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Is There a Differential Market Size Effect in U.S. Free Agent Signings? Evidence From Localized Sentiment Trading Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2021-04-08 Aigbe Akhigbe, Melinda Newman, Ann Marie Whyte
We consider three professional sports and examine if there is a disparate return response to free agent signings with small versus big market franchises. After controlling for player ability, contract characteristics, and negotiation conditions, we find evidence of a more pronounced negative small market effect in response to both basketball and baseball signings, and a more pronounced negative big
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Peer Effects on Individual Performance in a Team Sport Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2021-03-23 Mariia Molodchik, Sofiia Paklina, Petr Parshakov
The paper investigates the variety of peer effects on individual performance in a team sport. The individual performance of more than 5,000 soccer players, from 234 teams, between 2010 and 2015, is measured with the help of the FIFA video game simulator developed by EA Sports. The study reveals positive peer effects on individual performance although the marginal benefit decreases. Additionally, team
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Asymmetric Opportunities After an Unsuccessful Sports Career Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2021-03-19 Martin Grossmann
Contestants enter a risky contest when pursuing a sports career or choose a secure outside option. If contestants enter this contest but their sports career fails, they may have asymmetric career opportunities outside of sport. Greater opportunities reduce the risk of entering this contest. However, contestants’ incentives to exert effort decrease. Two types of equilibria exist if the initial pool
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Stadium Attendance Demand Research: A Scoping Review Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2021-03-17 Dominik Schreyer, Payam Ansari
Because maximizing stadium attendance demand is of utmost importance, for both sports economists and sport management researchers, understanding the potential determinants of such demand better has become a priority in the last decades. Here, conducting a systematic scoping review, we map this previous research in terms of its characteristics, its nature, and its volume, thus offering a concise perspective
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The (non) determinants of Olympic success Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2021-02-23 Johan Rewilak
This paper empirically examines the determinants of Summer Olympic success during the period 1996-2016. By modifying the panel Tobit estimator using the Mundlak transform, the results find that population size and the host effect are the only statistically significant determinants of Olympic attainment. We also show that participating in front of a home crowd will stimulate athletic performance equally
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The Effect of League Design on Spectator Attendance: A Regression Discontinuity Design Approach Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2021-02-04 Barry Reilly, Robert Witt
This paper exploits a sharp regression discontinuity design to identify the causal impact of the Scottish Premiership League (SPL) “split” on spectator match attendance. We use data drawn from all 19 completed seasons for which this institutional arrangement has been in place. The causal effect of the “split” is to induce, for the last five rounds of games played in the season, a differential in average
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A Comparison of NCAA FBS Head Coaches Salary Determination From New and Modified Contracts Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2021-01-28 Stacey L. Brook
Previous research examines head football coaches’ salary only using aggregate athletic department revenues. Using detailed football program fixed and variable revenues provided in the NCAA Membership Financial Reporting System data, head football coaches signing either new and modified contracts are able to capture both variable and fixed revenues when negotiating salaries. Additionally, for the two
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Applying Google Trends’ Search Popularity Indicator to Professional Cycling Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2021-01-27 Alexander Genoe, Ronald Rousseau, Sandra Rousseau
This study uses Google Trends data to analyze the impact of the main events in the Tour de France 2019 on cyclists’ online popularity in 12 countries and at a global scale. A fixed effects panel model revealed a strong own-country preference. While online popularity increased with the duration of the Tour, race incidents strongly influenced online popularity. Besides the yellow jersey, winning a stage
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Does Sports Make People Happier, or Do Happy People More Sports? Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2021-01-07 Bruno S. Frey, Anthony Gullo
We contribute to the happiness literature by analyzing the causal relationship between sports and happiness. Using longitudinal data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP), we find a positive correlation between sports participation and reported life satisfaction. This relationship is stronger at younger and older ages than in middle age, and for people in bad health compared to those in average
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Did the 2011 Change to NFL Rookie Compensation Alter How Sunk Costs Affect Utilization? Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2020-12-29 Quinn Andrew Wesley Keefer
The 2011 NFL collective bargaining agreement introduced significant changes to rookie compensation, including a rookie wage scale. We test if the new rules changed how sunk costs affect utilization for drafted rookies. Our regression discontinuity results show a robust sunk-cost fallacy that is similar in magnitude to the one documented under the previous agreement. Second-round selections play significantly
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Development of a Win Production Function and Evaluation of Cross-Sectional Dependence Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2020-12-29 Jin Lee, Young Hoon Lee
