Pub Date : 2026-03-01Epub Date: 2026-02-18DOI: 10.1016/j.serev.2026.100068
Jeong Yeol Kim, David Sungho Park, Chungeun Yoon
This paper examines the dynamics of team composition in doubles tennis, exploring the strategic impact of player selection and the relative influence of the strongest and weakest players on a partnership's performance. Employing a game-based theoretical framework and analyzing data from ATP World Tour doubles matches (1976–2017), we investigate whether outcomes are more influenced by “hard-carrying,” where a top-tier player significantly elevates a team's victory chances, or the “weakest link,” where the least skilled player potentially poses a detriment. Our findings reveal that partnerships that include the strongest player in a match have a higher likelihood of winning, particularly when there is a notable skill disparity between the partners. This suggests that the presence of key high performers can elevate team outcomes.
{"title":"Strategic pairings in professional doubles tennis: The role of the strongest and weakest players","authors":"Jeong Yeol Kim, David Sungho Park, Chungeun Yoon","doi":"10.1016/j.serev.2026.100068","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.serev.2026.100068","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper examines the dynamics of team composition in doubles tennis, exploring the strategic impact of player selection and the relative influence of the strongest and weakest players on a partnership's performance. Employing a game-based theoretical framework and analyzing data from ATP World Tour doubles matches (1976–2017), we investigate whether outcomes are more influenced by “hard-carrying,” where a top-tier player significantly elevates a team's victory chances, or the “weakest link,” where the least skilled player potentially poses a detriment. Our findings reveal that partnerships that include the strongest player in a match have a higher likelihood of winning, particularly when there is a notable skill disparity between the partners. This suggests that the presence of key high performers can elevate team outcomes.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":101182,"journal":{"name":"Sports Economics Review","volume":"13 ","pages":"Article 100068"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147402533","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-03-01Epub Date: 2026-01-13DOI: 10.1016/j.serev.2026.100066
Gustavo Bergantiños , Juan D. Moreno-Ternero
Sports are one of the most significant products of the entertainment industry, accounting for a large portion of all television (and even platform) viewing. Consequently, the sale of broadcasting and media rights is the most important source of revenue for professional sports clubs. We survey the economic literature dealing with this issue, with a special emphasis on the crucial problem that arises with the allocation of revenues when they are raised from the collective sale of broadcasting rights.
{"title":"The economics of sportscast revenue sharing","authors":"Gustavo Bergantiños , Juan D. Moreno-Ternero","doi":"10.1016/j.serev.2026.100066","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.serev.2026.100066","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Sports are one of the most significant products of the entertainment industry, accounting for a large portion of all television (and even platform) viewing. Consequently, the sale of broadcasting and media rights is the most important source of revenue for professional sports clubs. We survey the economic literature dealing with this issue, with a special emphasis on the crucial problem that arises with the allocation of revenues when they are raised from the collective sale of broadcasting rights.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":101182,"journal":{"name":"Sports Economics Review","volume":"13 ","pages":"Article 100066"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146102930","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-03-01Epub Date: 2026-03-07DOI: 10.1016/j.serev.2026.100069
Luís Cabral , Shucheng Liao
{"title":"Announcement of the 2025 best paper of Sports Economics Review","authors":"Luís Cabral , Shucheng Liao","doi":"10.1016/j.serev.2026.100069","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.serev.2026.100069","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":101182,"journal":{"name":"Sports Economics Review","volume":"13 ","pages":"Article 100069"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147402535","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-03-01Epub Date: 2026-01-29DOI: 10.1016/j.serev.2026.100067
Maryam Dilmaghani, Hui Xiao
This paper provides evidence that weather conditions robustly predict the outcome of super-elite chess games in official tournaments. Our findings stem from a large sample of super-elite chess games (), sanctioned by the World Chess Federation and held between year 2003 and 2019. We match these data with weather data in the tournament site on the game day. Our main weather variable is the deseasonalized sky cloud coverage, assumed consequential for player mood. We interpret the incidence of a drawn game as an indicator of lower risk taking. With this interpretation, our analyses suggest that risk taking is higher (lower) during better (worse) moods induced by sunny (overcast) days. These patterns are in line with the findings from financial trade data. Given the exceptional skill level of chess players in our sample, these results strongly suggest that expertise, acting in a professional capacity, and domain-specific reliance on backward induction do not obviate the pervasive influence of emotions on human decision-making.
