Pub Date : 2022-05-23DOI: 10.1177/15270025221100203
Zafer Akin, Murat Issabayev, Islam Rizvanoghlu
In professional boxing, a higher-ranked boxer chooses his opponent among challengers varying in popularity and strength. We build a three-stage model of a professional boxing fight between the chooser and a challenger to examine the strategic incentives of a chooser in sharing the purse and exerting a proper level of effort. More importantly, we endogenize the choice of the opponent and the purse to be generated. We found that an older chooser who is ready to cash in his reputation tends to choose a stronger opponent with little effort, while a young rising “star” prefers a match against weaker opponents.
{"title":"Incentives and Strategic Behavior of Professional Boxers","authors":"Zafer Akin, Murat Issabayev, Islam Rizvanoghlu","doi":"10.1177/15270025221100203","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/15270025221100203","url":null,"abstract":"In professional boxing, a higher-ranked boxer chooses his opponent among challengers varying in popularity and strength. We build a three-stage model of a professional boxing fight between the chooser and a challenger to examine the strategic incentives of a chooser in sharing the purse and exerting a proper level of effort. More importantly, we endogenize the choice of the opponent and the purse to be generated. We found that an older chooser who is ready to cash in his reputation tends to choose a stronger opponent with little effort, while a young rising “star” prefers a match against weaker opponents.","PeriodicalId":51522,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Sports Economics","volume":"24 1","pages":"28 - 49"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2022-05-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48735990","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-04-12DOI: 10.1177/15270025221091544
Clay Collins, B. Humphreys
Outcome uncertainty represents a central, defining area of sports economic research. Contest outcome uncertainty (COU), the idea that fan expectations about game outcomes affects attendance decisions, receives substantial attention in the literature, including many papers published in this journal. The standard model of fan decisions under uncertainty generates two diametrically opposed predictions about the COU-attendance relationship, depending on fan preferences, generating tension in the empirical literature. We undertake a meta-analysis of the empirical COU literature to assess empirical support for these predictions. We identify more than 500 empirical model specifications reported in 97 COU papers. The results slightly favor the loss aversion version of the model, but the literature contains no consensus. Sport analyzed and choice of COU proxy variable have no relationship to reported results. Simple OLS and panel data methods generate much of the evidence, highlighting the importance of using causal inference methods in future research.
{"title":"Contest Outcome Uncertainty and Fan Decisions: A Meta-Analysis","authors":"Clay Collins, B. Humphreys","doi":"10.1177/15270025221091544","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/15270025221091544","url":null,"abstract":"Outcome uncertainty represents a central, defining area of sports economic research. Contest outcome uncertainty (COU), the idea that fan expectations about game outcomes affects attendance decisions, receives substantial attention in the literature, including many papers published in this journal. The standard model of fan decisions under uncertainty generates two diametrically opposed predictions about the COU-attendance relationship, depending on fan preferences, generating tension in the empirical literature. We undertake a meta-analysis of the empirical COU literature to assess empirical support for these predictions. We identify more than 500 empirical model specifications reported in 97 COU papers. The results slightly favor the loss aversion version of the model, but the literature contains no consensus. Sport analyzed and choice of COU proxy variable have no relationship to reported results. Simple OLS and panel data methods generate much of the evidence, highlighting the importance of using causal inference methods in future research.","PeriodicalId":51522,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Sports Economics","volume":"23 1","pages":"789 - 807"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2022-04-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43305428","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-04-11DOI: 10.1177/15270025221091548
R. Fort
Sports economics is now 65 years old, since Rottenberg's “The Baseball Players’ Labor Market”. This milestone coincides with the 20th anniversary of the Journal of Sports Economics. Rottenberg's two main offerings, the match outcome uncertainty hypothesis and the invariance principle, are reviewed, including empirical verdicts from other recent literature reviews. In addition, perhaps less well-known issues in the literature suggest further investigation of these crucial hypotheses, and others that arise. Finally, the place of the Journal of Sports Economics in the evolution of sports economics is offered.