We consider correlations between pairs of teams when deriving a win production function for professional baseball teams. Previous empirical studies derived win production estimates based on the assumption that the error terms were independent, but this is not reasonable given that a win is a relative output. The total number of wins per season is fixed: all teams share wins, in that a win for one team
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Race and National Football League Player Salaries After Controlling for Fantasy Statistics and Arrests Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2020-12-09 Christopher Jepsen, Lisa Jepsen, Trevor Draisey, Josh Mahoney
This paper provides a novel contribution to studies of race and labor-market outcomes by using fantasy football statistics as a measure of performance across offensive skill positions and arrest data as a proxy for negative off-the-field behavior. We investigate whether the determinants of salaries and employment vary between 2005-06 and 2015-16, as the 2011 collective bargaining agreement (CBA) introduced
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Three is a Magic Number: Evidence on the Effects of the Application of the Three-Point Rule in Italy’s Serie A Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2020-12-07 Vincenzo Alfano, Lorenzo Cicatiello, Giuseppe Lucio Gaeta, Michele Gallo, Francesca Rotondo
This paper contributes to the expanding literature that investigates the effects of the introduction of a three-points-for-a-win rule in football. To this end, it provides empirical evidence of the effect of the rule on Italy’s most prestigious football league. Our analysis uses data collected over a long period of time and relies on pooled regressions and a regression discontinuity design. The findings
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In the Money: Gender and Jockey Success on the Thoroughbred Racetrack Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2020-11-28 Alexander D. Binder, Paul W. Grimes, Russell G. Winterbotham
This paper examines the relative performance and access to mounts of female jockeys in American horseracing, the only major professional sport where female and male athletes directly compete on a regular basis. We modeled the determinants of the probability for a jockey finishing a race “in-the-money”—placing first, second, or third, and the determinants for receiving mounts. Among other findings,
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Economic Development Effects of Major and Minor League Teams and Stadiums Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2020-11-28 Nola Agha, Daniel Rascher
Professional teams and leagues claim new stadiums lead to economic development. To test this, we utilize data from the Census Bureau on net establishment and employment changes across 871 Metropolitan and Micropolitan Statistical Areas from 2004 to 2012. Difference-in-differences and panel data techniques allow for a cross-sectional and time series comparison for both teams and new stadia in both professional
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The Predictive Power of College Football Spreads: Regular Season Versus Bowl Games Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2020-11-25 Justin Cox, Adam L. Schwartz, Bonnie F. Van Ness, Robert A. Van Ness
This paper compares the predictive accuracy and efficiency of college football point spreads for regular and bowl games. We find that the betting line spread is more accurate as a predictor of the eventual winner for college football games during the regular season than for the bowl games. Although the betting market is mostly efficient with regard to the favorite covering the spread, we do find several
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How do Bookmakers Interpret Running Performance of Teams in Previous Games? Evidence From the Football Bundesliga Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2020-11-24 Brian P. Soebbing, Pamela Wicker, Daniel Weimar, Johannes Orlowski
This study examines how running performance (intensive runs, total distance covered) of football teams in previous games impacts betting markets as it relates to expected win probability. Theoretically, bookmakers could interpret team’s running performance as effort or fatigue, with sports science studies suggesting that distance covered reflects effort and intensive runs signal fatigue. Using data
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Does Sport Affect Health and Well-Being or Is It the Other Way Around? A Note on Reverse-Causality in Empirical Applications Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2020-10-29 Jing Guan, J. D. Tena
Estimating the causal impact of sport or physical activity on health and well-being is an issue of great relevance in the sport and health literature. The increasing availability of individual level data has encouraged this interest. However, this analysis requires dealing with two types of simultaneity problem: (1) between exercise and response variables; and (2) across the different response variables
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Loss Aversion in Professional Golf Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2020-10-29 Ryan Elmore, Andrew Urbaczewski
We examine loss aversion in the context of professional golf at US Open tournaments. In particular, we analyze data from two courses, Pebble Beach Golf Links and Oakmont Country Club, where they have hosted six and five US Opens, respectively. The United States Golf Association changed the par rating of a hole on each course from a par 5 to a par 4, without fundamentally altering the hole, in each
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How Does the Super Bowl Affect Host City Tourism? Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2020-09-22 Lauren R. Heller, E. Frank Stephenson
This paper uses a unique dataset containing more than eight years of daily data to examine the effect of the Super Bowl on hotel room rentals, rates, and room revenue in four recent host cities. The findings include (1) the net gain in rentals is considerably fewer than the gross number of rooms rented, (2) benefits are heterogeneous across cities, (3) the areas that benefit are not always those located