{"title":"Does weather condition predict the outcome of super-elite chess games?","authors":"Maryam Dilmaghani, Hui Xiao","doi":"10.1016/j.serev.2026.100067","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.serev.2026.100067","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper provides evidence that weather conditions robustly predict the outcome of super-elite chess games in official tournaments. Our findings stem from a large sample of super-elite chess games (<span><math><mrow><mi>N</mi><mo>=</mo><mn>141</mn><mo>,</mo><mn>323</mn></mrow></math></span>), sanctioned by the World Chess Federation and held between year 2003 and 2019. We match these data with weather data in the tournament site on the game day. Our main weather variable is the deseasonalized sky cloud coverage, assumed consequential for player mood. We interpret the incidence of a drawn game as an indicator of lower risk taking. With this interpretation, our analyses suggest that risk taking is higher (lower) during better (worse) moods induced by sunny (overcast) days. These patterns are in line with the findings from financial trade data. Given the exceptional skill level of chess players in our sample, these results strongly suggest that expertise, acting in a professional capacity, and domain-specific reliance on backward induction do not obviate the pervasive influence of emotions on human decision-making.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":101182,"journal":{"name":"Sports Economics Review","volume":"13 ","pages":"Article 100067"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147402534","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-01Epub Date: 2025-10-25DOI: 10.1016/j.serev.2025.100060
Jiang Jin , Di Yang , Yaokai Liu , Lihua He
This paper investigates the influence of foreign players on the performance of domestic players in the Chinese Basketball Association. During the 2019–2020 season, the COVID-19 outbreak disrupted player availability, as some foreign players were unable to return to their teams. This unexpected situation created an exogenous shift in team composition, offering a unique natural experiment to study this dynamic. Our findings reveal that the performance of domestic players, measured by plus-minus values, significantly improved in the absence of foreign players. This result holds across a range of robustness checks. Furthermore, we find that the absence of foreign players led to an improvement in domestic players’ field goal percentage and points per minute. A mechanism analysis, conducted from two perspectives—through Two-Stage Least Squares estimation and by focusing on players whose positions directly overlapped with foreign players—suggests that the increased playing time caused by the absence of foreign players is the primary driver behind the enhanced on-court performance of domestic players.
{"title":"The impact of foreign player absence on domestic player performance: A COVID-19 natural experiment","authors":"Jiang Jin , Di Yang , Yaokai Liu , Lihua He","doi":"10.1016/j.serev.2025.100060","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.serev.2025.100060","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper investigates the influence of foreign players on the performance of domestic players in the Chinese Basketball Association. During the 2019–2020 season, the COVID-19 outbreak disrupted player availability, as some foreign players were unable to return to their teams. This unexpected situation created an exogenous shift in team composition, offering a unique natural experiment to study this dynamic. Our findings reveal that the performance of domestic players, measured by plus-minus values, significantly improved in the absence of foreign players. This result holds across a range of robustness checks. Furthermore, we find that the absence of foreign players led to an improvement in domestic players’ field goal percentage and points per minute. A mechanism analysis, conducted from two perspectives—through Two-Stage Least Squares estimation and by focusing on players whose positions directly overlapped with foreign players—suggests that the increased playing time caused by the absence of foreign players is the primary driver behind the enhanced on-court performance of domestic players.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":101182,"journal":{"name":"Sports Economics Review","volume":"12 ","pages":"Article 100060"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145374571","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-01Epub Date: 2025-11-20DOI: 10.1016/j.serev.2025.100064
Marco Henriques Pereira , Markus Lang
Understanding why some sports clubs consistently outperform others despite similar financial resources remains a central question in sports economics. This paper develops a contest-theoretic model of a sports league in which clubs differ in both their financial capacity and their efficiency in transforming player talent into on-field performance. Each club chooses its optimal level of talent investment under either profit-maximizing or win-maximizing objectives. The model explicitly distinguishes between two types of heterogeneity-market size and efficiency, allowing us to study how these asymmetries jointly shape equilibrium talent demand, competitive balance, and welfare. The results reveal that profit-maximizing clubs may reduce talent investment when efficiency improves, while win-maximizing clubs respond in the opposite direction. Efficiency differences also affect large and small clubs asymmetrically, with small clubs often expanding investment under conditions in which large clubs contract. Welfare implications depend critically on league orientation: in profit-oriented leagues, welfare improves when small clubs are less efficient and large clubs are more efficient, whereas the opposite holds in win-oriented leagues. By integrating contest theory with the literature on club efficiency, the paper demonstrates that efficiency heterogeneity is not inherently detrimental. Under certain conditions, it can yield strategic advantages and even enhance league welfare, offering new insights for both academic research and league policy.
