This takes a look at how payroll affects the win percentage in sports.

1. Payroll Versus Win Percentage
in sports
By: Joseph Rantuccio

2. Does payroll truly affect Win
percentage?
• People typically associate good sports teams with how much
the organization is spending. But is this actually true?
• Today, we see many different underdogs sporting the reign
of champion in many different leagues.
• Are these underdog teams spending as much on payroll as
other teams expected to take the title?

3. Data
• To explore this interesting topic, I had to collect data from
multiple sources:
 Relative Football Team salaries (1995-2016)
 Relative win percentage of Football Teams (1995-2016)
 Payroll of Baseball Teams (2012 & 2015)
 Win percentage of Baseball teams (2012 & 2015)

4. Closer look at the Data: 2012
Baseball Payroll vs Wins
• This scatterplot shows
the number of wins
baseball teams in 2012
had compared to their
payroll in millions.
• The results clearly vary.

5. Closer look at the Data: 2015
Baseball Payroll vs Wins
• This scatterplot shows the
number of wins baseball
teams in 2015 had
compared to their payroll
in millions.
• Again the results are
clearly show no distinct
correlation.

6. Closer look at the Data: 1995-2016
Football Salaries vs Win Rate.
• To further the
research, I took a look
at big data and
Football teams.
• This scatterplot shows
a relative average
salary in Football from
1995-2016 compared to
the winning
percentage of the
teams.
• Again, no strong
correlation between
the two.

7. In Conclusion
• Looking at the mass amount of data offered for sports teams shows
that there is no true correlation between salary and win rate.
• The controversy is ever expanding claiming the teams with higher
salary caps, simply are impossible to beat.
• This misguided opinion can quickly be disproven by looking at the
facts and statistics readily available to everyone.

8. Sources
• http://www.espn.com/espn/wire/_/section/mlb/id/7779054
• https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/payroll/2015/
• https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/2012-standings.shtml
• https://www.teamrankings.com/mlb/stat/win-pct-all-games?date=2015-11-01
• https://overthecap.com/salary-cap-space/