Evidently, the Kansas City Chiefs have benefited from biased officiating, according to a study conducted by a team from UTEP.
Research done at UTEP found evidence that the Chiefs benefited from slanted officiating from 2015 to 2023, when they were becoming one of the most popular teams in the league.
The results were published in the Financial Review, and claim it provides “one of the clearest empirical looks at how financial pressures can influence real-time rule enforcement,” the UTEP research team said.
“Our findings suggest that when the league’s financial health is at stake, rule enforcement may subtly shift to protect market appeal,” said Spencer Barnes, Ph.D., assistant professor of finance in UTEP’s Woody L. Hunt College of Business and the author of the study. “The fact that postseason penalties consistently favored one franchise, while similar dynasties showed no such pattern, points to the powerful role of financial incentives in shaping supposedly neutral decisions.”
The study found that in playoffs from 2015 to 2023, penalties against defenses playing against the Chiefs were significantly more likely to result in first downs and cover more yardage.
The league suffered a sharp decline in TV viewership during the 2015-17 seasons and the study said the bias toward the Chiefs may be a response to that. Patrick Mahomes became the Chiefs’ starting quarterback in 2018, and Kansas City quickly became one of the most popular teams in the league.
Bret Bloomquist can be reached at bbloomquist@elpasotimes.com; @Bretbloomquist on X.
This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: Are NFL referees biased toward Kansas City Chiefs? A study done at UTEP thinks so
Reporting by Bret Bloomquist, El Paso Times / El Paso Times
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