Henry Steinfeldt
Sören Dallmeyer
and Christoph Breuer

This study investigates the impact of restricted crowds caused by the COVID-19 pandemic on the margin of victory of games in the NBA. Using 12,500 game-level observations from 11 NBA seasons from 2010/11 to 2020/21, the study first shows that during the COVID-19 season of 2020/21, games had a greater average margin of victory than any of the prior seasons. Regression results reveal that games played in front of restricted crowds were more likely to be won by a margin of 15, 20, or 25 points than games played in front of non-restricted crowds. The results indicate similar effects for games...Read more

Augusto Cerqua

This paper addresses an important question on the consequences of relegation from some of Europe’s top football leagues: What is the team’s performance following relegation, compared to the situation without relegation? We compare the performance of relegated and non-relegated teams that battled until the last match to escape relegation in four large European leagues. We find that, on average, up to six seasons are necessary to completely reabsorb the negative relegation shock in sports outcomes. Additionally, we exploit current information on future TV rights revenues to forecast the...Read more