers and Price came to the conclusion that there was no bias. He added that the NBA's research "all prove beyond any doubt in our minds that these guys are just flat wrong."
"They reached conclusions in their own papers that are unsupported by their own calculations," Litvin said.
Wolfers and Price are set to present the paper at meetings of the Society of Labor Economists on Friday and the American Law and Economics Association on Sunday. The Times said they will then submit it to the National Bureau of Economic Research and for formal peer review before consideration by an economic journal.
referees called fouls at a greater rate against black players
The study is of proportion, not of gross fouls called.
But you are right about the number of white and black players in the league. I'm surprised there were enough white guys in the NBA to get a large enough sample for the study.
I follow the NBA closely, this isn't terribly surprising but I don't think it's a simple as race. Por ejemple, Dwyane Wade and Rasheed Wallace are both black but the calls each do and do not get for and against them are wildly disproportionate. Plus, especially now with the influx of European players, many white guys are spot shooters, not likely to draw contact. But we'd be naive to assume there was a smaller degree of racism in the NBA than society in general.
Interesting... I never really thought about this before. However, I'm not going to read too much into it. Unless the numbers were completely overwhelming, and to me, they aren't, I would believe the study to be more worthwhile.
But why stop just with the NBA? Conduct these little tests with the rest of the sporting world. I think they'd find that they're making a bigger issue than what's really there. Sometimes numbers can be misleading.
Fios wrote:I follow the NBA closely, this isn't terribly surprising but I don't think it's a simple as race. Por ejemple, Dwyane Wade and Rasheed Wallace are both black but the calls each do and do not get for and against them are wildly disproportionate. Plus, especially now with the influx of European players, many white guys are spot shooters, not likely to draw contact. But we'd be naive to assume there was a smaller degree of racism in the NBA than society in general.
Exactly, most of the white players in the NBA are soft and foreign. This experiment doesn't take many factors into account. Not even worth publishing.
I don't follow the NBA closely enough, but aren't the big guys the one taking most of the fouls in a game, since they're down low trying to defend against all of those layups?
And isn't the ratio of black to whites even more black-weighted as you get to the 'bigger' positions?
I could be way off, but I was just wondering if that might also influence it. (I think that the "star" factor that Fios pointed out might be more significant, though. It works that way in the NFL, too).
Eh, you still have your fair share of overpaid white stiffs (serious side note, if you could go pro in more than one sport and the NBA was one of those, take the NBA, much, much more money and a lot is guaranteed) whose job is little more than to hack other centers, a la Scott Pollard. So I don't think, based on my own observations, that white players skew toward forwards and away from guards or vice-versa. But, yes, post players are a lot more likely to draw contact and, thus, fouls.
