SPORTS MARKET AS A DATA SOURCE FOR ECONOMICS: WITH SPECIAL EMPHASIS ON BETTING AND FANTASY SPORTS

Abstract

Data collection for verification of economic models is often not easy. Data coming from laboratories can be distorted in comparison to data from the real environment. The sports environment offers an interesting source of data for research not only on the field of labour economics, thanks to its extensive records of performance, wages, and market prices of individual athletes. Sports betting and fantasy sports further extend this potential towards consumers. Data from this environment allow better recognition of the users? preferences, rational behaviour, or heuristics. This paper offers an outlining of the current state of economics focused on the use of the sports environment in research and shows some of the possibilities presented by sports betting and fantasy sports. As an example of that, the over-selection of athletes from the historically dominant teams in the fantasy league according to the Czech football competition in the season 2015-16 is investigated in the applied section. The results show the impact of this heuristic on the users? decision-making.