Average Joe’s vs. Globo Gym: What should the odds have been?
Facing the foreclosure of his beloved Average Joe’s Gym, Peter LaFleur needed to come up with $50,000 fast. He and his gym’s patrons formed a dodgeball team and entered The American Dodgeball Association of America (ADAA) International Dodgeball Competition in Las Vegas, which had a convenient grand prize of $50,000. The rest, as you know, is history.
Along the way Joe’s overcame numerous obstacles en route to its championship, most notably the Goliath to its David: The Globo Gym Purple Cobras and their fearsome leader White Goodman. Average Joe’s scratched and clawed its way through the 32-team bracket to face Globo Gym in the championship match, ultimately defeating the heavily favored Purple Cobras in sudden death (though some contend Peter LaFleur should’ve been disqualified for a triangle infraction**). Anyway… before the game Peter LaFleur famously placed a $100,000 wager on his own Average Joes to beat Globo Gym at odds of 50–1. $100K to win $5M.
It’s quite obvious Globo Gym was the superior team on paper, but were they -10000 good? Absolutely not. Hanging those odds for the championship match of a tournament is bookmaking suicide and whoever came up with that price should have been fired immediately. It’s time to right that wrong and figure out what the true odds should have been. There are a lot of factors to consider, so I’ll spare you any more preambling…
Seeding and Pre-Tournament Odds
Having seen Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, we undoubtedly know way more about Average Joe’s and its players than the oddsmakers did. We know their origin story, their genetic makeup, their training regimen, and perhaps most important of all, their motivations. I’m confident we can come up with a reasonable number for their pre-tournament odds as well as their pre-championship odds, despite an alarming lack of data. The first thing to do is break down the tournament format.
The ADAA International Dodgeball Competition consisted of 32 teams from around the world. The teams were split into four 8-team regions and the tournament ran as the annual March Madness tournament does: single elimination. In order to win the tournament Average Joe’s would have to win five games.
Not a lot can be gleaned about seeding from the movie, but we can use some clues to assume Average Joe’s ranking entering the tournament. The first major clue is their game one opponent: Team Blitzkrieg. The Germans are coached by David Hasselhoff and are the reigning European champions, as told by ESPN 8: The Ocho’s color commentator Cotton McKnight. Blitzkrieg was clearly a highly ranked team and Cotton even mentioned them being “heavy favorites” in this match. This clearly points to Average Joe’s as having a low seed.
In addition we know all the details of the regional qualifying match leading to Average Joe’s entry to the tournament in the first place. In that match, Joe’s lost in embarrassing fashion to a group of girl scouts: Troupe 417. Joe’s only advanced due to Troupe 417’s disqualification when Bernese tested positive for PEDs (and a low grade beaver tranquilizer).
On the positive side for Average Joe’s, their coach was ADAA legend Patches O’Houlihan. This surely gave them some credibility, though we need to take Patches with a grain of salt on account of him being a piss-drinking lunatic. Another positive for Average Joe’s, from a odds perspective, is their motivation entering the tournament. We know Average Joe’s was playing for something truly important to them: their gym. Without winning this tournament Average Joe’s Gym would be demolished, and you better believe people would sprinkle money on them because of the motivation factor.
Given this information, we can conclude Average Joe’s was a very low seed. However, given the fame and reputation of their coach, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and assign them a 7 seed. That puts them between 25th and 28th in the pre-tournament rankings, which translates into some pretty long odds. Those odds drop a bit when you consider the motivation factor, which people would undoubtedly bet on and drive the sportsbook’s risk through the roof. We also know little to nothing about the majority of the teams in the tournament, so it’s hard to say if Average Joe’s was decidedly better or worse than the average team in the field.
All things considered, I’d assign Average Joe’s a price of 60–1 before the tournament. This means they’d have a 1.63% chance of winning the whole thing.
Odds for the Championship Match
Now it’s time to investigate the price that was egregiously miscalculated by the bookmakers in the movie. Heading into the championship match, Average Joe’s was +5000 to win it all, making the Globo Gym Purple Cobras -10000 (presumably). This means, after winning four straight, the oddsmakers were still only giving Average Joe’s a 1.96% chance.
In the previous section we established the Average Joe’s suspect entry into the tournament and their low seed. We also gave them a few points back for their well-regarded and knowledgable, but also deranged coach Patches O’Houlihan. We also introduced a strong motivation factor, which we know will drive bettors to the windows and kiosks. Given all this information, we assigned Average Joe’s a pre-tournament price of 60–1.
Now we have four more games worth of information to incorporate into our price, as well as the fact that Average Joe’s only need to win one more game instead of five.
Average Joe’s had its back against the wall in its first game vs. Team Blitzkrieg, then again in its fourth match vs. the Poughkeepsie State Flying Cougars. It showed vulnerability early in both matches but rallied back with plenty of heart and perseverance. In between those matches Joe’s faced the Lumberjacks and my personal favorite team: Skillz That Killz. Cotton McKnight said Average Joe’s “had their work cut out for them facing the Lumberjacks”, so given that and their lopsided victory we can assume this would go a long way in shortening Joe’s championship odds. Skillz That Killz, on the other hand, was “looking past the Average Joes” and “doing more dancing than dodgeballing”, so we might not be able to gain much insight from this win.
That brings us to the Globo Gym Purple Cobras, who showed less than zero vulnerability on their road to the championship. They handily defeated every team they went up against, as they were predicted to do as one of the assumed top seeds in the tournament. Also, their secret weapon, Fran Stalinovskovichdavidovitchsky aka the deadliest woman on earth with a dodgeball, literally killed a guy in the bar with a throw. They don’t fuck around.
There’s also one more thing we need to consider before coming up with a price for this game… the effect of Patches O’Houlihan, who tragically died after being crushed by two tons of irony.
The death of a coach is difficult to quantify, but given the team’s lack of dodgeball experience and O’Houlihan’s prodigal wisdom of the game we have to assume he meant the world to the team. The “win for your coach” motivation factor isn’t quite enough to offset the material loss of one of the sharpest dodgeball minds we’ve ever had the privilege of witnessing. This one hurts Joe’s and its probability of winning. I also don’t think this has much of an effect on public betting, as emotional bettors will be split: half betting on a team to win for its coach while the other half bets against the team whose coach just died under a “Luck of the Irish” sign.
I’d open this moneyline at Globo Gym -1000, Average Joe’s +750. That’s a margin of roughly 2.67%, by the way. That’s low, but given the high profile nature of the match and the volume of wagers on it, it’s perfectly reasonable.
I don’t, however, think that’s what the closing odds would be. I think the public would be all over Average Joe’s, and as risk adds up the line would move to roughly +480 (and -600 for Globo Gym). That’s a 17.2% chance to win the match, roughly 10.5x the pre-tourney probability. Sharps would’ve hammered the favorite in this competition, but I’d be okay with that since it would offset some of the public risk on Average Joe’s.
Average Joe’s +480, Globo Gym Purple Cobras -600
I think that’s much more reasonable than Average Joe’s 50–1, don’t you?
**Some think Average Joe’s should’ve been disqualified when Peter LaFleur stepped outside the triangle in sudden death. Clearly an infraction, but maybe the referee looked the other way with White Goodman having been such an asshole the entire tournament. Either way, it would be tough to see if you’re a Globo Gym bettor.