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Is the NBA Summer League Predictive of Performance for NBA Rookies? Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2020-09-21 Brent A. Evans, Joshua D. Pitts, Chris Clark
Using data from 2006 to 2019, we show that performance in the NBA Summer League can be used to predict regular season performance for NBA rookies. This result is indicated by general performance (win shares) and also by individual performance measures; for example, players who score more points than anticipated in the Summer League are also more proficient scorers as NBA rookies. Our findings suggest
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Effect of Star Power on NBA All-Star Game TV Audience Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2020-09-18 Scott D. Grimshaw, Jeffrey S. Larson
Data from 16 years of NBA All-Star Games shows star power has two components. First, fans are drawn to live games featuring players whose current play is at a historically high skill level. Second, fans display attachment based on geographical proximity to a team, local superstar recognition, and team success. All-Star games are exhibitions with a roster of different levels of high skill level and
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The Effect of Seeding on Tournament Outcomes: Evidence From a Regression-Discontinuity Design Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2020-09-17 Oliver Engist, Erik Merkus, Felix Schafmeister
Seeding in tournaments is a process of creating a schedule based on performance in the recent past. It is used in many athletic disciplines to ensure that particularly attractive match ups do not occur until the later stages of the tournament. We exploit the discontinuous nature of the seeding system in the UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Europa League as a natural experiment to estimate the causal
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Team Visibility and City Travel: Evidence From the UEFA Champions' League Random Draw Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2020-09-11 Bruno Caprettini
Does hosting a sports team boost the visibility of a city among tourists? I test this proposition by looking at the effect of playing soccer’s UEFA Champions' League on air travel. I compare routes across cities that had their teams randomly drawn into the same group in the first phase of the competition to routes across cities hosting teams randomly allocated to different groups. The average effect
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The AFL Pick Trading Market as a Coasian Utopia Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2020-08-07 Jemuel Chandrakumaran
Sporting leagues have various competitive balance measures including player drafts, where teams are awarded picks based on prior performance. Teams, however, have the option to either exercise this pick or trade it as they see fit. An analysis of this trading market in the NFL stated that players obtained through traded picks contributed more to their recruiters in comparison to their counterparts
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Who Should Sign a Professional Baseball Contract? Quantifying the Financial Opportunity Costs of Major League Draftees Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2020-08-05 N. David Pifer, Christopher M. McLeod, William J. Travis, Colten R. Castleberry
Players selected in the annual Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft have a choice of whether to enter the system or pursue a career outside of professional baseball. As with any choice, there are opportunity costs associated with their decision. The purpose of this study was to analyze those opportunity costs by comparing draftees’ expected, non-signing-bonus income to the income of standard
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Optimal Tournament Design: Lessons From the Men’s Handball Champions League Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2020-07-27 László Csató
This paper challenges the traditional seeding regime of round-robin tournaments that aims to create balanced groups. In particular, the design of the most prestigious European men’s handball club competition is compared to two alternative formats with equally strong groups via simulations. We find that it is possible to increase the quality of all matches played together with raising the uncertainty
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The “Cinderella Effect”: The Value of Unexpected March Madness Runs as Advertising for the Schools Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2020-07-27 Trevor Collier, Nancy Haskell, Kurt W. Rotthoff, Alaina Baker
This study looks at the impact of a university making a surprise (“Cinderella”) run in the men’s NCAA basketball tournament. Our results suggest that surprise success in the tournament has little to no impact on the quantity of applications in subsequent years. However, we find that freshmen enrollments increase for private schools two academic years after a Cinderella run (with mixed results on the
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The Impact of National Anthem Protests on National Football League Television Ratings Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2020-07-24 Judah Brown, Brandon J. Sheridan
The National Football League’s (NFL) television ratings decreased by approximately 8% during the 2016 season, then a further 10% the following season. These declines coincided with league-wide national anthem protests initiated by Colin Kaepernick at the beginning of the 2016 season. Existing research identifies many determinants of demand for sporting events, but athletes’ protests are seldom considered
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League Ranking Mobility Affects Attendance: Evidence From European Soccer Leagues Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2020-07-24 András Gyimesi
Ranking mobility belongs to the indicators of dynamic long-term competitive balance, as it is based on season to season changes in league rankings. If the uncertainty of outcome hypothesis holds at the league level, ranking mobility might increase demand for league games. This assumption is tested by using panel regression models on data of 19 European domestic soccer leagues. Ranking mobility is found
