nep-spo New Economics Papers
on Sports and Economics
Issue of 2020‒08‒24
three papers chosen by
Humberto Barreto
DePauw University

  1. Home Advantage in the Brazilian Elite Football: Verifying managers' capacity to outperform their disadvantage By Carlos Denner dos Santos; Jessica Alves
  2. FUNDING AND PERFORMANCE OF HIGH-LEVEL INDIVIDUAL SPORT IN BENIN By David Coffi Akouete; Fifamin Judith Ahounou Aikpe; Sèmako Hounsou; Houndjovi Pierre Dansou; Nadine Haschar-Noe
  3. Mass Gatherings Contributed to Early COVID-19 Mortality: Evidence from US Sports* By Alexander Ahammer; Martin Halla; Mario Lackner

  1. By: Carlos Denner dos Santos; Jessica Alves
    Abstract: Home advantage (HA) in football, soccer is well documented in the literature; however, the explanation for such phenomenon is yet to be completed, as this paper demonstrates that it is possible to overcome such disadvantage through managerial planning and intervention (tactics), an effect so far absent in the literature. To accomplish that, this study develops an integrative theoretical model of team performance to explain HA based on prior literature, pushing its limits to unfold the manager role in such a persistent pattern of performance in soccer. Data on one decade of the national tournament of Brazil was obtained from public sources, including information about matches and coaches of all 12 teams who played these competitions. Our conceptual modeling allows an empirical analysis of HA and performance that covers the effects of tactics, presence of supporters in matches and team fatigue via logistic regression. The results confirm the HA in the elite division of Brazilian soccer across all levels of comparative technical quality, a new variable introduced to control for a potential technical gap between teams (something that would turn the managerial influence null). Further analysis provides evidence that highlights managerial capacity to block the HA effect above and beyond the influences of fatigue (distance traveled) and density of people in the matches. This is the case of coaches Abel Braga, Marcelo Fernandes and Roger Machado, who were capable to reverse HA when playing against teams of similar quality. Overall, the home advantage diminishes as the comparative quality increases but disappears only when the two teams are of extremely different technical quality.
    Date: 2020–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2007.12255&r=all
  2. By: David Coffi Akouete (UAC - Université d’Abomey-Calavi); Fifamin Judith Ahounou Aikpe (UAC - Université d’Abomey-Calavi); Sèmako Hounsou (UAC - University of Abomey Calavi); Houndjovi Pierre Dansou (UAC - University of Abomey Calavi); Nadine Haschar-Noe
    Abstract: This research work entitled "Financing of high performance individual sport in Benin" aims to analyze on the one hand, the effects of insufficient funding of high performance athletes on the development of individual sports and support of their elites and, on the other hand, the type of funding that would be best suited to this situation in Benin. It focuses on three sources of funding for sport: public funding, self-funding and other sources of funding. The results of the study show that, on the one hand, the insufficiency of the budgets allocated to high-performance individual sports constitutes in part an obstacle to the development of this type of sport, and on the other hand, that public funding does not favor not the improvement of the performance of high performance individual athletes, compared to other sources of sport funding.
    Abstract: Ce travail de recherche intitulé « Financement du sport individuel de haut niveau au Bénin » se propose d'analyser d'une part, les effets de l'insuffisance du financement des sportifs de haut niveau sur le développement des sports individuels et le soutien de leurs élites et, d'autre part, le type de financement qui serait le mieux adapté à cette situation au Bénin. Il met l'accent sur trois sources de financement du sport : le financement public, l'autofinancement et les autres sources de financement. Les résultats de l'étude montrent que d'une part, l'insuffisance des budgets alloués aux sports individuels de haut niveau constitue en partie un frein au développement de ce type de sport, et d'autre part, que le financement public ne favorise pas l'amélioration de la performance des sportifs individuels de haut niveau, comparativement à d'autres sources de financement du sport.
    Keywords: sports performance- individual sport- high performance sport- sport funding-Benin,performance sportive- sport individuel- sport de haut niveau- financement du sport-Bénin
    Date: 2020–07–21
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-02911814&r=all
  3. By: Alexander Ahammer; Martin Halla; Mario Lackner
    Abstract: Social distancing is important to slow the community spread of infectious disease, but it creates enormous economic and social cost. Thus, it is important to quantify the benefits of different measures. We study the ban of mass gatherings, an intervention with comparably low cost. We exploit exogenous spatial and temporal variation in NBA and NHL games—which arise due to the leagues’ predetermined schedules—and the suspension of the 2019-20 seasons. This allows us to estimate the impact of indoor mass gatherings on COVID-19 mortality in affected US counties. One additional mass gathering increased the cumulative number of COVID-19 deaths in affected counties by 9 percent.
    Keywords: Social distancing, mass gatherings, Coronavirus Disease 2019, COVID-19.
    JEL: I18 H12 I10
    Date: 2020–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jku:econwp:2020-13&r=all

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