{"title":"Momentum-stopping: Effects on performance","authors":"Matías José Gómez Seeber","doi":"10.1016/j.serev.2024.100038","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.serev.2024.100038","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Does success breed success? Psychological momentum theory suggests that past achievements might influence future performance. However, distinguishing between psychological and strategic momentum — where a player's effort shifts based on relative position — is challenging. In this paper, using a novel dataset from professional <em>Counter-Strike: Global Offensive</em> matches, I focus on technical timeouts. These timeouts don't affect player position but may disrupt psychological momentum. I find that a winning [losing] team with significant momentum sees a 13 [11.7] percentage points increased chance of losing [winning] the following round after calling for such a timeout. This shows that psychological momentum significantly affects performance and that timeouts can reset the momentum.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":101182,"journal":{"name":"Sports Economics Review","volume":"7 ","pages":"Article 100038"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141979060","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}
{"title":"Incentives matter sometimes: On the differences between league and Cup football matches","authors":"Jan C. van Ours , Martin van Tuijl","doi":"10.1016/j.serev.2024.100037","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.serev.2024.100037","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Economic agents react to incentives, and this holds true for professional football teams as well. Double round-robin and single-match elimination represent two opposite competition regimes, with incentives varying distinctly between them. At the level of individual matches, a single defeat needs not be fatal under a double round-robin regime, unlike in a single-match elimination system. Utilizing data from Dutch professional football from the 2004/05 season to the 2022/23 season, we compare single-match elimination Cup matches with double round-robin league matches, focusing on stadium attendance, match results, and home advantage. Stadium attendance tends to be lower in Cup matches, although the gap narrows in later stages of the Cup tournament, and it eventually disappears. The home advantage is similar in Cup matches and league matches, but when Cup matches extend beyond regular time, the home advantage diminishes. In later stages of the Cup tournament, both during extra time and penalty shootouts, home advantage appears to be virtually absent.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":101182,"journal":{"name":"Sports Economics Review","volume":"7 ","pages":"Article 100037"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2773161824000144/pdfft?md5=2126c5d2378df2ffaf1b960e9addf4c8&pid=1-s2.0-S2773161824000144-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141844156","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The transfer market for sports players - A contest theory approach","authors":"Yizhaq Minchuk","doi":"10.1016/j.serev.2024.100035","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.serev.2024.100035","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The transfer market for sports players is analyzed using a contest theory approach. A sports team exerts two types of effort in order to attract a player: productive effort, for which the team incurs a cost only if the player signs a contract with them; and persuading effort, for which the team incurs a cost regardless. The findings describe the conditions under which there will be no persuading effort, as well as the impact of persuading effort on productive effort and the contestant's utility.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":101182,"journal":{"name":"Sports Economics Review","volume":"6 ","pages":"Article 100035"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141091055","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}
Levi Bognar , Scott A. Brave , R. Andrew Butters , Kevin A. Roberts
{"title":"Competitive balance in professional sports: A multi-dimensional perspective","authors":"Levi Bognar , Scott A. Brave , R. Andrew Butters , Kevin A. Roberts","doi":"10.1016/j.serev.2024.100034","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.serev.2024.100034","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>What constitutes competitive balance is a contentious issue in professional sports. We contribute to this debate with a simple framework encapsulating multiple viewpoints of competitive balance and highlight how this framework suggests that there could be an inherent tradeoff along two common dimensions. Using the framework as a lens for comparing North American professional sports leagues, we then demonstrate how important changes over time in the collective bargaining process have influenced the competitive balance of these leagues in different ways. Finally, we discuss and provide descriptive evidence for the influence of differences in non-gate revenue growth across leagues and how it might have affected their competitive balance in recent years. (JEL L83, D63, C23).</p></div>","PeriodicalId":101182,"journal":{"name":"Sports Economics Review","volume":"6 ","pages":"Article 100034"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141055317","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}
{"title":"Hockey babies: National Hockey League outcomes and short-term fertility spikes in Canada","authors":"Maryam Dilmaghani , Min Hu","doi":"10.1016/j.serev.2024.100033","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.serev.2024.100033","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Previous research shows that mood-altering events, such as sports results, elections outcomes and natural disasters, impact fertility, crime rate, and investor behaviour. In this paper, we use recent Canadian Birth Statistics and the National Hockey League (NHL) results to examine the link between sports events and short-term fertility spikes. In addition, using betting odds, we differentiate among unexpected wins, unexpected losses, and expected outcomes, as a test for the relevance of the Prospect Theory to this context. Our dataset is a daily panel, following all the seven Canadian Census Metropolitan Areas with a team in the NHL, from 2008 to 2019. In our panel fixed effects estimations, we account for the day of the week and all statutory federal and provincial holidays of Canada. In the estimations with raw NHL results, the coefficients of interest ultimately lose their statistical significance. In the specifications accounting for expectations, we find a statistically significant association with fertility for unexpected wins, and statistically insignificant coefficients for unexpected losses as well as expected NHL outcomes. In light of the results, we propose the greater likelihood of pre-game social gatherings on sports nights and celebratory sex after the euphoria of an unexpected win, as the possible channels of impact.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":101182,"journal":{"name":"Sports Economics Review","volume":"6 ","pages":"Article 100033"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140546283","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}
