Like many coaches, Laura Harvey appears to have a game day ritual: she tweets a short message on game day and attaches either a gif or a bitmoji of herself. Inconspicuous enough. But a deep dive into the data of these tweets suggests that something more could be at work here.

So far, the Utah Royals have played 20 games. Harvey has dutifully made a game day tweet for each and every one. She alternated between using gifs and bitmojis for the first four games, then went on a streak of using only gifs, before switching back to bitmojis for their August 7 game against Sky Blue.

Here’s some comparisons of gameday tweets for wins and losses:

I’ve compiled the data, and the numbers don’t lie.

Royals’ W-L-T record based on whether Harvey used a gif or bitmoji:

Gifs: 4-5-3

Bitmojis: 5-2-1

Goals scored/game:

Gifs: 1

Bitmojis: 1.5

It’s clear now that there is a massive correlation between the Royals’ success and whether Harvey uses a gif or bitmoji in her game day tweet. Is there a variation within each category that also correlates to wins and losses? Harvey used a pretty random selection of gifs, with a combination of humans, animals, pop culture references, and one word art. This inconsistency compared to the bitmojis might actually be a clue to their success. Bitmojis are more deliberate and personalized, and may reveal a similarly deliberate and consistent gameplan. There is a small correlation within the bitmojis where when Harvey uses one of herself wearing sunglasses, it tends to negatively affect results. Her May 11 and August 21 bitmojis, both of which show her in sunglasses and assuming a jaunty manner, resulted in a loss and a tie respectively.

So, the keys to success: post a bitmoji, and don’t use sunglasses. We look forward to the scientific implementation of these recommendations in the future.