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The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf Coast forced the New Orleans Saints, a National Football League team, to play many of its games in San Antonio, Texas during last year’s season. Some experts say the team will return to their home at the Superdome this year, but a Lafayette professor and former student comprised a formula that says different.
Thomas Bruggink, professor of economics and business, recently completed a manuscript entitled “Location Model in the National Football League Where Will the Saints Go Marching In?” The paper is based on work done by Douglas Schiz ’04 and considers variables in determining which United States city the New Orleans Saints would best thrive this coming football season.
A financial analyst at Houlihan Lokey Howard & Zukin in Manhattan, Schiz originally developed a formula to determine where the next NFL expansion team should be placed. He conducted the honors research as a mathematics-economics major under Bruggink’s guidance.
“This was after it was announced that Houston would be given the new team,” Schiz says of the Houston Texans, the league’s most recent expansion team. “However, I wanted to take a look at what cities would be best for a team based on a variety of information including population growth and loss, distance to a current NFL franchise, income per capita, and where the best revenue would be had.”
Los Angeles, which has had teams in the past, repeatedly came to the forefront.
Following the Hurricane Katrina disaster, Bruggink decided to bring the formula out again.
“I thought it would be interesting to see where the New Orleans Saints would fit best considering the population change,” he says.
Bruggink explains it is not uncommon for him to go back to past honors projects.
“To be honest, it’s fun to see how things may change or how formulas or ideas that were put in papers years ago still stand the test of time,” he says.
Once again, Los Angeles, which still does not have a NFL team, came up as the most suitable city for the Saints.
Based on Schiz’s formula and additional calculations by Bruggink, San Antonio, where the Saints played last season, came in second. Other potential cities included Salt Lake City, Sacramento and Memphis.
While Schiz says he didn’t have much to do with Bruggink’s updated manuscript, he’s happy to have it used again.
“It’s flattering to have my project reused,” he says agreeing with Briggink’s comments about testing previous formulas.
Bruggink recently submitted the manuscript co-authored with Schiz to The Journal of Sports Economics and hopes to have it published in the near future.
“Some of my colleagues have a bit of jealousy knowing that I’m able to incorporate sports into projects. It’s all in good fun.”