Franziska Prockl and Bernd Frick

The benefits of crowd wisdom/swarm intelligence in the form of superior decision-making and problem-solving skills have recently been analyzed and discussed by researchers from various fields. The goal of this paper is to identify the relevance of crowd wisdom for professional team sports leagues by analyzing, first, the emergence of crowd wisdom on a particular online platform (www.transfermarkt.de) and, second, by documenting the precision of the collectively gathered information. The authors evaluate the emergence and diffusion of information on...Read more

Ángel Barajas
Plácido Rodríguez

This paper shows the current financial situation of Spanish professional football. Different financial ratios are used in order to classify the financial position of the different teams. The study has been split between clubs in First or Second division. We also analyze the relationships between the size of market, team payrolls, and team performance. We demonstrate the financial problems created by the arms race that clubs have started for getting the most talented players for trying to get the best possible sporting outcome. The new Spanish Law for companies in financial distress has...Read more

Phillip A. Miller

According to baseball’s collective bargaining agreement, arbitrators may not consider team finances when rendering a decision. The author develops two theories to examine the setting of final offers. In the first theory, final offers are simply functions of the arbitral criteria and are, therefore, not a function of the revenue-generating capability of the team. In the second theory, the author argues that teams may trade some talented and, thus, high-priced arbitration ineligible players, resulting in an implicit premium embedded in the final offers. The empirical analysis suggests that...Read more