FiT Publishing

Due in part to a $200 million advertising campaign, daily fantasy sport (DFS) participation exploded in 2015. With faster payouts and unlimited lineup options, the activity has added to an already thriving fantasy sports industry. However, little is known about the distinct attitudes and behaviors that drive DFS participants. The current study examined 511 participants who played DFS-only, traditional, season-long fantasy football (TFS), and those who played both activities for motive and behavioral differences. Results indicated statistically significant motive scores differences across...Read more

As financial and sustainability pressures placed upon collegiate athletic programs grow, it is important to understand all revenue generation areas, which include luxury suites. However, while suite finances are readily available on American professional sports, the opposite appears true for collegiate sports. As the first empirical investigation on the pricing of college suites, this study aimed to contribute to the limited literature on luxury suites and help better understand the luxury suite market. Multiple regression analyses were used to develop two significant models that estimated...Read more

At the intersection of personal branding and capitalism is the legal concept of a right of publicity. Since the Supreme Court first recognized this right in Zacchini v. Scripps-Howard Broadcasting Company in 1977, it is commonly assumed that individuals have a legal interest in protecting their name, image, and likeness from unauthorized commercial use. However, it is important to note there is no common law or statutory right of publicity on the federal level—this is a matter determined by state law. The common law right of publicity (based on decisions of the various...Read more

In recent years it has become increasingly popular to exploit the rich data available from sporting contests to obtain insights about important questions within business, finance, and economics. One question, which has been studied extensively using data from primarily soccer teams, is whether managerial turnover affects firm performance. But as in the more traditional literature in finance (e.g., Khanna & Poulsen, 1995; Weisbach, 1988) no clear consensus has been reached thus far.Read more

Television ratings for Sunday and Monday night NFL football are examined using betting market prices as explanatory variables. Primetime broadcasts are shown to respond positively to the win percentages of the teams playing and the expected amount of scoring measured by the betting market total. The point spread, measuring uncertainty of outcome, is found to have a negative, but insignificant effect on ratings. Betting market volume is shown to be influenced by the same factors as ratings, and the residuals of betting volume, known before the game is played, is shown to have a positive and...Read more

This paper critically analyzes the rules of the UEFA financial regulatory system for football clubs known as Financial Fair Play (FFP). I argue that the objectives of FFP are not really fairness but financial efficiency and that the rules are unlikely to achieve efficiency. I also contend that even from the perspective of fairness, the rules do little more than substitute one form of inequality for another. Finally I briefly assess the implications for the competition law challenge that was launched in May 2013 against the FFP breakeven rule.Read more

High popularity and a high market value are important for a footballer’s regular wage as well as advertising and sponsor contracts. Yet how can a football player improve his popularity and market value? The aim of this study is to examine whether a good performance during the 2012 European Football Championship has an impact on the changes in online media popularity (Facebook, Google and uefa.com). Moreover, it will investigate whether good performance and non-performance-related popularity affect changes in market values. This study finds out that different Euro 2012 performance variables...Read more

Top management pay and firm size has been well documented. We explore a variation of this relationship by extending it to college sports. College football is big business, and many college football programs operate as large corporations with the head coach acting as a member of top management—similar to the COO—of the football program. Using data from 2006-2012, we examine the causal relationship between a head coach’s school pay, past performance, and football program size. Our results indicate the most important determinant of a head coach’s pay is the total revenue generated by the...Read more

Manipulation of on-field events for betting gain appears to be a growing problem in football and other sports. It can be linked to developments in the betting environment and is a potential threat to the football industry to the extent that it may deter fans, sponsors, and broadcasters from purchasing the product. Risks are highest in European lower-tier competitions where high liquidity in the betting market contrasts with modest incomes among players and officials. The liquidity is provided principally by Asian betting markets that are largely unregulated, which itself is a significant...Read more

This study investigates the effect of sporting performances on the volatility of listed football clubs. The theoretical background is based on the importance of intangible assets in the football industry and the difficulty in evaluating them. The empirical analysis is based on the family of autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (ARCH) models and relates to a sample of football clubs listed on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) and included in the Dow Jones STOXX Football Index. The findings show that sporting performances have a significant impact on the volatility of listed...Read more