The best handicappers are focused on numbers, not teams. They establish the score and the data behind that and ignore the team itself. When you start betting teams, biases can creep in and bettors can get emotional.
Betting with your heart doesn’t have to be seen as negative though because we sometimes simply want to bet on the team that we support, but if we want to bet with our minds, we must approach betting with a calculative mindset.
Successful handicapping is all about finding and distilling information. You are looking for that one angle that might be underappreciated.
This is where making a fundamental analysis comes in handy. Fundamental analysis refers to a factor in a sports game that is NOT a number. In other words, it’s qualitative, not quantitative.
Challenges
You’ll notice that researching is not always enough and we can run into some decision fatigue. A couple of challenges that we often hear about are
- Finding factors that have real impacts on the game. There is so much information on any given sporting event and game that it can be overwhelming and it’s hard to know what to include in the analysis
- You found a factor, but can you bet it? After hours and hours of research, you came away with an incredible stat – now what?
We have to follow a chain of logic when it comes to fundamental analysis. Let’s stick with the home-field advantage example and go through some basic thoughts that would lead us to create a line with this in mind.
Benefits of Fundamental Analysis
Fundamental analysis can be a highly successful, albeit technical analysis that is fact-driven. That said, there are downfalls that come with it.
Let’s break a few of those down.
- Stats are a thing of the past. While it is a good look behind the curtain, it doesn’t mean those things will automatically happen in the future
- There are hidden factors. Technical analysis does not include things we can’t see like weather or game times
- Sometimes stats lie. You can have great stats with an outcome that doesn’t necessarily make sense. Blindly going off stats isn’t full-proof.
Universal Concepts used in Fundamental Analysis
Below we list a few of the factors that can be used when making a fundamental analysis.
Quality of player. If a 4-4 Bengals team is facing a 2-6 Ravens team, understanding that Joe Burrow missed that game with an injury will make this a much different game than the records indicate.
Matchups. Styles of play and understanding the strengths and weaknesses of two teams make up a matchup.
Team schemes. Some teams have major difficulties against certain types of schemes, and understanding which schemes will trip teams up is an important factor of fundamental analysis.
Rest and fatigue. We know that pro athletes get burnt out and over the course of a season, there is no way you can ignore certain scheduling and how it may impact an individual or an entire team throughout the course of the season.
Travel distance. We have brought this aspect up before and we will reiterate it again. Travel is an extremely important factor when it comes to pro athletes.
Recent performance. This is a good way to shade the behavior of players and see how they fare when they are on a losing streak or when they get hot.
Strength of competition. Sure, a team may have an 8-0 record to begin the year, but how good are the teams that they are playing?
Motivation. Teams and players have the motivation that goes beyond winning and there are histories and pasts for all the athletes that suit up.
Weather. If it is going to be 20 below in Green Bay and the Miami Dolphins are in town, that’s a good thing to know.