Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2011

Pod system saves travel for most area teams

Since their inception last year in the N.C. High School Athletic Association football playoffs, the "pods" used to form a bracket to cut down on travel has been a hot-button topic.

Pods exist to save schools mileage and money through the first three rounds. If, for whatever reason, this study does not find the pods to have saved mileage, then there is no reason for them. We examined the first round of travel.

Why are miles so important that the NCHSAA wants to cut down on them? For starters, fewer miles mean keeping kids in school longer on those Friday afternoons. Also, miles equal money spent by the school system.

Why is money so important? You'll know by the time summer comes around and you're hearing about budget cuts from school systems, with some of those planned cuts coming to athletics.

The main reason behind the pods are for money-saving (and maybe as a byproduct, money-making). Are first-round ticket sales are up from previous seasons, given some teams and their fans are having to make shorter first-round trips?

Determining the mileage was simple and consistent: type in one destination and then the other into Google maps. Take the first option (usually the fastest) if there are multiple routes displayed.

It's of no surprise that the biggest impact the pod systems have are on teams seeded ninth or 10th who receive home games or on a team seeded eight who must now play on the road.

This is the reality of the pod system - being in the upper half of your bracket does not necessarily mean you hosted a playoff game, and being in the lower half doesn't necessarily mean you're on the road.

And, as found out, that drastically shapes the study's numbers.

Last year's pods were said by the association to have saved 8,000 miles in travel, but sometimes the pod creates its own "miles saved" by giving that ninth- or 10th-seed a home game.

To see just how much of an impact the saved miles had on the numbers, two sets of data were recorded.

The miles (for first round games) added or saved by the pod system and another set of the same data that excluded those in which teams who were changed from a "road team" to a "home team" and vice versa.

The second number gets rid of outliers who only exist because of the pod system, and lets you know how the other teams are being affected.

Number of round-trip miles saved in first-round travel (all teams): 5,364.7

Number of round-trip miles saved: 3,943.2

Number of teams who added to their first-round travel mileage: 41

Number of teams who saved first-round travel mileage: 69

Number of teams who saw no change: 146

Number of games that saw no change in first-round matchup at all: 25

Number of teams who lost or gained a first-round home game under pod system: 24

Miles saved per team who saw change: 48.8 miles.

Miles saved per team who saw change: 45.9 miles

Percentage of teams who saved mileage: 26.9 percent

Percentage of affected teams who saved mileage: 62.7 percent

The pods saved mileage for just more than a quarter of teams.

The majority of those teams that were affected did see a decline in miles traveled for the first round.

However, 48.8 round-trip miles saved per those 110 teams that were affected doesn't seem to be a sizable difference. It does seem to be helping all schools involved, not just those teams who are now playing at home rather than traveling a long distance. The 48.8 figure wasn't much different than the one we got when excluding the outliers - teams who had a home game moved to an away game or vice versa - with 45.9 round-trip miles saved.

Although 12 teams added considerable mileage due to lost home games, the 12 teams who received home games outweighed them in travels saved. Altogether, those 24 teams saved an average of 137.4 miles.