Gate-Sharing and Talent Distribution in the English Football League

Using a database of the movements of more than 2,000 professional footballers in the top two divisions of the English Football League between 1969 and 1995, this article examines the impact on talent distribution via the movement of players after abolition of gate revenue sharing in 1983. We compare the results with the predictions of the Walrasian and Nash theoretical models presented in the sports economics literature. Our key finding is that the termination of gate revenue sharing brought about increased rates of transfers of quality players towards top division teams. We also find that there is an increased probability that better quality players will be transferred within divisions to bigger teams. These results go against one of the main theoretical predictions of the sports economics literature – that gate sharing will have no effect on competitive balance. Instead, they offer support for models based on win maximisation rather than profit maximisation.     

The negative effect of NCAA football bowl bans on university enrolment and applications

Universities provide consumption amenities to students in addition to their educational services. Collegiate sports programs have been characterized as one of these consumption amenities. Previous research has shown that athletic success has a positive impact on both the quantity and quality of students attending a university. Alternatively, we analyse if athletic malfeasance, as measured by NCAA postseason bans of football programs, negatively affects either the quantity or quality of student applications or enrolment. Our findings suggest that athletic malfeasance that results in a postseason football bowl ban lowers the quantity of applications, admittances and enrolment to a university. In addition, we find that universities respond to decreased application numbers by increasing their admission rates, while students who are admitted to the school enrol at the same rate as before the ban. Thus, the reduced enrolment is the result of a smaller applicant pool and not the result of a lower rate of enrolment. Lastly, we do not detect any reduction in student quality at the sanctioned university. Our results demonstrate that impropriety by an athletics program directly impacts a university’s non-athlete student enrolment by influencing the amenity mix provided by the university.     

The role of conference externalities and other factors in determining the annual recruiting rankings of football bowl subdivision (FBS) teams

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.     

Efficiency measurement of the English football Premier League with a random frontier model

Using the random stochastic frontier model, this paper examines the technical efficiency of the English football Premier League from 1998/99 to 2003/04. The model disentangles homogenous and heterogeneous variables in the cost function, which leads us to advise the implementation of common policies as well as policies by clusters.     

What Drives European Football Clubs’ Stock Returns and Volatility?

The article studies the main determinants of European football clubs’ stock returns and volatility. A panel-data analysis of a sample of 24 European football clubs was conducted to test the influence of several variables, based on a matrix of internal/external and real/financial dimensions, on both stock returns and their volatility. The results show that clubs’ stock returns are influenced by the real and financial context and by a set of internal variables such as profit considered as a reflection of accounting discipline, capitalization as an indicator of size and stadium attendance as a proxy indicator of reputation. The volatility of stock returns seems particularly vulnerable to the overall instability on stock markets and dependent on clubs’ profit and net players’ transfers and, to a lesser extent, on sporting outcomes.     

我校足球教学现状调查与分析

通过对我校足球选项课的教学情况及现状的调查,发现我校足球选项课的教学效果优良,同时在测试项目设置上也存在一定不足,为我校进行科学教学,进一步提高教学质量提供参考。     

Gains from Specialization and Free Agency: The Story from the Gridiron

In the field of personnel economics, there are few opportunities to convincingly test for salary returns to specialization as against versatility. This paper performs such a test by modeling returns to performance measures associated with two different skills practiced by running backs in the National Football League. We find gains to both specialization and free agency with substantial predicted differences in returns for alternative skills. These differences vary across the salary distribution. In the top half of the salary distribution, model simulations show that specialists in either particular skill generate higher marginal returns than do versatile players.     

Testing the Wisdom of Crowds in the field: Transfermarkt valuations and international soccer results

This paper investigates the value of collective judgments which stem from settings that have not been designed explicitly to elicit the ‘Wisdom of Crowds’. In particular, I investigate information obtained from transfermarkt.de, an online platform where a crowd of registered users assess the value of professional soccer players. I show that forecasts of international soccer results based on the crowd’s valuations are more accurate than those based on standard predictors, such as the FIFA ranking and the ELO rating. When this improvement in forecasting performance is applied to betting strategies, it leads to sizable monetary gains. I further exploit information on the preferences of individual crowd members in order to investigate whether wishful thinking hampers the accuracy of crowd valuations, but fail to find evidence that such is the case.     

Impact of on-field football success on the off-field financial performance of AFL football clubs

In this study, we examine the factors that contribute to the financial performance of clubs in the Australian Football League over the period from 1993 to 2002. Primarily, we examine the association between the on‐field football success of clubs and their level of off‐field financial performance. We find that match attendance is positively related to both short‐term and long‐term success of football clubs and also to the uncertainty as to the match outcome (i.e. the expected closeness of the match). We also find that club membership is highly persistent and is positively related to both the past football success of the club and the marketing expense incurred. Finally, we find that there is a significant association between the level of marketing revenue and the level of on‐field success in the prior 2 years.     

FREQUENT NEWS AND PURE SIGNALS: THE CASE OF A PUBLICLY TRADED FOOTBALL CLUB

We use stock market data for Borussia Dortmund GmbH & Co. KGaA – one of the leading German football clubs – for an application of the news model. Owing to the specific characteristics of the news‐generating process, the case of a publicly traded sport club is a very appropriate candidate for testing this model. By applying a traditional as well as a reversed news model, we elaborate whether new information can explain subsequent changes in the stock price of Borussia Dortmund. We find that sport as well as corporate governance‐related variables are important drivers of the stock price.