{"title":"Rottenberg at Sixty-Five: In Honor of the 20th Anniversary of the Journal of Sports Economics","authors":"R. Fort","doi":"10.1177/15270025221091548","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/15270025221091548","url":null,"abstract":"Sports economics is now 65 years old, since Rottenberg's “The Baseball Players’ Labor Market”. This milestone coincides with the 20th anniversary of the Journal of Sports Economics. Rottenberg's two main offerings, the match outcome uncertainty hypothesis and the invariance principle, are reviewed, including empirical verdicts from other recent literature reviews. In addition, perhaps less well-known issues in the literature suggest further investigation of these crucial hypotheses, and others that arise. Finally, the place of the Journal of Sports Economics in the evolution of sports economics is offered.","PeriodicalId":51522,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Sports Economics","volume":"23 1","pages":"808 - 825"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2022-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48632439","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-03-31DOI: 10.1177/15270025221085712
Ryan Pinheiro, Stefan Szymanski
Moneyball ( Lewis, 2003) claimed that data analytics enabled savvy operators to exploit inefficiencies in the market for baseball players. The economic analysis of Hakes and Sauer (2006) appeared to show that the publication of Moneyball represented a watershed, after which inefficiencies had been competed away. In both cases analysis focused on composite statistics such as on base percentage (OBP) and slugging percentage (SLG). This paper relies on a more structural approach, associated with the statistical analysis of Lindsey (1963) which identifies the run value of each individual event in a game. Using a dataset of every event in every game from 1996 to 2015, we show that run value of each event can be accurately calculated, as can the run value contribution of each player. We show that the compensation of free agents reliably reflects the run value contribution of each player, regardless of the source of those contributions (walks, singles, and home runs). We find this was true both before and after the publication of Moneyball, suggesting that the labor market for batters in Major League Baseball operated efficiently across our entire sample period.
{"title":"All Runs Are Created Equal: Labor Market Efficiency in Major League Baseball","authors":"Ryan Pinheiro, Stefan Szymanski","doi":"10.1177/15270025221085712","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/15270025221085712","url":null,"abstract":"Moneyball ( Lewis, 2003) claimed that data analytics enabled savvy operators to exploit inefficiencies in the market for baseball players. The economic analysis of Hakes and Sauer (2006) appeared to show that the publication of Moneyball represented a watershed, after which inefficiencies had been competed away. In both cases analysis focused on composite statistics such as on base percentage (OBP) and slugging percentage (SLG). This paper relies on a more structural approach, associated with the statistical analysis of Lindsey (1963) which identifies the run value of each individual event in a game. Using a dataset of every event in every game from 1996 to 2015, we show that run value of each event can be accurately calculated, as can the run value contribution of each player. We show that the compensation of free agents reliably reflects the run value contribution of each player, regardless of the source of those contributions (walks, singles, and home runs). We find this was true both before and after the publication of Moneyball, suggesting that the labor market for batters in Major League Baseball operated efficiently across our entire sample period.","PeriodicalId":51522,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Sports Economics","volume":"23 1","pages":"1046 - 1075"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2022-03-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42347388","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-03-31DOI: 10.1177/15270025221085715
C. Depken, J. Gandar, Dmitry A. Shapiro
We provide a theoretical and empirical analysis of strategic momentum and psychological momentum in best-of-three contests between players with unequal skills. As a theoretical benchmark, we develop a fully rational model of best-of-three contests and define psychological momentum as systematic deviation from the theoretical equilibrium. An empirical analysis of 66,262 professional tennis matches from 2002 to 2020 shows that our theoretical model closely matches first set outcomes, which is when set-level psychological momentum is absent. Overall, the empirical results show that both strategic momentum and psychological momentum contribute to the outcomes of best-of-three tennis contests.