{"title":"Demonstration of the collusion risk mitigation effect of random tie-breaking and dynamic scheduling","authors":"Waldemar Stronka","doi":"10.1016/j.serev.2024.100025","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.serev.2024.100025","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>We study the “groups of three” tournament format which was planned to be implemented in the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Finally, FIFA resigned from the format because its implementation is highly likely to lead to collusion (match-fixing). In our paper, we show that some modifications to this format may significantly reduce the risk of collusion. Such a reduction can be achieved by the following two innovative changes: random tie-breaking based on the goal-difference along with dynamic scheduling. Our Monte Carlo simulations show that the expected number of matches with high risk of collusion is reduced from 5.5 in the FIFA's initial proposal to 0.26 in our proposed design.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":101182,"journal":{"name":"Sports Economics Review","volume":"5 ","pages":"Article 100025"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2773161824000016/pdfft?md5=9a4e3f260b7c82472dd4e5ae315e10f7&pid=1-s2.0-S2773161824000016-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139392258","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Announcement of the creation of The Simon Rottenberg Award","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.serev.2024.100030","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.serev.2024.100030","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":101182,"journal":{"name":"Sports Economics Review","volume":"5 ","pages":"Article 100030"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2773161824000077/pdfft?md5=3a93a8f4b3e90ebbfd65c42da86dd661&pid=1-s2.0-S2773161824000077-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140191975","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"No novelty effect but a honeymoon that lasts: On the attendance effects of new football stadiums","authors":"Jan C. van Ours","doi":"10.1016/j.serev.2024.100029","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.serev.2024.100029","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>In US-based studies focusing on the impact of new sports stadiums on attendance, a recurring observation is the temporary nature of the initial positive effect, commonly described as a novelty or honeymoon effect. This paper revisits the attendance effects of new sports stadiums in a European sports league, i.e. the top tier of Dutch professional football. Analyzing data over a period of three decades the main conclusion is that for many new stadiums the positive attendance effect persists. There is no transient novelty effect but a long-lasting positive attendance effect of new football stadiums.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":101182,"journal":{"name":"Sports Economics Review","volume":"5 ","pages":"Article 100029"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2773161824000065/pdfft?md5=04159056eeb947d1ea9cef4a991f78e9&pid=1-s2.0-S2773161824000065-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139965970","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Does every game matter? A new perspective on the league standing effect in major league baseball","authors":"Jeremy M. Losak, Shane A. Halpin","doi":"10.1016/j.serev.2024.100028","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.serev.2024.100028","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This study investigates the impact of the league standing effect on Major League Baseball game attendance in a more nuanced way than previously analyzed. We define various standings-based states that consider the home team's positioning in their respective playoff race and estimate the effects these standings-based goals have on game attendance. Using simulation to produce rest-of-season and postseason projections, we find that teams actively fighting to make the playoffs have higher attendances, a result that is consistent throughout the sample period and throughout the season. We also find that playing for a division title has a positive effect on attendance, but only for teams that have not won their division in recent seasons and only during the final month of the season. Other postseason considerations, such as improving seeding and finishing with the best overall record, also show evidence of impacting attendance, but again just during the final month of the season. Non-playoff standings-based goals, such as finishing with a winning record or improving record over the previous season, show no evidence of positively impacting attendance, except in the later years of the sample period. Finally, we consider the impact of changes made to MLB's playoff format prior to 2012, finding a net positive effect on league attendance. We also uncover shifting fan preferences related to competing for a playoff spot and winning their division. Ultimately, we provide valuable insights into the league standing effect, which has implications for other leagues considering changes in their postseason formats.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":101182,"journal":{"name":"Sports Economics Review","volume":"5 ","pages":"Article 100028"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2773161824000041/pdfft?md5=ab86a092ef3fcd3483bdbbc0998b0fbf&pid=1-s2.0-S2773161824000041-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139694822","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}