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unblockablemid t1_iynfzkv wrote

Reply to comment by enny_el in [OC] Birth months of FIFA World Cup players. The top three are January, February and March, possibly due to the "Relative age effect" by desfirsit

Outliers by Malcom Gladwell is basically about this and has a section on how kids born at a certain time of year have advantages over others (in sport), as they're more physically developed, and are more likely to getting scouted. Highly recommend if this kinda thing interests you.

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Anachronism-- t1_iynku3k wrote

He’s done an update on his podcast recently. Now some parents are using his data to intentionally hold their Children back a year to give them an academic advantage. Enough to start skewing the data.

Edit - I don’t think gladwell came up with this idea but he did make it more mainstream.

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SolemnLoon t1_iynm9ng wrote

It would be easy to enough to adjust for birth year. Instead of just birth month, it would be number of months older than the minimum.

For instance, someone who turns 17 on Sep 1 of their senior year (12th grade) would be considered "0 months" old. The typical range would be 0-12 months if everyone was born in that year, but someone who was held back and turned 18 two months before their senior year started would be "14 months". Your range might be as much as 0-24 instead of 0-12.

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Anachronism-- t1_iynpcjf wrote

I listened to it a while ago but that sounds similar to what he ended up doing.

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classybroad19 t1_iyoz3ms wrote

He didn't, in the podcast he talks about the Canadian researcher's wife who noticed it.

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SolemnLoon t1_iynmqlr wrote

Yep... I loved that chapter. If the sports leagues are really interested in finding the best players regardless of birthdates, they could do a sliding cutoff that changes 3-6 months every year.

That way the "January" kids would sometimes be the oldest in their group, and would sometimes be the youngest. Depending on how they did it, a kid might either spend two seasons in one age group, or skip an age group altogether.

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timbasile t1_iyo7dr9 wrote

BMX just uses your current age to set cohorts. If you're 8 and it's your birthday later this week, you race the 8 year olds since you're still 8.

Next week, you'll be 9, so then you'll race against the other 9 year olds.

There's still an effect - since at least here in Canada the sport shuts down for the winter, so people born late fall would spend the most race days in the cohort as an older athlete, but I'd imagine it's muted vs other sports using a calendar approach.

Though with an individual sport like BMX, it's easier to do this since it doesn't have the same team forming process . You just show up at races and race whoever happens to also show up.

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SolemnLoon t1_iyo8xun wrote

Ahh, that works. And you're right that it's much easier in a solo sport than a team sport. It'd be tough on a coach if every time a kid had a birthday, he moved on to the next team.

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eltos_lightfoot t1_iyo7obi wrote

I always felt he missed talking about the few kids that actually made it from the last months. What made them succeed in spite of being in that cohort? Weren’t they the true outliers?

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