You’ll never watch a National Basketball Association game the same way again. And you’ll be tempted, if not sure, to take a glance at the referees before tip-off.
Same goes for bookies … in fact, same goes double for bookies.
According to an exhaustive statistical analysis being released this week by two academics, the racial composition of a three-person unit of NBA referees can affect the outcome of a game.
From this morning’s New York Times:
An academic study of the National Basketball Association, whose playoffs continue tonight, suggests that a racial bias found in other parts of American society has existed on the basketball court as well.
A coming paper by a University of Pennsylvania professor and a Cornell University graduate student says that, during the 13 seasons from 1991 through 2004, white referees called fouls at a greater rate against black players than against white players.
Justin Wolfers, an assistant professor of business and public policy at the Wharton School, and Joseph Price, a Cornell graduate student in economics, found a corresponding bias in which black officials called fouls more frequently against white players, though that tendency was not as strong. They went on to claim that the different rates at which fouls are called “is large enough that the probability of a team winning is noticeably affected by the racial composition of the refereeing crew assigned to the game.”
The NBA disputes those conclusions, and commissioned its own statistical analysis that buttresses its position, but a trio of experts consulted by the Times concluded that the Wolfers analysis is the more compelling of the two.
A number of those quoted by the Times expressed the opinion that finding this bias is not surprising.
“I would be more surprised if it didn’t exist,” said Ian Ayres of Yale Law School and the author of a book about subtle racial prejudice. “There’s a growing consensus that a large proportion of racialized decisions is not driven by any conscious race discrimination, but that it is often just driven by unconscious, or subconscious, attitudes. When you force people to make snap decisions, they often can’t keep themselves from subconsciously treating blacks different than whites, men different from women.”
There are few professions more dependent on snap decisions than refereeing an NBA basketball game.
The question here is whether the NBA will decide to move beyond denial in addressing this issue.
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