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This study compares the relationship between National Basketball Association player career performances and their market values as revealed by their rookie card prices and their career salaries. This permits a novel identification of the similarities and differences between card collectors and team owners in how they value the same sample of 185 players. The analysis includes all players who began their careers in 1993 or after and completed their careers by 2019, and who renegotiated their rookie contract so that their card price and salary values are based on their National Basketball Association performances. Offensive statistics largely determine a player's salary and card value. Team owners place greater value on team attributes such as tenure with the team and games started, while card collectors place greater relative value on individual performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the 2015 Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) Road World Cycling Championship in Richmond, Virginia. Design/methodology/approach: An array of eclectic methods included in situ witness observations of several of the races, 21 semi-structured random interviews and multiple discussions with elements of UCI, the city of Richmond's planners, residents and business owners during and after the championship in fall 2015. Findings: This paper has uncovered five findings: First, the material investment was considerably smaller than that of other events (common good criterion CGC i – good governance); second, pre-planning was critical to successfully hosting the event; third, this event included not only two entities as one would expect at first glance, but many (common good criterion CGC ii – good management); fourth, a filière approach to community service and the exploitation of clustered thematic activities was of critical importance to successfully hosting the 2015 UCI Road World Cycling Championship; and fifth, this event enabled the opportunity to market other city and regional assets (common good criterion CGC iii – good outcomes). Practical implications: Cities hoping to bid for events ought to consider hosting unique events such as road championships. Those cities will benefit from careful event pre-planning, responsible event hosting and post-event legacies in the form of socio-economic and mindscape memories. Social implications: Bidding and pre-event planning is increasingly seen as an opportunity to locate, create and develop support for common good urban projects, which will remain valuable after the event is over or which will need to be built in spite of the bid's result. Originality/value: This study fills an unresearched gap on the impact of events on a city's future non-motorized sustainable transportation priorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The assessment of environmental and health impacts stemming from sports mega-events plays an important role in evaluating the overall cost–benefit of the events. This study utilizes microdata sourced from the China Household Income Project in conjunction with a time-varying difference-in-differences methodology. Through this approach, we estimated the impact of the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games on both air quality and public health conditions within China. The results reveal the following: (1) The Games wield substantial and favorable effects on self-perceived health; (2) The primary avenue through which the Games improve self-perceived health is by mitigating air pollution levels in the cities associated with the Games; (3) The cost–benefit analysis unveils that hosting the Games has led to a reduction of 1103.12 million RMB in residents' medical expenses, with the improved air quality accounting for 20.15% of the cost reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite its popularity, outcome uncertainty in professional tennis did not receive much attention from academics in the recent past. This is astonishing because it should be of utmost importance in professional tennis in the following years with the approaching end of the era of the Big 3. This study investigates match-level uncertainty in professional women's and men's tennis between 2010 and 2019 using a logit model with a dataset consisting of 51,054 matches. In the different analyses, the variations in the ranking and quality differences between players are taken into account in addition to differences across surfaces, tournaments, and genders. In the investigated period, women's tennis has relatively higher outcome uncertainty when compared to men's. The results also illustrate that talent seems to be distributed more evenly in women's tennis, whereas men's tennis has high heterogeneity in terms of talent. Moreover, very specific subgroups of matches having the highest and lowest uncertainty in men's and women's tennis are identified. Managerial implications are also presented to show how organizers, policy makers and, eventually, fans can benefit from the insights presented in this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper investigates the stock market reaction to three different events related to the UEFA Champions League – the announcements of draws, odds and match results. The aim of the paper is to test whether these events are informative for stock market operators, i.e. whether they produce abnormal returns. Design/methodology/approach: Applying the event study methodology, the authors investigate the stock market reaction before (at two events: the draw date and on the release of betting odds) and after the matches of 11 listed soccer teams in the period 2003–2019. The authors also conduct OLS regression analyses in order to disentangle the impact of firm specific variables and match characteristics on cumulative abnormal returns. Findings: This paper finds that match outcomes affect the stock market performance of listed teams, while the announcements of draws and odds do not. More specifically, the market does not consider match outcomes involving wins and ties as informative events, while it penalizes losing teams. Moreover, investor reactions to events related to the UCL competition depend more on match characteristics than on company specific variables. Originality/value: The study enriches the ongoing debate about the impact of soccer team results on stock market performance in several ways: using the widest time span ever adopted in this area; focusing on UCL, which is the most important soccer competition played by private clubs; disentangling for the first time the effects of draws, odds release and sporting outcome on stock returns of listed soccer clubs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the hot hand in the 1986-2019 NBA 3-Point Shooting Contests. Combining repeated shots in a location and shots across locations, the contest mimics game situations without many of the confounding factors. We find that a hot hand exists in the contest, but only for shots within the same location. Streaks of shots increase a hot hand, but only if the player makes his previous shot and has not moved locations. Our results suggest that while a hot hand does exist in basketball shooting, it is only present when shots are taken from the same shooting location. