Spiral of Bias: Local Media Voting Bias in the NBA Over Time

Abstract

In 2015 the National Basketball Association (NBA) began making award ballots, which are cast by media members, transparent. Using media ballots from seven NBA seasons (2015–2021), this study sought to identify the difference between how players are viewed by local media members and how they are viewed by all other types of media members. A second purpose was to see if voter transparency decreased the amount of bias over time. We hypothesized that players would receive significantly higher average scores from local team media than they would from other media. This hypothesis was supported. We asked if voting transparency significantly decreased bias over time and found that the answer was yes. We asked if market size had a significant impact on local bias and found that the answer was no. Finally, we asked if any awards had potentially been compromised by local bias, and the answer was yes.