A few small groups of people make some of the most argued-about decisions in sports and film, and they make them in private. I build a model for each one, publish how it has done, and give you the same data so you can make the call yourself.
Each of these gets decided by a group that meets behind a closed door and doesn't explain its reasoning. The process is public, the data is public, and the thinking in the room is what the models try to reconstruct.
Twelve committee members pick and seed 76 teams over a week of closed sessions, for the men's and the women's tournaments.
The forecast shows the field three ways: the model's bracket, my own bracket, and yours. I've projected the field every year for sixteen years, and Bracket Matrix has graded every one.
Twenty-five selectors cut a long nomination list down to a finalist slate, and a finalist needs 80 percent of the room to get in.
My model, HoFW, scores every player's career against the Hall members already in at the same position, so a guard is measured against guards and a receiver against receivers. It's tested against every real class since 2005.
About 10,000 Academy members vote, branch by branch for nominations and all together for the winners, on ballots nobody outside ever sees.
The model reads the season's precursor awards, the guilds most of all, and updates as each one is handed out. Its record comes from 30 past ceremonies it was never trained on.
Each decision is set up the way you'd learn to judge anything: understand the rules and the room, see them applied to real examples, then try it yourself. Start anywhere, but each one leans on the one before it.
A plain-English guide to who is in the room, what they're given to look at, what the rules say, and when each vote happens. There's no model on these pages. They're about the real decision.
All the guidesThe model takes what the room weighs and applies it to real cases: this year's candidates, and every past year, where you can see how it did. Each forecast links to a model guide covering what it reads and what it can't see.
See a forecastYour turn. Each studio loads the same data the model uses and lets you make the whole call yourself: a field, a class, or a ballot.
Open a studioThe studios are where the site ends up. Everything before them is there so the thing you build is worth defending.
Build the men's or women's field from live NET resume data, compare teams side by side, and watch the bubble as Selection Sunday gets close.
Run the committee's cuts yourself, from the eligible pool to semifinalists, finalists and your class. You can change the model's weights and watch the rankings move.
Fill all 45 nomination slots across the Big 8 categories and see every place you and the model disagree, and what each disagreement would cost you.
If one of these decisions is coming up soon, start with its guide. If you already know how the process works, go straight to a studio and see how your call compares to mine. The decision calendar has every date across all three, and the About page has the story of why I built this.