August 8, 2024 Joliet Wednesday Match Time Analysis

Data and statistics are one of the reasons we started MyDartLeague, to give the players data and datapoints they normally don’t get with other leagues. One of the things we like to analyze is data after introducing a change. In this case we performed a time analysis on the Wednesday Joliet area division A and B leagues after introducing the reverse handicap change to the leagues and see how it compares to previous NON reverse handicapped leagues. There are many raw datapoints that were analyzed, below are the results of this analysis.

Summary:
– The majority of the time (>68% on average), all matches start late for both divisions. Sometimes that’s a few minutes, sometimes that’s 30 minutes. But overall starts are late. That inevitably pushes the match to end later in the night.
– Division A has an overall shorter length of match than division B. That is an expected result as the player level is higher.
– In both divisions some match times and finishes are above average and some are less than average. The data doesn’t show a pattern to identify any trends related to teams or players. However, we have no datapoints like taking breaks, eating, gambling etc. to perform a further analysis on these potential delays.
– Division A average length of match since introducing reverse handicapping has increased by 7 minutes. Reverse average of 2:26 to NON reverse average of 2:19.
– Division B average length of match since introducing reverse handicapping has decreased by 3 minutes. Reverse average of 2:57 to NON reverse average of 3:00.
– Division A average match end time since introducing reverse handicapping has increased by 12 minutes. Reverse average of 10:04pm to NON reverse average of 9:52pm.
– Division B average match end time since introducing reverse handicapping has decreased by 2 minutes. Reverse average of 10:29pm to NON reverse average of 10:31pm.

Conclusion:
Reverse handicaps are not contributing to an increase of length of match nor match end time for division B. The data shows that the opposite is actually the case. Reverse handicap matches being played in division B are, on average, played faster and finishing earlier. The data shows that the current B division is virtually identical to the furthest out NON reverse handicap league. We see no reason to remove reverse handicapping for division B based on the time analysis. For division A, the data shows the opposite. Division A matches are taking slightly longer and ending slightly later than the averages. However, we feel the differences are negligible and see no reason to remove reverse handicapping for division A based on the time analysis.

The data below is a summary of the raw data we compiled for both divisions on Wednesdays for the past four leagues and was used for this analysis.