Rahul Ghanta
Pronouns: He/Him
Research Mentor(s): Katherine Babiak
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Sport Management / Kinesiology
Program:
Authors: Rahul Ghanta, Adam Copeland
Session: Session 3: 11:00 am – 11: 50 am
Poster: 63
Abstract
The National Football League (NFL) is one of the most successful professional sport leagues in the world with millions watching every year. Despite this, the game is often evolving in the background through rule changes managed by the league. Every year the NFL adds, deletes, or adjusts rules to address organizational goals (e.g., make the game more enjoyable to watch, safer to play, and technologically advanced). This study puts a perspective on these rule changes and what causes them to occur. After collecting and preparing (deleting unnecessary things like names of people and organizing only the rules) NFL rule books from 2001 all the way up to 2022, coding was executed in python to extract each chapter, section, and article. This code was then used to detect which chapters, sections, and articles were altered by the NFL from year to year. Exploratory and targeted analyses revealed which aspects of the game drive rule changes. For example, areas such as yards per game and points per game had a strong, positive relationship with rule changes. Further research must be done to see which specific rules correlate to different areas of the game. For example, points per game could be a result from defensive deletions to the game.