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Home Advantage in Skeleton: Familiarity versus Crowd Support Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2020-07-15 Seungwhan Chun, Sang Soo Park
The paper investigates home advantages in skeleton. Our study broadens home advantage literature by providing models and estimation strategy applicable to other individual sports with tracks or courses such as biathlon, cross country skiing, etc. We identified two sources of advantages: support from the crowd; familiarity with the track. In the Olympics and the World Championships, home advantage leads
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“The ball is round, the game lasts 90 minutes, everything else is pure theory” Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2020-07-15 Peter-J. Jost
We model a soccer match between two heterogeneous teams as a two-stage contest where each team chooses its attacking and defending effort for each half of the match. We characterize the optimal teams’ efforts as well as the optimal effort allocation between offense and defense. In contrast to the theoretical literature on soccer we show, for example, that the leading team may preempt its competitor
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The Private Benefit of Public Funding: The FIFA World Cup, UEFA European Championship, and Attendance at Host Country League Soccer Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2020-06-23 Stefan Szymanski, Bastien Drut
This article examines attendance at league soccer matches before and after hosting an international soccer competition (the FIFA World Cup or the UEFA European Championships). We find significant increases in attendance at clubs that host games in these tournaments. We find smaller but often significant increases in attendance at other league clubs, suggesting that these events may drive fan interest
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Employer-Assigned Workload and Human Capital Deterioration: Evidence From the National Football League Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2020-06-17 Steven Salaga, Brian M. Mills, Scott Tainsky
We test whether human capital deterioration is a function of employer decision making with respect to workload allocation. We examine this question in the context of National Football League running backs, where the structure of nonguaranteed employment contracts has the potential to create divergent incentives for franchises and players. We empirically test how employer-assigned workloads impact changes
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Do You Get What You Pay for? Salary and Ex Ante Player Value in Major League Baseball Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2020-06-17 John L. Solow, Anthony C. Krautmann
The last few years have seen a resurgence of very long, very expensive guaranteed contracts in Major League Baseball. Commentators who examine the outcomes of earlier long-term contracts generally conclude that teams greatly overpay in these situations. These assessments suffer from the use of perfect hindsight, however. In this article, we estimate the economic gain that could be anticipated at the
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The Demand for the Characteristics of Football Matches: A Hedonic Price Approach Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2020-06-11 Jaume García, Plácido Rodríguez, Federico Todeschini
We estimate a system of demand equations for three aggregate characteristics of a football game—quality of the teams, outcome uncertainty, and schedule—based on the estimation of a hedonic price model for the ticket price of a football match using data from the Spanish football league. We conclude that all three characteristics are not inferior goods (quality as a luxury), and they are price inelastic
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Fans and Match Results: Evidence From a Natural Experiment in Brazil Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2020-06-08 Carlos Alberto Belchior
This paper assesses the effect of the crowd size on home team advantage, using a natural experiment occurred in Brazilian football. In 2015, the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) quasi-randomly assigned games to be played under an alternative schedule on Sundays at 11 a.m. This measure significantly increased attendance in assigned games. Using this alternative schedule as an instrumental variable
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Revenue per Quality of College Football Recruit Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2020-05-15 Stephen A. Bergman, Trevon D. Logan
There is significant debate about compensation of college athletes in revenue generating sports. In college football, the potential heterogeneity in player value has received little attention in the discussion. The relationship between player quality, team performance, and sport-specific revenue should inform any compensation scheme for college football players. In this article, we provide estimates
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Staking in Sports Betting Under Unknown Probabilities: Practical Guide for Profitable Bettors Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2020-05-01 Andrés Barge-Gil, Alfredo Garcia-Hiernaux
Kelly staking has been proven to maximize long-term bankroll growth of bettors with positive expected yield (profitable bettors). However, it demands for an estimation of the true probabilities for each event. Thus, many sport tipsters opt for simpler flat (unit-loss) or unit-win staking plans. We analyze under which assumptions these strategies correspond to the Kelly method and propose a different
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Boys in the Booth: The Impact of Announcer Gender on Audience Demand Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2020-04-29 Ryan Rogers
This study provides an experiment to examine whether announcer gender impacts audience demand. With special attention to literature detailing the role of women in sports, sports economics, as well as uses and gratifications theory, this study provides an experiment wherein participants watched a sporting event announced by a man or a woman. Afterward, the participants responded to questions regarding
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Rivalries, Bowl Eligibility, and Scheduling Effects in College Football Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2020-04-09 Jason A. Winfree
