Author Date

2021-03-19

Degree Name

Department

Geography

College

Family, Home, and Social Sciences

Defense Date

2021-03-12

Publication Date

2021-03-19

First Faculty Advisor

Ryan Jensen

First Faculty Reader

J. Matthew Shumway

Honors Coordinator

Samuel Otterstrom

Keywords

geography, determinism, sports

Abstract

This paper analyzes the impact that geography has through the scope of determinism on professional football within the last 20 years. Fox Sports personality Colin Cowherd suggested the idea of determinism in football in 2017, and this project follows up on the idea that weather and climate specifically will be determinant factors in the success of an NFL franchise. Multiple demographic, economic, and climatic factors were selected to examine which factors are determinant in NFL franchise success. T-Tests were run on each of these variables to provide a P-Value, or an indication of whether or not the relationship between NFL success and these variables was statistically significant. This research finds that there are multiple variables that have an effect on NFL success and that Winter weather can have a significant impact on how successful a given NFL team can be.