{"title":"Set-level Strategic and Psychological Momentum in Best-of-three-set Professional Tennis Matches","authors":"C. Depken, J. Gandar, Dmitry A. Shapiro","doi":"10.1177/15270025221085715","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/15270025221085715","url":null,"abstract":"We provide a theoretical and empirical analysis of strategic momentum and psychological momentum in best-of-three contests between players with unequal skills. As a theoretical benchmark, we develop a fully rational model of best-of-three contests and define psychological momentum as systematic deviation from the theoretical equilibrium. An empirical analysis of 66,262 professional tennis matches from 2002 to 2020 shows that our theoretical model closely matches first set outcomes, which is when set-level psychological momentum is absent. Overall, the empirical results show that both strategic momentum and psychological momentum contribute to the outcomes of best-of-three tennis contests.","PeriodicalId":51522,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Sports Economics","volume":"23 1","pages":"598 - 623"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2022-03-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42653722","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-03-29DOI: 10.1177/15270025221078504
R. Noll
The Supreme Court's decision in NCAA v. Alston already has had profound effects on the governance of college sports. Despite the narrow scope of the relief ordered in Alston, the opinion invites more challenges to NCAA rules that restrict compensation of athletes. Within months after Alston was decided, many athletes already are substantially better off financially, and the NCAA has delegated regulation of compensation of athletes to its conferences and divisions. Moreover, the case represents an intellectual victory for sports economics in that decades of research in the field formed the foundation for the Court's opinion.
{"title":"Sports Economics on Trial: Alston v. NCAA","authors":"R. Noll","doi":"10.1177/15270025221078504","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/15270025221078504","url":null,"abstract":"The Supreme Court's decision in NCAA v. Alston already has had profound effects on the governance of college sports. Despite the narrow scope of the relief ordered in Alston, the opinion invites more challenges to NCAA rules that restrict compensation of athletes. Within months after Alston was decided, many athletes already are substantially better off financially, and the NCAA has delegated regulation of compensation of athletes to its conferences and divisions. Moreover, the case represents an intellectual victory for sports economics in that decades of research in the field formed the foundation for the Court's opinion.","PeriodicalId":51522,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Sports Economics","volume":"23 1","pages":"826 - 845"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2022-03-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43116310","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-03-18DOI: 10.1177/15270025221085714
Ilaria Masiero
I investigate the relationship between sports-based entertainment and crime using nine years of hourly data on robberies and thefts by police district in São Paulo linked to information on 430 football matches. Results report a citywide voluntary incapacitation impact and a local spatial concentration effect. Robberies significantly drop during matches, especially high-audience ones. Around the stadiums, this effect is outweighed by that of concentration. While I find no evidence of spatial displacement, temporal displacement is at play, with offenses being moved up to pre-game time. I show that the game-crime link is likely deployed through potential criminals rather than victims.
{"title":"Sports-based Entertainment and Crime Evidence from Football Games in Brazil","authors":"Ilaria Masiero","doi":"10.1177/15270025221085714","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/15270025221085714","url":null,"abstract":"I investigate the relationship between sports-based entertainment and crime using nine years of hourly data on robberies and thefts by police district in São Paulo linked to information on 430 football matches. Results report a citywide voluntary incapacitation impact and a local spatial concentration effect. Robberies significantly drop during matches, especially high-audience ones. Around the stadiums, this effect is outweighed by that of concentration. While I find no evidence of spatial displacement, temporal displacement is at play, with offenses being moved up to pre-game time. I show that the game-crime link is likely deployed through potential criminals rather than victims.","PeriodicalId":51522,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Sports Economics","volume":"23 1","pages":"1076 - 1095"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2022-03-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46030821","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-03-08DOI: 10.1177/15270025221085716
Tim F. Thormann, Sebastian Gehrmann, P. Wicker
This study applies the wellbeing valuation approach to sport participation and volunteering using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel. Linear regression results show that sport and volunteering hours increase satisfaction with life, health, work, income, and leisure, but with diminishing returns in most models. In a seemingly unrelated regression, some of these effects turn insignificant. The instrumental variable estimates show causal impacts of sporting hours on all wellbeing measures, while volunteering only impacts health satisfaction. The monetary values vary depending on the type of wellbeing measure and estimator, indicating that future studies should consider the employed measures and estimators.