This study analyzes how the importance of a game, or characteristics of the previous game, impacts college football games. The results show that rivalry games are harder to predict, and the strength of the previous opponent influences the outcome of the game. If a team’s previous game was close, this negatively influences the team. There is no evidence that the previous game’s location or a team’s
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Does Proximity to a New Sports Facility Affect Existing Businesses’ Survival Time? Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2020-04-08 Geoffrey Propheter
Existing literature on the economic impact of sports facilities fails to consider whether new facilities positively affect existing businesses. To fill this gap, data on existing establishments in Sacramento, CA, active from 2004 through 2018 were collected. The outcome of interest is existing businesses’ survival time. Using an accelerated failure time model in a difference-in-difference framework
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Defensive Coordinator and Head Coach Effects on Team Defensive Performance in the National Football League Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2020-04-07 Joshua D. Pitts, Brent A. Evans
This research examines the impact of defensive coordinators and head coaches on team defensive performance in the National Football League (NFL). We find that elite and very poor defensive coordinators and head coaches can have meaningful impacts on their teams’ defensive performances. A team’s defensive performance is shown to improve with increased defensive coordinator tenure. Similarly, defensive
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Measuring Customer Discrimination: Evidence From the Professional Cricket League in India Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2020-04-06 Pramod Kumar Sur, Masaru Sasaki
This article examines customer discrimination considering a unique data set from the most popular sports industry in India, that is, cricket. Relying on Playing XI vote in the Indian Premier League, we analyze whether supporters have different personal preferences toward players based on their location of origin and religion. In contrast to the often-heated rhetoric surrounding discrimination and previous
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When to Walk Away and When to Risk It All Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2020-03-31 Scott DeAngelis, W. Kip Viscusi
While one might expect athletes to be strongly averse to extending their career too long when there is a chance of losing everything due to a concussion or a catastrophic injury, experimental subjects consistently played longer than the optimal amount for risk-neutral decisions. A commitment to the length of play in advance, as in the case of long-term contracts, led to a greater chance of staying
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The Advantage of Scoring Just Before the Half-Time Break—Pure Myth? Quasi-Experimental Evidence From European Football Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2020-03-23 Philippe Meier, Raphael Flepp, Maximilian Ruedisser, Egon Franck
We examine whether the moment just before the half-time break is a particularly good time to score a goal. Using detailed data from the top five European football leagues between the 2013-2014 and 2017-2018 seasons, we exploit the quasi-random occurrence of goals scored just before and just after the half-time break. In the former situation, the game is exogenously interrupted by a break immediately
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Impacts of Performance-Enhancing Drug Suspensions on the Demand for Major League Baseball Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2020-03-06 Jeffrey Cisyk
In 2005, Major League Baseball (MLB) introduced a new policy regarding the use of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) wherein the league would not only suspend but also publicly name any player who tested positive for banned PEDs. Using the estimated television audience size of MLB games from 2006 to 2012, these PED suspension announcements provide a unique natural experiment to test how consumers react
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NCAA Expenditure and Efficiency: Analyzing Generated and Allocated Revenue in the Football Bowl Subdivision Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2020-03-03 R. Todd Jewell
Using a stochastic production function approach and a dynamic panel data estimator, this study creates estimates of time-varying efficiency in the production of generated revenues for NCAA Division I football bowl subdivision athletic programs. These efficiency estimates are then compared to the use of allocated revenues—fees from students and direct payments from the university budget—by college athletic
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Dealing With Randomness in Match Outcomes: How to Rethink Performance Evaluation in European Club Football Using Expected Goals Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2020-01-22 Marc Brechot, Raphael Flepp
In European club football, decision makers often rely on recent match outcomes when evaluating team performance, even though short-term results are heavily influenced by randomness. This can lead to systematic misjudgments. In this article, we propose a complementary approach for performance evaluation. We build upon the concept of expected goals based on quantified scoring chances and develop a chart
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Firm-Level Economic Activity Before, During, and After Local Events: A Case Study Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2020-01-22 Craig A. Depken, Benjamin L. Fore
This case study investigates how various sporting and cultural events impact economic activity at a single full-service restaurant in center-city Charlotte, NC. We find no evidence of significant changes in daily revenue, customers served, and revenue per customer on the day before, day of, and day after many of the events. The exceptions are National Football League (NFL) home games, swimming events
