It would be interesting to see a similar study on motorsport drivers. You would be able to measure athletic performance more accurately because you're measured against a stopwatch. There are also fewer external factors than basketball as drivers simply go around the track as fast as they can without external obstacles (in qualifying rather than racing stages). Unlike basketball, their athletic performance is less influenced by reacting to what the other team is doing.<p>There are a range of time zones changes and non-changes. From three consecutive races in UTC+2 (Belgium, Netherlands, Italy in F1 this year) to large changes (Australia, Brazil, Saudi Arabia). The sample size can go beyond the 20 F1 drivers by including junior leagues (F2/F3) as well as MotoGP and other tournaments.<p>Some F1 teams, like McLaren, are already doing some interesting work outside of car performance which could have benefits outside of motorsport.[1] See MindMaze for work in neuroscience.<p>Separately, it would also be interesting to test non-drivers like pit stop crew and race strategists. Like drivers, their performance (albeit less/not athletic) can be measured against a stopwatch.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.mclaren.com/racing/partners/mindmaze/" rel="nofollow">https://www.mclaren.com/racing/partners/mindmaze/</a>
A partially related and interesting story is how Tinder has also affected performance of NBA players (pre-pandemia) [1]<p>[1] <a href="https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/page/presents18969358/tinderization-today-nba" rel="nofollow">https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/page/presents18969358/tinde...</a>
There's been a lot of attention to the impact of fatigue on performance in competitive cycling, it's interesting to see this research in other sports as well.<p>In 2015 Team Sky (the dominant pro team at the time) experimented with using a motorhome for their race leader instead of the provided hotels during a stage race, to help him sleep better at night. The UCI almost immediately banned the practice as an unfair advantage [1].<p>[1] <a href="https://cyclingtips.com/2015/06/team-sky-motorhome-blocked-by-new-uci-rule-froome-must-use-hotels-during-tour/" rel="nofollow">https://cyclingtips.com/2015/06/team-sky-motorhome-blocked-b...</a>
ESPN had an excellent piece in 2019 on how grueling the NBA travel schedule is for players, mainly in how it disrupts their sleep: "NBA exec: 'It's the dirty little secret that everybody knows about'", <a href="https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/27767289/dirty-little-secret-everybody-knows-about" rel="nofollow">https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/27767289/dirty-little-se...</a><p>HN discussion: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21251094" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21251094</a>
I was watching Amazon's "All or Nothing" series, specifically the one about the New Zealand Rugby team aka the "All Blacks"<p>Since the international rugby league is spread across a wide variety of countries and time zones (e.g. Australia/NZ, South Africa and Argentina), it was fascinating to see that the NZ team will send players out ahead of time to acclimate to the time zone. They will also do this even if it means they will play short handed.<p>For example, if they are playing a series with Argentina, they will have players stay in Argentina through most of the series and not physically play in New Zealand till the end of the series. I always wondered how they quantified the benefit or if it was just a "makes sense to do that" style decision.
Fun and well thought out approach to a question we’ve all had for sports.<p>I don’t understand why the authors attributed the impact on performance to circadian rhythms, seems like they just threw it in there as a possible explanation for the results they recorded.<p>It could be any number of factors related to travel as far as the method is concerned.
I bet Major League Baseball could have some good supporting statistics for this as well.<p>With so many games, often traveling the night before another series, I wonder if batting performance in particular is impacted.<p>I bet West -> East travel would be worse with the loss in time.