Popularity Contest

[Denny]

Although it's not on a par with ratings like, say, Power or Control, a player's popularity in OOTP can be important in some circumstances; more popular players will help attendance and contribute to the bottom line, for example. With that in mind, I was curious about how the teams of PEBA stacked up in that department after the first two days of the draft. I assigned each player a varying number of points according to his popularity, and then added up the totals for each team to arrive at a team popularity score.

The Popularity rating points were assigned as follows:
Unknown 0
Insignificant 1
Fair 2
Well Known 3
Popular 4
Very Popular 5
Extremely Popular 6

With the totals in hand, let's examine the results more closely, from the least popular teams to the highest. We'll classify them into groups analogous to the pecking order of popularity back in high school.

CHESS CLUB
PEBA's biggest poindexters. When they're not sitting in the front row of math class waving their hand, they're getting stuffed into hall lockers and depantsed in gym. We can only hope they get cooler when they grow up.
Tempe 4 popularity points
London 5
Florida 10
New York 10

MARCHING BAND
This group is somewhat more popular, at least within their own little clique, but still shunned by most as being weird and unpredictable. In PEBA terms they still have many young, untried players.
Connecticut 12 popularity points
Omaha 14
Aurora 15
Charleston 16
Fargo 16
Manchester 16

AVERAGE STUDENTS
Here we have the more or less normal kids; not ultra popular, but they've got enough friends to eat with at lunchtime. With a good mix of prospects and youngsters, sometimes average is the best thing to be.
Duluth 19 popularity points
Kalamazoo 22
West Virginia 22
Crystal Lake 23
Arlington 24
Canton 25
New Orleans 26
Yuma 26

COOL KIDS
We're approaching the rarefied air near the top of the hierarchy. Well-dressed, smooth and funny, they always know where the good parties are.
New Jersey 29
San Antonio 29
Palm Springs 30
Reno 33
But they still can't compare to...

HOMECOMING KING
Here he is--the big man on campus. Athletic, good-looking, and confident, every girl wants to be with him and every guy wants to be like him. Let's just hope high school isn't his crowning achievement in life.
Bakersfield 35 popularity points
Well done, Bears!

BUT WAIT...
Some of you (probably the chess club nerds we talked about earlier) may have noticed that I've only listed 23 teams. What happened to the other one? Well, frankly, it was so out of the ordinary it deserved a category of its own...

DANGEROUS LONER
Either the new kid in town or completely antisocial, the only person who cares about this guy is his mother. If things don't change soon, he'll end up in jail or singing in a goth band. In PEBA terms, every single player picked by this team was "Unknown"! That's the kind of unpopularity you almost have to actively work at.
Kentucky 0 popularity points

I hope you've enjoyed this little analysis of the league's continuum of current coolness. What popularity developments does the future hold in store? Only the conclusion of our draft will tell.