Has it ever crossed your mind about how the best athletes in the world got to where they did? You might have thought it had something to do with where they grew up? What teams they played for? Who their coaches were? Perhaps you thought it was genetics? All sports fans, at one point or another, will ask themselves that very question, how are they that talented and why are they so much better than their competition?
So while sports fans simply let the question pass and just accepted the athletic brilliance being displayed on their big screen tv’s, Malcolm Gladwell studied why these athletes were that good, how they became so exceptionally talented, and why these athletes are so much better than their competitors.
“Success is the result of what sociologists like to call accumulative advantage. In absolutely every system in which hockey is played, a hugely disproportionate number of hockey players are born in the first half of the year, specifically the first three months,” said Gladwell.
This theory is called the Relative Age Effect, which has been studied in sports for many years by psychologists, analysts and sociologists who have been interested in encoding the reasons behind superior athletic ability. It studies attainment inequalities as a result of interactions between biological age and age-grouping procedures.
Gladwell is a journalist, author and speaker who published a book called “Outliers” in 2008 which examined how a person’s environment, in conjunction with personal drive and motivation, affects his or her possibility and opportunity for success. With his research in areas of sociology, psychology and social psychology, he used his research of Canadian Junior hockey players to further prove the Relative Age Effect theory. His results, show that almost 40% of Canadian Junior Players were born in the first quarter (January/ February/ March) and above 30% were born in the second quarter (April/ May/ June) equaling a total of over 70%. This is a staggering statistic; more than 70% of Canadian Junior hockey players were born in the first half of the year.
With this universal theory, I thought I could use the methods and research to conduct my own study about the top 50 athletes in Ice Hockey, Basketball, Football, Soccer and Golf, and how this theory applies to their athletic excellence. I gathered the top 10 highest paid male athletes in 2015 in each of those sports, assuming that their salaries worked in concordance with their performance and dominance in the sport. I then further researched each player in each sport, and marked down his birthday.
The Relative Age Effect theory states that people born in the first three months are more likely to be superior to other, have a significantly large advantage over others, and amount to greater successes in relation to those born in later months.
The results were as following:
- Date of birth for all 50 athletes: 7/50 were born in January, 3/50 were born in February, and 4/50 were born in March.
- Percentage of total top 50 athletes born in each month:
28% were born in the first quarter: January-March,
22% were born in the second quarter: April-June
- 22% were born in the third quarter: July-September
- 28% were born in the fourth quarter: October-December.
- Of the top 10 Hockey players: 2 were born in the first three months.
- Of the top 10 Basketball players: 2 were born in the first three months.
- Of the top 10 Football players: 5 were born in the first three months.
- Of the top 10 Soccer players: 4 were born in the first three months.
- Of the top 10 Golfers: 1 was born in the first three months.
With this data that is also visually shown in the info-graphic, we can see that although there is 50% of the top 50 athletes born in the first half of the year, only 28% were actually born in the first three months. Is this a significant amount? Not really, especially compared to Gladwell’s results that stated over 70% of Canadian Junior Hockey players were born in the first half of the year, and of that 70%, 40% were born in the first quarter (January/ February/ March).
So, was Gladwell’s theory skewed because of the specific population of hockey players he researched in 2008 study of Canadian Junior hockey players? Maybe so. Was this research about the top 50 athletes in Ice Hockey, Basketball, Football, Soccer and Golf in 2015 perhaps a randomly skewed sample in relation to other years, other athletes and other sports? Maybe so. But perhaps the bigger question we must ask ourselves is this Relative Age Effect theory a main factor, or even a factor at all in relation to an athlete’s athletic preeminence? This data shows otherwise. I leave it to experts to gather a wider populace of athletes in different sports, and thus have a greater and wider-ranging analysis of Gladwell’s theory. However with the sample shown here, and the sample Gladwell chose to explore in 2008, the results speak for themselves. There is no significant correlation between the top 50 Ice Hockey, Basketball, Football, Soccer and Golfers from 2015, and the months they were born in.