Announcements: Milestone Reached, Podcast Coming Soon, Pick 'Em Contest, and Upcoming Schedule
We're just getting started...
It’s been a week since we made our last post, following a relative flurry of posts the week before, but it’s not for a lack of activity on our part. We’ve got some things in the works that we’re excited about and we hope you will be too, but first we’d like to take a minute to say “thank you” because we’ve reached a significant milestone in the early days of the site…
We’ve Passed the 100 Subscriber Mark
As of the writing of this post, we’re sitting at 129 subscribers and counting, which is both humbling and remarkable. We greatly appreciate your support, and we appreciate your engagement with our content to date. Thank You! Please share the site with your friends and family if you like what you’ve seen so far.
Podcast Incoming
We are pumped to announce that, soon, we will be publishing a weekly TNG Podcast which will be available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and more. We’ve already recorded our introductory episode and we’re in the process of editing and submitting it to the various outlets for publication. We’ll embed new episodes in a weekly post here on the blog once we get going. Episode 1, as mentioned, will be our introductory show where we’ll give some background on ourselves, we’ll talk through our development process, and we’ll preview future shows. In Episodes 2 and 3 (target release date between 8/8 and 8/15), we’ll talk through all of the preseason content that’s been posted here and that will lead us into Episode 4 (target date, 8/23) which will kickoff of our in-season coverage, previewing Week 0 action.
The main idea behind the podcast is to provide a more personal look into what you see on the site. It’s where you’ll get to hear us talk through our thought processes on what we’ve posted and we’ll highlight our key findings and observations. We’ve never attempted a podcast before, but like everything else, we hope it adds to what we bring to the table. We’re aiming to keep the episodes in the 40 minute or less range to make them easily consumable on a commute, walk, workout, or wherever you enjoy taking in your favorite podcasts. Be on the lookout for that first episode to be posted here in the next 5-10 days or so!
Pick ‘Em Contest
We’re also excited to announce that we’ve developed a Pick ‘Em contest which will give y’all a chance to take on our model each week and see if you can beat the machine. We’ll join in as well to see if we can beat our own creation.
This contest is likely different than any you’ve ever done before, because it adds an element of risk to each pick. We’ll give you the favorite for each game and their predicted winning percentage according to our model. You’ll then have to decide if you think our model is understating or overstating that team’s prospects and you’ll enter your own estimate of their chances of winning. For example, say we list that a team has a 59% chance of winning, but you think they’re a lock; you may think they’re more like a 90% chance to win, so you enter “90”. If the favorite ends up winning in that scenario, you’d earn more points than the model for that game. If they were to lose, however, this is where it gets interesting. This game penalizes overconfidence. The higher winning percentage you assign to a favorite, the more you stand to lose if they lose. In fact, the maximum points you can win for a pick is 25 points, but the max you can lose is 75 points.
Each week we’ll select 20 or 30 games for you to pick and we’ll track everyone’s progress throughout the season. We’ll post a link to a Google Form when the first set of picks are ready. This will be a fun way for you to interact and compete with the community here and it should be a fun way to track the model’s performance.
Follow us on Twitter and Instagram
In addition to this blog, we’ve setup accounts on Twitter (@TexasTNG) and Instagram (@TexasTNG). Be sure to follow us there too!
Upcoming Schedule
This week we’re working hard on the podcast, as we mentioned, and we’re working on the TNG Timelines for teams ranked #6 through #10 in our Preseason Top 50, which we hope to release over the next week and change. We’re also working on some more features for our Historical Superlatives section of the blog, but those may get pushed back with the season so rapidly approaching. Speaking of the upcoming season, we’re also working on a feature that will highlight the teams with most difficult schedules, according to the average Elo ranking of their opponents.
Over the next few weeks, we’re going to publish as much as we can as we finish the features, but once the season starts, we’ll transition to a more regular posting schedule. Here’s what that may look like, using Week 0 as an example:
Tue, 8/23 - release Week 0 Preview post with link to Pick ‘Em
Wed, 8/24 - release Week 0 Preview podcast
Sat/Sun, 8/27-28 - post scores and updated standings
Sun/Mon, 8/8-29 - post updated Top 50
Tue, 8/30 - release Week 0 Recap/Week 1 Preview post with link to Pick ‘Em
Wed, 8/31 - release Week 0 Recap/Week 1 Preview podcast
etc…
Depending on how things go, we may have to alter that a bit, but that’s the plan. We’re going to consolidate many of our in-season features (weekly model runs and game picks, model performance, games of the week, etc) in links within our weekly newsletter each Tuesday so that we don’t flood you with emails. We’ll post the Scores and Standings in the background as well, but our goal there is to have them up on the site as soon as humanly possible each week.
Thanks again for your support and we look forward to the road ahead!