Our numbers guru, college kid Max Wasserman, seems to have outdone himself. He usually focuses on numbers as they pertain to sports, but something caught his eye recently – all those silly, publicity-seeking Top 100 “Hot women” lists that the lad mags like to put out. So he investigated. His findings are nothing short of remarkable. Who averages out to rank highest? Who has been completely snubbed (for one, Ana Ivanovic, which is laughable)? Whose value is completely over-inflated? Enjoy.

When numerical analysis is generally found on a sports blog, it’s usually about a sport: It’s either baseball, basketball, football, hockey, soccer, tennis, golf, rugby, boxing, foxy boxing, cricket, jai alai, red rover, skee-ball, Mario Kart, bocce ball, or Gnip Gnop. This numerical analysis, however, relates to something that is not a sport and isn’t even a game. However, it is a frequent sports blog topic so we’re going ahead with it.

When it comes to hot famous women, we all have our personal preferences. We also usually have three or four distinct groupings for these women based on our opinions. Generally, these groupings are something along the lines of “very hot,” “not quite as hot,” and “Amy Winehouse.€ But rarely do any of us distinguish between every hot famous women and rank them by hotness in an exhaustive list. We’re just content to stare at whatever photos are provided. Yet every year, the men’s magazines perform this seemingly insane task and create ordered lists of what they consider to be the 100 Hottest Women in the World. And every year, these lists lead to publicity, sales, and controversy over the editors’ seemingly boneheaded thinking.

This year, the boneheaded thinking was the presence of Britney Spears on both the Maxim Hot 100 list and the FHM 100 Sexiest Women in the World list. Maxim placed her at No. 19, demonstrating that the Maxim editors are either blind, stupid, or still stranded on the Lost island in 2004. Meanwhile, FHM’s U.S. edition ranked her at No. 100. While it’s far closer to her actual rank, it shows that FHM’s editors didn’t have the common sense to leave her off the list, but didn’t have the chutzpah to move her higher.

But numerous lapses in judgment aren’t the only problems with these lists. A major issue is that they are incredibly unrealistic. In 2007, Maria Sharapova was No. 17 in Maxim’s rankings. In 2008, she was nowhere to be found. Did she become less attractive over the past year? Of course not! If anything, she became more attractive with her win at the Australian Open in January—well before Maxim compiled their list. While the lists remain very popular news and conversation topics, it is clear that they are insufficient. A better list is required. And since the laws of mathematics state that a negative times a negative equals a positive, I decided to use an aspect of a controversial method on these controversial rankings to create a better one. This controversial method is the FIFA World Rankings.

What I did was to look up the rankings for the past four years for three different lists: Maxim’s Hot 100, FHM U.S.’s 100 Sexiest, and FHM U.K.’s 100 Sexiest. I included the U.K. list because it provides certain women not present on the U.S. lists (Billie Piper!) and gives more of an outsider’s opinion on the women that are on the U.S. lists. I compiled the data and assigned a point value for each rank, from 500 for a No. 1 to 100 for a No. 100. Being unranked on a list was still worth 75 points. I also altered some rankings based on convenience and opinion. For example, if a group was given a single rank, the points would only go to one person from that group. So points for The Pussycat Dolls only went to Nicole Scherzinger and points for The Olsen Twins only went to Ashley. Also, if any woman ranked was a magazine’s contest winner (e.g. Maxim’s Hometown Hotties), was a computer program (Second Life Girl), or had the combined IQ of wheat (The Olly Girls), they were not given any points.

Once all the data entry was complete, I used the FIFA Rankings’ system for giving weight to more recent results. Like so:

fifaformula

Apply the multipliers, sum it all up, and here are the results:

First, each magazine individually (click for larger image). Here’s what you’ve got: 1) the Average Top 100 rankings for Maxim and FHM, 2) The World rankings for those two plus FHM UK, 3) Maxim’s Top 50 because for whatever reason, The Big Deal didn’t include Nos. 51-100, 4) Same deal, FHM, 5) Same deal, FHM UK.

A few interesting notes about the results:

–Also ranked on the American list: Anne Hathaway (101), Drew Barrymore (107), Mila Kunis (109), Danica Patrick (112), Alicia Keys (113), Gwen Stefani (117), Lauren Conrad (120), Amanda Beard (121), Diora Baird (128), Anna Kournikova (161), Kate Mara (174)

–Also ranked on the world list: Petra Nemcova (102), Gwen Stefani (105), Kate Hudson (108), Kim Kardashian (111), Vida Guerra (127), Eliza Dushku (133), Milla Jovovich (148), Danica Patrick (169), Lauren Conrad (177), Amanda Beard (178)

–Some of my personal, besides the norm, favorites: Avril Lavigne (A 41, W 35), Tricia Helfer (A 44, W 54), Lake Bell (A 88, W 139), Elizabeth Hurley (A 100, W 150), Sarah Silverman (A 116, W 175), Kari Byron (A 129, W 191), Isla Fisher (A 133, W 199), Grace Park (A 134, W 201), Morgan Webb (A 142, W 214), Ellen Page (A 145, W 140), Bar Refaeli (A 181, W 87), Billie Piper (W 78)

–Jessica Alba would have probably been number one overall if Maxim hadn’t had dropped her to 34 in their 2008 list. Maxim dropped her because she’s now pregnant. Classy there Maxim.

–Hayden Panettiere was ranked in the U.K. before she was ranked in the U.S.

–Avril Lavigne was not ranked by the American FHM in the past four years. She had been ranked in the British FHM three of the past four years.

–Ana Ivanovic has only been ranked by the British FHM, in 2008.

–Stacy Keibler has never been ranked by the American FHM.

–Petra Nemcova and Anne Hathaway have never been ranked by Maxim.

–Alessandra Ambrosio has only been ranked by Maxim once, in 2007 at No. 51.

–Elizabeth Hurley has gone unranked by the British FHM the past four years.

Sure you might say that all of this was pointless. But through it, I did uncover a grave injustice. In the past four years, Cheryl Hines, Sarah Chalke, and Giada de Laurentiis have never been ranked on any of those lists. Yet during the same time, Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie, and Tila Tequila have. The world is truly unfair.