FiT Publishing

Many professional football clubs have big plans for new stadiums or stadium expansions. Bigger stadiums are a sign of status, help to increase and diversify revenue streams, and enhance the fan experience. So how should a football club go about getting a bigger stadium? Should they build a new one or expand their existing stadium? And how are these stadium investments associated with club performance? Using an event study approach, we analyze sporting performance in the years around stadium investments in the English Premier League from 1992/1993 to 2021/2022. We find that clubs with...Read more

This study explores free agent transactions of the Korea Baseball Organization from 2000 to 2018. It examines whether player mobility patterns differ across free agent pitchers and hitters. The probability of free agent pitchers transferring increases with the pitching position of the starting or closer pitcher. The probability of transfer for a hitter is negatively associated with age and left-handedness. The inertia of staying with the current team increases when substantial signing bonuses are paid to the free agent pitcher. A strong contract year affects the hitter mobility model, with...Read more

This study is the first to estimate the effects of the sending-off of a player on the full-time results in international club soccer. To this end, we analyze data of more than 2,000 recent matches in the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League. We find that, when home teams receive a red card, it harms their goal scoring and victory probabilities. By contrast, a red card for away teams can have a positive, negative, or neutral effect for them, depending on the timing of the player dismissal.

JEL Classification: L83, J44, Z00

DOI: ...Read more

Discussions about the impact of physical attractiveness on the popularity of competitive athletes have received much attention from scholars and the worldwide media. We provide new insights into this debate, and draw managerial implications by estimating OLS and Tobit regressions to test whether and to what extent the physical attractiveness of professional female tennis players affects (changes in) their popularity in online media. Based on a sample of the top 100 Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) single ranking of one selected calendar week in 2011 and 2012, we find that physical...Read more

This study provides readers with new information about key drivers of performance in the emerging area of eSports. Competitive computer gaming (eSports) is becoming increasingly popular, and the number of gamers and amount of prize money is growing. We therefore explore some key country-level characteristics that may contribute to players’ success, measured as money won. We use gamers’ prize earnings aggregated by country and a hurdle model to understand the determinants of performance. The results show that a 1% increase in GDP per capita leads to a 2.2% increase in prize money per capita...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

Several determinants of player values like productivity and human capital have been investigated in previous research; however, the influence of individual effort has been neglected. This study assumes that effort could be a signaling device and analyzes the effect of effort on market values of soccer players. Secondary data on player statistics and market values from the 2011/2012 season and the first half of the 2012/2013 season of the German Bundesliga were collected (n=877). Technical innovations that record routes and running distances in soccer allow using total running distance and...Read more

In recent years, Spanish municipal authorities have been devoting important amounts of their resources to financing the construction and maintenance of sports facilities. However, the current financial climate has led to a decrease in the resources available, while demand by citizens has continued to grow. Management must therefore become more efficient if quality services are to continue to be offered. Analysis of the factors that affect efficiency of local entities provides important strategic information. A twostage double bootstrap procedure was used to estimate the efficiency...Read more

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

Research has shown that psychological skills training can be effective in enhancing athletes?performance and positively influencing cognitive and affective states (cf. Williams & Krane, 2001). However, to date, little work has been conducted inves¬tigating such processes with adolescent high-performing swimmers. The present study examined the effects of a seven-week psychological skills training (PST) pro¬gram on competitive swimming performance and positive psychological development. Thirty-six national level swimmers (13 boys, 23 girls; M = 13.9 years old) followed a PST program for...Read more