Articles in this issue:

• The Challenge of Attracting Football Fans to Stadia?

  Harry Arne Solberg

  Ingar Mehus

  This article, which is based on an empirical survey of Norwegian football fans, illustrates that frequent viewership of football on TV can make it difficult to maintain attendance levels at the stadium. Fans of clubs that were featured the most often on free-to-air TV channels attended fewer matches than others. Hence, regulations on televised football might be necessary to maintain attendance levels. Fans that had strong preferences for foreign football attended less frequently. This represents a challenge for football clubs in smaller nations, such as Norway, for example, since they are...Read more

• Building Blocks for a Disequilibrium Model of a European Team Sports League

  Wladimir Andreff

  The paper presents two building blocks for elaborating on a disequilibrium economics model that fits with empirical evidence of a European team sport (soccer) league where teams are win-maximizing and operate under a soft budget constraint. Going beyond the standard equilibrium model justifies the introduction of price rigidity, heterogeneous talent units, and a differentiated economic behavior of clubs’ fans as compared to TV viewers. A European soccer league appears to be an economic regime with repressed inflation, characterized by a double excess demand on both labor and product...Read more

• A Century of Player Movement in Major League Baseball

  Martin B. Schmidt

  The present paper examines aggregate player movement in Major League Baseball over the majority of the 20th century. Major League Baseball has been subject to numerous exogenous shocks across the period. For example, it has been subject to competition during the mid-1910s with the introduction of the Federal League. It has also changed its own rules such as racial integration, free agency, and revenue sharing. In order to examine the impact that these shocks have on player movement we examine movement over three dimensions: total players, total at-bats, and total innings. In the end we...Read more

• When a Rider Falls: A Discussion of the Economic Costs and Determinants for a Cyclist's Withdrawal

  Paulo Reis Mourao

  Although it is not generally applauded, withdrawing from competition is sometimes the best available option. However, an individual withdrawal may generate external costs that affect people other than the withdrawing individual. As cycling finances increase worldwide, the losses that are incurred due to riders’ withdrawals assume a rising importance. Therefore, we test the determinants for professional riders’ withdrawals by using probit estimations on nine major races (Le Tour de France, La Vuelta, Il Giro, the Tour de Suisse, the Tour of Poland, the Tour de Picardie, Paris-Nice, Tirreno-...Read more

• Spanish Football in Need of Financial Therapy: Cut Expenses and Inject Capital

  Ángel Barajas

  Plácido Rodríguez

  European football in general and Spanish football in particular is experiencing huge financial difficulties. This paper analyzes Spanish clubs during the period from 2007 until 2011, using Altman’s models to classify clubs according to their Z-score values. Through these models, the determinants of the clubs’ poor financial situation are identified. The evidence suggests that Spanish football is in very poor financial condition. To improve its situation what is required is a substantial injection of capital funding through issuing shares or asking for substantial contributions from members...Read more