{"id":403169,"date":"2021-08-25T08:55:33","date_gmt":"2021-08-25T13:55:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/urbanmatter.com\/chicago\/?p=403169"},"modified":"2021-08-25T08:56:07","modified_gmt":"2021-08-25T13:56:07","slug":"how-coaching-tenure-impacts-professional-sports-teams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/urbanmatter.com\/chicago\/how-coaching-tenure-impacts-professional-sports-teams\/","title":{"rendered":"How Coaching Tenure Impacts Professional Sports Teams"},"content":{"rendered":"

Consider the names Mike Ditka, Joe Maddon, Ozzie Guill\u00e9n, Joel Quenneville, George Halas, and Phil Jackson. When you look at that list, it\u2019s no secret that Chicago teams had some pretty incredible coaches in their time. And those names are just some of the best Chicago coaches who\u2019ve achieved the ultimate accomplishment in sports. Winning a championship. Some of those guys won it all more than once during their time and went on to coach for many years. But, does coaching tenure in professional sports have an impact on team success?<\/span><\/p>\n

Our gut says it does. But we don\u2019t want to just go with our instincts here, we want facts! Thankfully, the sports fanatics over at <\/span>SportsBettingDime<\/span><\/a> had the same questions we did about coaching tenure in professional sports. Does longer tenure lead to larger numbers in the win column? And how much do fans think coaches contribute to team success? The answers to all of these questions and more can be found in <\/span>SportsBettingDime\u2019s recent research dive into coaching tenure in professional sports<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Professional Sports Coaching Tenure Research<\/span><\/h2>\n

The research on coaching tenure in professional sports led to some pretty insightful findings. For starters, tenure certainly has an impact on team success. In their research, SportsBettingDime looked at data from the NBA, NFL, MLB, and NHL from 1990 and beyond. They also surveyed fans of each of those leagues, resulting in four separate surveys with 300 respondents each.<\/span><\/p>\n

So yes, coaching tenure in professional sports impacts a team’s success positively. But how much? When looking at the data, the four-year mark appeared to be significant. SportsBettingDime found that a teams winning percentage is higher in all four professional leagues when you compare coaches with tenures below four years, and tenures above four years. The MLB saw the lowest difference between the two, with tenures of four years or less having a winning percentage of .476, and four years or more at .519. The NHL was next with a .441 winning percentage for the shorter coaching tenures, and .506 for the longer ones. Where you see the most discrepancy between winning percentages at the 4-year mark is in the NBA and NFL. In the NBA, head coaches with a tenure of four years or less had an average winning percentage of .438 compared to .566 when they were tenured longer than four years. For the NFL, the difference in winning percentages showed the largest spread, with .412 for the shorter tenure, and .568 for the longer tenure.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The Fan Findings<\/span><\/h2>\n

With that data, it\u2019s pretty clear to see how coaching tenure impacts professional sports. In their research, SportsBettingDime also surveyed sports fans\u00a0 to gauge how they felt a coach impacts a team’s success, and who they felt the best active coach in each league was. For the MLB fans, 39% of them indicated that former Chicago Cub manager Joe Maddon<\/a> is the best MLB manager. They attributed MLB managers to 50.8% of their teams success. In the NHL, 44% of their fans think Barry Trotz is the best active head coach, and attribute their coaching to 57% of the team’s success. That was the highest attribution percentage out of all the leagues, which makes sense considering all the line changes and goalie pulls that can happen in an NHL game.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fans of the NBA considered Gregg Popovich<\/a> to be the best coach in the game today, with 53% surveyed feeling this way. This is despite Steve Kerr having the highest active win percentage of .692. Popovich\u2019s winning percentage falls right behind Kerr at .672. NBA fans attributed coaching to 51% of a team\u2019s success. The final set of fans surveyed were NFL fans, and 65.7% of them said Bill Belichick is the best active NFL coach. No surprise there. NFL fans attributed coaching to 55.5% of a team\u2019s success in that league.<\/span><\/p>\n

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A post shared by Chicago Bulls (@chicagobulls)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n