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to COVID-19, the 32nd Olympic Games were postponed temporarily for the first time, apart from those cancelled during the First and Second World Wars. Did the pandemic also affect the results? We aim to understand the impact of stringency measures on athletes' performance in the Olympics. For many athletes, the Olympics are the pinnacle of their careers, and they follow intense training schedules to arrive at the Games in peak physical condition. Stringency measures may have affected their results by making it harder for them to train effectively, to access sports infrastructure, to meet teammates, and more generally to follow an athletic lifestyle. Our quantitative analysis shows that stringency measures had an effect on the number of Olympic medals won, especially in team sports. This is consistent with the idea that stricter non-pharmaceutical interventions made it harder for teams to train together and achieve the necessary chemistry and harmony to succeed in such a competitive event. Furthermore, women were more severely penalized by higher stringency measures than men in team events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past two decades, attitudes toward marijuana usage have softened. This shift in sentiment coincided with reduced punishments, decriminalization, and in some states, legalization. We find evidence of unexpected consequences of marijuana legalization. Using difference-in-difference estimation, we show that legalization correlates with recruiting outcomes in NCAA D1 sports. Specifically, legalization appears to improve basketball recruiting outcomes for in-state colleges but hurts recruiting outcomes for football programs. Since collegiate athletics are directly correlated with revenues and may affect the number of general applications that a university receives, our results reveal a channel through which marijuana laws could impact post-secondary education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the assignment of referees to European international association football matches played between 2002 and 2016, we ask whether judgments were biased according to the legacy of the Cold War. We find that referees from post-communist states favored teams from non-communist states, but there was no evidence of favoritism in the other direction. This out-group bias of referees born behind the Iron Curtain was statistically significant for relatively less important and more subjective decisions, namely the awarding of yellow cards for foul play. The bias was particularly large among referees from the former Soviet Union. It has also diminished over time, perhaps due to increased professionalism in European refereeing, or because memories of the Cold War era have diminished among active referees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study provides first evidence on how belief dynamics are driving entertainment utility and consequently the demand for sports across markets by analyzing minute-by-minute audience data of UEFA Champions League (UCL) games televised in the UK and the Spanish market during a full (pre-COVID) cycle of broadcasting rights. Overall, we find that suspense and surprise are the main drivers of demand in both markets while shock only has marginal effects in the Spanish market. Interestingly, we find a combined impact of suspense and surprise in the UK market that is of similar magnitude as reported in a previous study for English Premier League matches in the UK. In the Spanish market, however, the combined impact is considerably larger. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How to select participants for a sports tournament when they are divided into different sets, and one should find a fair number of slots for each set? We propose to address this question by resorting to standard tools from the fair allocation literature. To frame our discussion, we focus on the increase in the number of participating teams in the FIFA World Cup. We explore the allocation of additional slots among continental confederations. We consider 10 different allocations. Based on our analysis, we can argue that the European soccer confederation (UEFA) has a solid basis to claim for additional slots. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The lack of crowds at sports fixtures as a result of COVID-19 restrictions has allowed researchers a unique opportunity to examine the widely accepted convention of home advantage. This work takes a slightly different approach, by examining within game outcomes. Specifically using play-by-play data from the NFL, this paper asks whether the lack of crowds aided a Quarterback's ability to manipulate opposition defenses. Results suggest this was the case, though effects are not uniform by home and away team. