Articles in this issue:

• Spectators or Influencers? The Crowd Effect Upon Winning in the NFL: A Natural Experiment

  Justin Ehrlich

  Joel Potter

  Shane Sanders

  and Rodney Paul

  Previous research has determined that home field advantage (HFA) is positively related to crowd density. Isolating this effect is a substantial empirical challenge as crowd density is endogenous with home win-likelihood via fan interest. We consider a natural-experimental setting that introduces exogenous crowd-density variation into National Football League (NFL) games. COVID-19 safety protocols allow us to disentangle crowd-presence, crowd-density, and built-environment effects upon HFA. We find strong evidence that crowd presence is a significant, substantial source of HFA, but crowd...Read more

• Sports League Profit and Market Sizes

  Jason Winfree

  Connor Allen

  and Stefan Szymanski

  It is often assumed that sports leagues should have teams in the largest markets. However, a very basic model of a sports league shows that, depending on talent investment’s role in team revenue, this assumption is not necessarily true. Heterogeneity in markets sizes can not only decrease costs but also increase expected league revenue. Having a smaller market leads to more wins for the larger market team and less competition for playing talent. Therefore, leagues may prefer smaller markets for expansion teams or team relocation. Given that leagues typically want larger markets, the paper...Read more

• The Appraisal of Players’ Transfer Market Values: Empirical Evidence From Italian Serie A

  Marco Di Domizio

  Raul Caruso

  and Bernd Frick

  This paper focuses on the determinants of transfer market valuations of Italian top division football players over the period 2007‒2017. We use data provided by transfermarkt.de to estimate the association between players’ characteristics and their transfer valuation. Additionally, by applying panel regression techniques, we separate team and season effects from individual attributes. We find an inverted U-shaped association with age and a positive association with goals, assists, and minutes played in national and international competitions. Moreover, the financial sustainability of the...Read more

• A Long Run Look at FBS Football Attendance

  Paul A. Natke

  Gregory A. Falls

  and Linlan Xiao

  A balanced panel (99 teams over 40 years) is used to estimate three regression models: average attendance via fixed and random effects plus Tobit estimation of percent of capacity. Variables are either stationary or cointegrated. Estimation makes adjustments for serial correlation and endogeneity between several variables. Independent variables measure economic conditions, demographic characteristics, and team performance. Attendance is a normal good. Travel cost is insignificant in two models but positive in one. Weak evidence suggests undergraduate enrollment and county population exert...Read more