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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]

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]

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]

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]