{"title":"Transforming talent into performance: Efficiency heterogeneity, strategic behavior, and welfare in sports leagues","authors":"Marco Henriques Pereira , Markus Lang","doi":"10.1016/j.serev.2025.100064","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.serev.2025.100064","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Understanding why some sports clubs consistently outperform others despite similar financial resources remains a central question in sports economics. This paper develops a contest-theoretic model of a sports league in which clubs differ in both their financial capacity and their efficiency in transforming player talent into on-field performance. Each club chooses its optimal level of talent investment under either profit-maximizing or win-maximizing objectives. The model explicitly distinguishes between two types of heterogeneity-market size and efficiency, allowing us to study how these asymmetries jointly shape equilibrium talent demand, competitive balance, and welfare. The results reveal that profit-maximizing clubs may reduce talent investment when efficiency improves, while win-maximizing clubs respond in the opposite direction. Efficiency differences also affect large and small clubs asymmetrically, with small clubs often expanding investment under conditions in which large clubs contract. Welfare implications depend critically on league orientation: in profit-oriented leagues, welfare improves when small clubs are less efficient and large clubs are more efficient, whereas the opposite holds in win-oriented leagues. By integrating contest theory with the literature on club efficiency, the paper demonstrates that efficiency heterogeneity is not inherently detrimental. Under certain conditions, it can yield strategic advantages and even enhance league welfare, offering new insights for both academic research and league policy.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":101182,"journal":{"name":"Sports Economics Review","volume":"12 ","pages":"Article 100064"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145624077","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-01Epub Date: 2025-11-08DOI: 10.1016/j.serev.2025.100061
Kjetil K. Haugen , Andrew Musau
This paper examines the role of compensatory and subjective scoring elements in determining competition outcomes in ski jumping. Using detailed data from seven seasons of men’s World Cup events (2010/11-2016/17), we decompose final scores into their constituent components: jump distance, style points awarded by judges, wind compensation, and gate compensation. We then simulate alternative ranking systems that exclude one or more components to assess how much they matter for event- and season-level standings. Our results show that jump distance alone explains most of the variation in rankings, and that removing style, wind, or gate points individually leads to only modest statistical changes in aggregate correlations. However, even small positional shifts - often one or two places - can be decisive for professional athletes, affecting prize money, sponsorships, and career trajectories. The findings illustrate a central tension in the design of scoring systems: subjective and compensatory elements may appear marginal in statistical terms but can have substantial consequences for individuals and for perceptions of fairness. By situating ski jumping in the broader economics literature on contests, subjective evaluation, and institutional design, we highlight how this case sheds light on the trade-offs between transparency, fairness adjustments, and competitive incentives in performance evaluation systems.
{"title":"Do subjective and compensatory scores matter? an empirical analysis of Ski jumping competitions","authors":"Kjetil K. Haugen , Andrew Musau","doi":"10.1016/j.serev.2025.100061","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.serev.2025.100061","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper examines the role of compensatory and subjective scoring elements in determining competition outcomes in ski jumping. Using detailed data from seven seasons of men’s World Cup events (2010/11-2016/17), we decompose final scores into their constituent components: jump distance, style points awarded by judges, wind compensation, and gate compensation. We then simulate alternative ranking systems that exclude one or more components to assess how much they matter for event- and season-level standings. Our results show that jump distance alone explains most of the variation in rankings, and that removing style, wind, or gate points individually leads to only modest statistical changes in aggregate correlations. However, even small positional shifts - often one or two places - can be decisive for professional athletes, affecting prize money, sponsorships, and career trajectories. The findings illustrate a central tension in the design of scoring systems: subjective and compensatory elements may appear marginal in statistical terms but can have substantial consequences for individuals and for perceptions of fairness. By situating ski jumping in the broader economics literature on contests, subjective evaluation, and institutional design, we highlight how this case sheds light on the trade-offs between transparency, fairness adjustments, and competitive incentives in performance evaluation systems.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":101182,"journal":{"name":"Sports Economics Review","volume":"12 ","pages":"Article 100061"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145529063","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-09-01Epub Date: 2025-07-16DOI: 10.1016/j.serev.2025.100055
Rodney Fort , Finn McMichael , Randal R. Rucker
We derive three propositions describing what we coin “the idea of WAR” from published and online sources—replacement wins, unit contribution, and comparability across position, team, and time. Using a team win production regression model incorporating the three propositions, team-level data from Baseball-Reference (BR-WAR) and FanGraphs (FG-WAR) reject replacement wins and comparability. The unit contribution proposition is rejected for pitcher BR-WAR but not hitter BR-WAR, while the opposite is true for FG-WAR. Hitter and pitcher WAR contributions to wins are not equal to each other for either version of WAR. Finally, the contribution of pitcher FG-WAR to wins exhibits diminishing returns. While our results reject that these two measures adhere completely to the idea of WAR, they do not reject either one as useful measures of player performance. These results are important for sports analytics, the economic estimation of wins production, and a recent Major League Baseball salary arbitration issue.
{"title":"Do team-level calculations support “the idea of WAR”? Implications for Wins production estimation in baseball","authors":"Rodney Fort , Finn McMichael , Randal R. Rucker","doi":"10.1016/j.serev.2025.100055","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.serev.2025.100055","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We derive three propositions describing what we coin “the idea of WAR” from published and online sources—replacement wins, unit contribution, and comparability across position, team, and time. Using a team win production regression model incorporating the three propositions, team-level data from Baseball-Reference (BR-WAR) and FanGraphs (FG-WAR) reject replacement wins and comparability. The unit contribution proposition is rejected for pitcher BR-WAR but not hitter BR-WAR, while the opposite is true for FG-WAR. Hitter and pitcher WAR contributions to wins are not equal to each other for either version of WAR. Finally, the contribution of pitcher FG-WAR to wins exhibits diminishing returns. While our results reject that these two measures adhere completely to the idea of WAR, they do not reject either one as useful measures of player performance. These results are important for sports analytics, the economic estimation of wins production, and a recent Major League Baseball salary arbitration issue.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":101182,"journal":{"name":"Sports Economics Review","volume":"11 ","pages":"Article 100055"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145049868","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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