nep-spo New Economics Papers
on Sports and Economics
Issue of 2005‒09‒29
three papers chosen by
Joao Carlos Correia Leitao
Universidade da Beira Interior

  1. What Shapes Players’ Performance in Soccer? Empirical Findings from a Panel Analysis By Benno Torgler; Sascha Schmidt
  2. The illusion of control, the structures of prizes and the demand for football pools in Spain By Jaume Garcia Villar; Plácido Rodríguez
  3. A Consistent Weighted Ranking Scheme with an Application to NCAA College Football Rankings By Fainmesser, Itay; Fershtman, Chaim; Gandal, Neil

  1. By: Benno Torgler; Sascha Schmidt
    Abstract: In this paper we investigate the pay-performance relationship of soccer players using data from eight seasons of the German soccer league Bundesliga. The results of our panel analysis show that salaries have a positive impact on players’ individual performance, but with the tendency of diminishing returns. Furthermore, our empirical findings demonstrate a strong impact of a player’s relative income level on his performance. A disadvantage in the relative income position leads ceteris paribus to a lower performance. Finally, the paper investigates the performance impact of team effects. Our analysis provides evidence of a direct impact of teammates’ attributes on individual player performance.
    Keywords: soccer; sport economics; performance; salary; positional concerns; team effects
    JEL: J31 J44 L83
    Date: 2005–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cra:wpaper:2005-25&r=spo
  2. By: Jaume Garcia Villar; Plácido Rodríguez
    Abstract: Using data for all the fixtures for the seasons from 1972-73 to 2002-03, we estimate a dynamic model of demand for football pools in Spain paying attention to whether their main economic explanatory variable is the effective price of a ticket or the jackpot. Additionally, we evaluate the importance of the composition of the list of games in terms of whether First Division matches are included or not. Results show that the jackpot model is preferred to the effective price model, having important implications in terms of how the structure of the game should be changed in order to increase demand.
    Keywords: Lottery, football pools, effective price, jackpot
    JEL: D12 D80 L83
    Date: 2005–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:upf:upfgen:825&r=spo
  3. By: Fainmesser, Itay; Fershtman, Chaim; Gandal, Neil
    Abstract: The NCAA college football ratings, in which the "so-called" national champion is determined, has been plagued by controversies the last few years. The difficulty arises because there is a need to make a complete ranking of teams even though each team has a different schedule of games with a different set of opponents. A similar problem arises whenever one wants to establish a ranking of patents or academic journals, etc. in which the raw data are (incomplete) bilateral citations or interactions among objects. This paper develops and estimates a simple consistent weighted ranking (CWR) scheme which, in the sports world, depends on four parameters (winning vs. losing and the relative importance of home vs. away games). In most ranking problems, there are not explicit criteria to evaluate the success of proposed rankings. NCAA college football has a special structure that enables the evaluation of each ranking scheme. Each season is essentially divided into two parts: the regular season and the post season bowl games. If a ranking scheme is accurate it should correctly predict a relatively large number of the bowl game outcomes. We use this structure to estimate the four parameters of our ranking function using "historical" data from the 1999-2003 seasons.
    Keywords: NCAA football; ranking; sport tournament
    JEL: C8 L83
    Date: 2005–09
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:5239&r=spo

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