{"title":"The Wellbeing Valuation Approach: The Monetary Value of Sport Participation and Volunteering for Different Life Satisfaction Measures and Estimators","authors":"Tim F. Thormann, Sebastian Gehrmann, P. Wicker","doi":"10.1177/15270025221085716","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/15270025221085716","url":null,"abstract":"This study applies the wellbeing valuation approach to sport participation and volunteering using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel. Linear regression results show that sport and volunteering hours increase satisfaction with life, health, work, income, and leisure, but with diminishing returns in most models. In a seemingly unrelated regression, some of these effects turn insignificant. The instrumental variable estimates show causal impacts of sporting hours on all wellbeing measures, while volunteering only impacts health satisfaction. The monetary values vary depending on the type of wellbeing measure and estimator, indicating that future studies should consider the employed measures and estimators.","PeriodicalId":51522,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Sports Economics","volume":"23 1","pages":"1096 - 1115"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2022-03-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44916598","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-02-18DOI: 10.1177/15270025211071042
Jonas Vandenbruaene, M. D. Ceuster, J. Annaert
Are simple trading strategies profitable? It is a question that has been on the minds of academics and practitioners for decades. In this paper, we review the longstanding literature on trading strategies in spread betting (also known as handicap betting), a popular sports betting microstructure. We review over 600 strategy implementations and find that market efficiency and systematic misperceptions are not mutually exclusive per se. Predictable glitches occur, but they are too small to be profitably exploited which is consistent with efficient markets. Furthermore, while controlling for data mining issues is becoming mainstream in finance, it has not yet made its way into this literature. We provide evidence that the hurdle rate of |z| > 3 which has been put forward in the broader finance literature should also be used in betting market research.
{"title":"Efficient Spread Betting Markets: A Literature Review","authors":"Jonas Vandenbruaene, M. D. Ceuster, J. Annaert","doi":"10.1177/15270025211071042","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/15270025211071042","url":null,"abstract":"Are simple trading strategies profitable? It is a question that has been on the minds of academics and practitioners for decades. In this paper, we review the longstanding literature on trading strategies in spread betting (also known as handicap betting), a popular sports betting microstructure. We review over 600 strategy implementations and find that market efficiency and systematic misperceptions are not mutually exclusive per se. Predictable glitches occur, but they are too small to be profitably exploited which is consistent with efficient markets. Furthermore, while controlling for data mining issues is becoming mainstream in finance, it has not yet made its way into this literature. We provide evidence that the hurdle rate of |z| > 3 which has been put forward in the broader finance literature should also be used in betting market research.","PeriodicalId":51522,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Sports Economics","volume":"23 1","pages":"907 - 949"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2022-02-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47526335","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-02-15DOI: 10.1177/15270025221078009
Noah Sperling, Donald Vandegrift
This paper analyzes the effect of anthem protests on viewership for National Football League (NFL) games controlling for measures of NFL market-specific political beliefs and other demand determinants. To capture the effect of the protests on viewership, we create two classes of protests (unambiguous and ambiguous protests) and support the classification based on the meaning of the protest, actions by NFL owners, and statements by Donald Trump. Using data from all early and late-afternoon Sunday games from the 2014 through 2017 regular NFL seasons, we show that: (1) unambiguous protests reduce viewership in the week following the protests by about 15% while ambiguous protests do not generally produce statistically significant reductions in viewership; (2) the negative effect of unambiguous protests on viewership is particularly strong in metro locations that voted more heavily for Donald Trump in 2016; and (3) following Donald Trump's statements in week 3 of the 2017 season, both ambiguous and unambiguous protests increased and the increase in ambiguous protests was particularly large.
{"title":"Anthem Protests, Viewer Politics, and the Demand for NFL Games: Assessing the Impact of National Anthem Protests on Viewership","authors":"Noah Sperling, Donald Vandegrift","doi":"10.1177/15270025221078009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/15270025221078009","url":null,"abstract":"This paper analyzes the effect of anthem protests on viewership for National Football League (NFL) games controlling for measures of NFL market-specific political beliefs and other demand determinants. To capture the effect of the protests on viewership, we create two classes of protests (unambiguous and ambiguous protests) and support the classification based on the meaning of the protest, actions by NFL owners, and statements by Donald Trump. Using data from all early and late-afternoon Sunday games from the 2014 through 2017 regular NFL seasons, we show that: (1) unambiguous protests reduce viewership in the week following the protests by about 15% while ambiguous protests do not generally produce statistically significant reductions in viewership; (2) the negative effect of unambiguous protests on viewership is particularly strong in metro locations that voted more heavily for Donald Trump in 2016; and (3) following Donald Trump's statements in week 3 of the 2017 season, both ambiguous and unambiguous protests increased and the increase in ambiguous protests was particularly large.","PeriodicalId":51522,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Sports Economics","volume":"23 1","pages":"1017 - 1045"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2022-02-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44625997","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}