What Are the Odds That a Given Cow Will Make It to the Super Bowl?
…Taking the midpoint of 20, that means that roughly 35,000 cow hides are used to manufacture regulation NFL footballs. How many of those are actually used by the NFL? NFL…
…Taking the midpoint of 20, that means that roughly 35,000 cow hides are used to manufacture regulation NFL footballs. How many of those are actually used by the NFL? NFL…
We recently solicited your questions for sports economists David Berri and Martin Schmidt, whose new book, Stumbling on Wins, explores the statistics of sports victory and the mistakes that teams…
…respect to NFL coaches. Although Madden shared a surname with the former NFL coach, popular NFL announcer and video game impresario, the football similarities ended there. She was not much…
Stephen Dubner appears as a guest on Fail Better, a new podcast hosted by David Duchovny. The two of them trade stories about failure, and ponder the lessons that success…
The debut of a live game show from Freakonomics Radio, with judges Malcolm Gladwell, Ana Gasteyer, and David Paterson….
There are a lot of factors that go into greatness, many of which are not obvious. A variety of Olympic and professional athletes tell us how they made it and…
(Photo: Nicholas La) The following is a cross-post from our Football Freakonomics project at NFL.com. Check out the interactive graphic and, at the end of this post, the video. In…
The debut of a live game show from Freakonomics Radio, with judges Malcolm Gladwell, Ana Gasteyer and David Paterson….
Incarcerated people grow crops, fight wildfires, and manufacture everything from motor oil to prescription glasses — often for pennies per hour. Zachary Crockett reports from North Carolina….
…manufacture everything from prescription glasses to highway signs — often for pennies an hour. Zachary Crockett takes the next exit, in this special episode of The Economics of Everyday Things….
There are a lot of factors that go into greatness, many of which are not obvious. As the Olympics come to a close, we revisit a 2018 episode in which…
Photo: Creatas Images After getting crushed by falling commodity prices two years ago, their ranks cut by 70 percent, Russian billionaires are back and more plentiful than ever. According to…
…your bed? What’s the benefit of hiring a lazy person? And how many cups of spinach can Mike fit in a red Solo cup? Take the Big Five inventory: freakonomics.com/bigfive…
The creator of The Wire, The Deuce, and other shows is leading the Writers Guild on the picket lines. He and Steve break down the economics of TV writing, how…
Giving up can be painful. That’s why we need to talk about it. Today: stories about glitchy apps, leaky paint cans, broken sculptures — and a quest for the perfect…
Stephen Dubner’s conversation with the former N.F.L. player, union official, and all-around sports thinker, recorded for our “Hidden Side of Sports” series….
…“sudden death?” And how do you feel about this new NFL plan vs. college football’s OT rules? —Cubnut A. We don’t like the new (and almost risibly convoluted) NFL post-season…
Boris Johnson — mayor of London, biographer of Churchill, cheese-box painter and tennis-racket collector — answers our FREAK-quently Asked Questions.
Every four years, the U.S. takes a look at the World Cup and develops a slight crush. What would it take to really fall in love?
…in the starting lineup that week were street free agents that were cut by NFL teams and signed by the Bills during the season. Even a below-average NFL starter that…
…football. His basic point is that student-athletes essentially serve as unpaid labor, and since most of them never make it to the NFL (or end up out of the league…
Pro footballer and star podcaster Jason Kelce is ubiquitous right now (almost as ubiquitous as his brother and co-host Travis, who’s been in the limelight for his relationship with Taylor…
As readers of this blog know, I like the NFL quite a bit (although not, for whatever reason, college football). I have written about players from the past like John…
An interview with Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, whose younger brother turned him in — and what it says about the Boston bombers.
John Urschel was the only player in the N.F.L. simultaneously getting a math Ph.D. at M.I.T. But after a new study came out linking football to brain damage, he abruptly…
Economists preach the gospel of “creative destruction,” whereby new industries — and jobs — replace the old ones. But has creative destruction become too destructive?
Smart government policies, good industrial relations, and high-end products have helped German manufacturing beat back the threats of globalization.
He turned a small Hollywood talent agency into a massive sports-and-entertainment empire. In a freewheeling conversation, he explains how he did it and why it nearly killed him….
(Photo: Brittany Randolph) The following is a cross-post from NFL.com, where we’ve recently launched a Football Freakonomics project. There are a lot of things that need to go right for…