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the trade-off between two risks for scoring rules used in sports competitions containing multiple contests: (1) the threat of early clinch when the title is clinched before the last contest(s) of the competition take place; and (2) the danger of winning the competition without finishing first in any contest. Four historical points scoring systems of the Formula One World Championship are compared with the family of geometric scoring rules. The current scheme seems to be a reasonable compromise close to the Pareto frontier. Our results contribute to the issue of choosing an optimal set of point values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With few exceptions, the sports attendance demand literature assumes the intensity of fan responses to home and visiting team quality are homogeneous across the markets in a league. However, the theory of sports leagues makes no such assumption. In this paper, we empirically investigate heterogeneity in fan win preference intensity using Major League Baseball attendance. Using a generalized linear mixed model, we find evidence of substantial fan preference heterogeneity, toward both home and visiting team quality, across Major League Baseball markets. In addition to the demonstrated importance for empirical analysis, we detail how this also matters for league policy design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has decelerated substantial parts of economic and human interaction. This paper estimates football matches' contribution to the spread of COVID-19 during Germany's second infection wave in summer and autumn 2020. Exploiting the exogenous fixture schedules of matches across German counties in an event study design, we estimate that one additional match in a county on average raises daily cases by between 0.34 to 0.71 cases per 100,000 inhabitants after three weeks. Hence, this implies an increase of the seven-day incidence per 100,000 inhabitants by around three to seven percent. We do not find qualitatively different results for a subsample of German top league matches with the strictest hygiene regulations or matches with higher occupancy levels. Notably, the found effect is mediated by the incidence level at the day of the match with very few infections for matches at a seven-day incidence below 25. Using mobile phone data, we identify strong increases in the local mobility as an underlying mechanism. We finally show that the ban of away fans successfully limited the spread of COVID-19 beyond county borders. Our results alert that even outdoor mass gatherings can remarkably cause infections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pre-war baseball attendance data afford a unique opportunity to assess how leisure spending fared not only through deflation but also after such shocks as the Spanish Flu of 1918 and the 1929 Wall Street Crash. Long-run analysis via a vector error correction model (VECM) reveals significant cointegration of baseball attendance with both prices and output. A long-run positive relationship with prices offers evidence of a negative impact of deflation on leisure spending, suggesting that deflation is indeed more to be feared than inflation. There are also apparent parallels between the post-pandemic boom in leisure spending in 1919 and the post-2020 experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the interaction of informal constraints on human behaviour by examining the evolution of English football jerseys. The jersey provides an excellent setting to demonstrate how informal constraints emerge from formal rules and shape human behaviour. Customs, approved norms and habits are all observed in this setting. The commercialisation of football in recent decades has resulted in these informal constraints, in many cases dating back over a century, co-existing with branding, goodwill and identity effects. Combined, these motivate clubs to maintain the status quo. As a result, club colours have remained remarkably resilient within a frequently changing landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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 of outcome, essentially without sacrificing fairness. Our results have useful implications for the governing bodies of major sports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the optimal design of round-robin tournaments with three symmetric players. We characterize the subgame-perfect equilibrium in these tournaments with either one or two prizes. Our results show that the players who wish to maximize their expected payoffs or their probabilities of winning have different preferences about the order of games under tournaments with one or two prizes. We analyze the optimal allocations of players for a designer who wishes to maximize the players' expected total effort in the tournaments with one and two prizes, and by comparing between them, it is demonstrated that in order to maximize the players' expected total effort the designer should allocate only one prize. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, universities increasingly had to compete for talented students. Besides running other marketing activities, universities began to cooperate with local professional soccer clubs. However, there is missing evidence on the positive effects of such collaborations. One possible benefit of having a local professional soccer team in a city could be the attraction of new students. Although soccer is an important leisure activity, research insights into the relationship between professional soccer and the demand for studies are rare. In this context, we consider promotions and relegations of professional soccer clubs and their impact on student enrollment growth, since these events are exogenous and time variant leading to an exogenous change of local public goods, private goods and media attention. Focusing on public German universities, dynamic panel regressions show that promotions and relegations of the best local soccer club to the next higher or lower division significantly influence the number of student enrollments in the upcoming semester. This effect is mainly driven by exceptional promotions and relegations. Moreover, student growth is affected by other external shocks on the education system such as double graduation or the status of being an “elite university”. Surprisingly, research funds and tuition fees were found to have no effect. The results provide considerable insights for decision makers, signifying that the sporting performance of professional local soccer clubs might affect enrolment decisions and could be used as an indicator for predicting the expected number of upcoming student applications or serve as an additional instrument in marketing campaigns and recruiting activities of a university. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of the research on how human capabilities contribute to labour market success focuses on traditional human capital predictors. However, researchers are becoming increasingly aware of the important role of personality traits in determining individual labour market outcomes, both positive and negative. Using data from young professional football players in Germany, this study investigates the relationship between individual personality traits and cognitive abilities on career success. Our results suggest that individuals who score low on the tendency to be principled but high on cognitive processing speed are significantly more likely to enjoy career success through job promotion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyzes the influence of football players’ athletic characteristics on their corresponding market values. To measure players’ market values, we use estimates of market values by experts from a crowdsourced, international frequently cited sport-database (Transfermarkt.de). Therefore, market values reflect the expectations of stakeholders in the football industry involved in transfers and give implications for future transfer prices. We use a unique data-set including 915 players of the First and Second German Bundesliga and analyze by using ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions the influence of players’ minutes played, days injured, amount of goals and assists, yellow cards, dismissals, and titles won on their market values. Players’ minutes played, goals scored, assists scored, and titles won have a significant positive influence on their market values. Players who are more often injured have higher market values than players who are less often injured. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We develop a bargaining model to assess how workers and employers might allocate wages inter-temporally in order to cope with risk. We then apply this model to 106 long-term contracts for major league baseball players' services. Most of these agreements not only smooth employee compensation over time but suggest greater relative risk aversion for teams than players. Compared to the wages they might pay to retain these players on a succession of one-year contracts, teams often pay a premium on longer-term agreements to protect against market volatility and potential inability to replace a key player on the open market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although dancing is considered to be an important arts form, and is associated with various positive externalities, our understanding of the profiles of dancers and dance audiences are limited. We address the gap in the literature by exploiting survey data on cultural preferences and habits in Denmark for 2004. Our approach has allowed us to identify the socio-economic background of dancers, as well as their involvement in other cultural activities. Among other factors, we note that dancers are more frequent attendees at dance performances, than non-dancers; that they have typically lower incomes and tend to read more, play more video games and visit art exhibits more often. We are further able to separate the sample of dancers in relation to various types of dance practised, allowing us to provide insights on the differences between them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Power indices were originally developed to measure voting power. However, Saari and Sieberg (Games Econ Behav 36:241-263, 2001) and Saari (Chaotic elections, American Mathematical Society, Providence, 2001a) have suggested that the equations from power indices could potentially be used in some sports contexts as a way of evaluating athletes. This article explores this idea in the context of figure skating. The International Skating Union developed team events in figure skating for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia and for other major competitions. In this article, we show how the Shapley-Shubik and Banzhaf indices can be used to analyze contributions of athletes to their countries' teams in figure skating team events. We illustrate this approach by analyzing the results from the 2014 Winter Olympic Games figure skating team event. We also discuss some ways in which the numbers assigned by the equations from power indices can be used in the figure skating context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An extensive body of economic literature suggests that in the United States, there is little gain to a city from using tax revenues to subsidize or in other ways support professional sports franchises. One of the difficulties with these studies is the stability of professional team location. Manchester, England provides an opportunity to examine the growth effects associated with adding and subtracting top tier teams from a single sport in a single area over the course of several decades. Five different Greater Manchester area teams have been in the Premiership with as few as one and as many as four in any given year since the founding of the Premiership. Using Greater Manchester borough level data from 1991 through 2013 we look for changes in gross value added overall and in categories associated with professional sports when Premiership status changes. We find no sustained role for Premiership status, but do find a one off gain in gross value added growth when a team is promoted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we analyse the impact of school, head coach and conference characteristics on a college football team’s annual recruiting ranking. Utilizing panel data collected from various sources covering 2002–2014, we find that measures of recent school success such as having winning seasons and finishing seasons ranked in the Associated Press (AP) top 25 poll have a positive impact on a team’s recruiting ranking. Similarly, schools with more successful head coaches tend to earn better recruiting classes, while schools facing bowl bans, scholarship restrictions and probation tend to earn worse recruiting classes. Various measures of conference achievement indicate that conference externalities in recruiting may indeed be positive as is often suggested; however, there is much potential for a negative externality as well. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Rottenberg’s uncertainty of outcome hypothesis is about preferences that can vary across fans and sports. We provide the first evidence of the empirical power of the hypothesis in the Korean Professional Baseball League (KPBL). In a panel data set, team-level aggregation over years shows that fans of this league attend in ways consistent with the hypothesis at the level of game uncertainty and consecutive season uncertainty, but only the first is statistically significant. KPBL fans appear to just be looking for a good game. This is consistent with the nearly complete concentration of post-season participation among a very few teams outside of the major population centre in Seoul and a lack of local team identification among KPBL fans. Our work adds to the diversity of league structures in the competitive balance literature since talent levels in KPBL are the result of parent company advertising choices rather than geographic identification. There are research questions and a policy implication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We argue that student-athletes are amateur in title only; they are actually professional athletes in all accounts of their actions. This occurs because of the downstream demand of their athletic success: coaches are paid professionals. As a paid professional, these coaches are held accountable for the performances of their team, i.e. they are hired and fired based on this performance. Within the constraints of the National Collegiate Athletic Association guidelines, coaches make the rules for their athletes, which the athletes are required to follow. As such, the athletes themselves are professionals acting under professional incentives and are amateurs in title only. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social capital is a popular, but contested concept. It draws attention to the way in which social relations and constructed forms of social organization can produce outcomes on individual and collective levels. However, it is often founded on individualistic, rational-choice models of human behavior that neglect its embeddedness. I explore the embeddedness of social capital through a comparative case study of two voluntary sport organizations in the UK. Through close analysis of in-depth interviews and longitudinal observation, I look at the processes of social capital development and the way socio-organizational context and identity shape these processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article estimates the effect of fighting in hockey games on attendance in the National Hockey League (NHL) over the 1997–1998 through 2009–2010 seasons. After estimating a system of equations developed from a model of a profit-maximizing club owner, it was found that fighting had a small negative effect on attendance implying that encouraging fighting on the ice is not a profit-maximizing strategy. The results are quite robust when incorporating capacity constraints on attendance and exogenous ticket pricing. Other factors that determine club performance and market size were found to significantly affect attendance. The empirical results also suggest that NHL club owners are maximizing profit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author provides an overview of the economics of sports in Asia. Topics discussed include sports as a massive economic and social phenomenon, how the issue of "Asian Economic Policy Review" addresses the different dimensions of the economics of sport in Asia, and a summary and discussion on the articles included in the issue of "Asian Economic Policy Review" including the development of professional leagues in football and baseball.

This study reviews previous research on sports economics and applied descriptive analyses to derive policy recommendations for the Korean Baseball Organization and the Nippon Professional Baseball. We discuss various aspects of the contemporary baseball business, and compare them with the American Major League Baseball ( MLB). One distinctive characteristic common to both Asian leagues is the governance structure, where member teams are owned by major conglomerates. We explore this characteristic to assess the business objectives of the Korean Baseball Organization and the Nippon Professional Baseball, and find that their sources of competitive balance differ from those in MLB. Our conclusion suggests that their business objective should begin to move slowly toward one similar to that of MLB, and safeguards should be implemented to maintain a reasonable competitive balance. We also conclude that sports diplomacy and the creation of international competition are important because international competition and the success of national teams are critical for fan demand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The monthly variation of thermocline depth in terms of 20°C isotherm depth (Z20) in the Bay of Bengal has been studied using SODA and ARGO datasets. During a southwest monsoon, the Bay of Bengal is deepest in the western basin and shallowest in the eastern basin while it is the opposite during northeast monsoon. The Z20 oscillation is not only affected by semiannual reversing wind forcing but also influenced by coastal Kelvin waves from the eastern coast and remote effect from the Northern Indian Ocean and Malacca Strait. A linear relationship between SSHA and Z20 has been found from both SODA and observational studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on cumulative probabilities and their use by bookmakers. Topics discussed include the discrete probability distribution, the statistical methods used by bookmakers in the odds in sports betting, and the stacked odds as an example of behavioral economics. Also mentioned is the distribution of the total probability of 1 over various possible outcomes.

The author comments on the paper "A Business Analysis of Asian Baseball Leagues" by H. Jang and Y. H. Lee. Topics discussed include the fundamental difference in terms of governance system between the American Major League Baseball (MLB) and Nippon Professional Basebal lLeague (NPB), and Korean Baseball Organization (KBO), the obstacles in realizing the proposals made in the paper, and the importance of the cooperation of the teams over profit.

The author comments on the paper "A Business Analysis of Asian Baseball Leagues" by H. Jang and Y. H. Lee. Topics discussed include the development process of professional baseball leagues among three different Asian countries, the influence of socioeconomic structure on team performance, and the twin-peaks phenomenon observed in winning percentage distribution.