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Mind the Absent Gap: Gender-Specific Competitive Behavior in Nonprofessional Sports Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2019-11-22 Anna Katharina Pikos, Alexander Straub
There is wide evidence for gender differences in competitive behavior and performance under pressure from experimental economics and single-sex professional sports. We analyze these differences in a sport with direct gender competition. Our unique data consist of over 500,000 observations from around 11,000 German ninepin bowling games of which around 15% are from mixed-gender leagues. Men perform
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Are Fair Weather Fans Affected by Weather? Rainfall, Habit Formation, and Live Game Attendance Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2019-11-20 Qi Ge, Brad R. Humphreys, Kun Zhou
We analyze habit formation in sports attendance utilizing rainfall as an unexpected, transitory shock to attendance costs. Using attendance data from Major League Baseball (MLB) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration weather data, we analyze the impact of variation in game day weather conditions on current and future MLB attendance. The empirical strategy permits identification of both
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A Benford Analysis of National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I Finance Data Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2019-11-19 Willis A. Jones
The Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act (EADA) database and the USA Today NCAA athletics department finance database are two of the most commonly used databases for scholars, policy makers, and other constituents interested in studying the economics of college athletics. Many in the higher education community, however, question the validity of these databases. This study used Benford’s Law of First
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Moving the Needle in MMA: On the Marginal Revenue Product of UFC Fighters Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2019-11-11 Paul Gift
This article analyzes fighter marginal products (MP) and marginal revenue products (MRP) for the largest component of Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) revenues: content. Most bouts are fought in the presence of fixed content revenues, and most fighters go their entire careers without supplying labor services for variable revenue pay-per-view (PPV) main cards. After demonstrating that winning does
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The Undesirable Consequences of Doping Regulations:Why Stricter Efforts Might Strengthen Doping Incentives Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2019-11-10 Kasim Music
We analyze the impact of doping regulations on the doping decisions of athletes in a Tullock contest. We show that stricter anti-doping regulations may increase the profits of doped athletes, which makes doping more sustainable in the long run. Under certain conditions, a naturally more able athlete may receive a lower payoff than his naturally less able competitor, reversing the natural payoff order
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The Impact of Hosting the 2018 FIFA World Cup on Differences in TV Viewership Between Seasoned Football Fans and Occasional Watchers of Football Games in Russia Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2019-11-10 Daam Van Reeth, Nikita Osokin
This article explores Russian TV viewership for football games at seven international football tournaments from 2006 to 2018. The research goal is 2-fold. First, we identify the determinants of Russian viewership for football mega-events. We focus on patriotism effects, and we check for any hosting impact of the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia. Second, we analyze how these determinants differ in explaining
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The Effect of Superstars on Game Attendance: Evidence From the NBA Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2019-11-10 Brad R. Humphreys, Candon Johnson
Economic models predict that “superstar” players generate externalities that increase attendance and other revenue sources beyond their individual contributions to team success. We investigate the effect of superstar players on individual game attendance at National Basketball Association games from 1981-1982 through 2013-2014. Regression models control for censoring due to sellouts, quality of teams
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How Did the AFL National Draft Mitigate Perverse Incentives? Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2019-09-08 Jemuel Chandrakumaran
Similar to the National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League, the reverse-order nature of the Australian Football League (AFL) national player draft has often times been speculated to induce tanking. However, a prior study found that there is no evidence of tanking within the AFL. This study tests this assumption under four periods, namely, pre-2006, 2006-2011, 2012-2014, and post-2014
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Productivity, Rents, and the Salaries of Group of Five Football Coaches Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2019-08-22 Michael A. Leeds, Ngoc Tram Nguyen Pham
Standard labor market theory says that workers are paid their marginal revenue product (MRP). However, firm revenue is sometimes independent of the productivity of individual workers. This often occurs in professional sports, as the bulk of a team’s revenue comes from league-wide TV contracts negotiated years in advance. This is also true for head coaches at “Group of Five” schools, which form the
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The Impact of Variable Pricing, Dynamic Pricing, and Sponsored Secondary Markets in Major League Baseball Journal of Sports Economics (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2019-08-13 Pascal Courty, Luke Davey
Toward the end of the 1990s and into the 2000s, Major League Baseball teams moved away from fixed ticket prices, to first setting prices according to expected game demand, and subsequently to dynamically changing prices in response to demand. Teams have also collaborated with secondary ticket marketplaces to sponsor resale. By exploiting a team panel covering seasons 1999-2017, we use fixed effect
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