Christian-Mathias Wellbrock

When JOMBS and emma team up

When JOMBS and emma team up, good things ought to happen. In this particular case, we are happy to present this special issue of a selection of papers that were presented at the annual conference of the European Media Management Association in Hamburg in May 2015. The connection between the Journal of Media Business Studies (JOMBS) and the European Media Management Association (emma) is not new, given that emma is likely the most active international academic network in the field of media management and economics, and JOMBS is one of the leading international, academic journals in this field. In fact, many of the authors who publish in JOMBS are also members of emma. In late 2014, a formal bond was added to this connection as JOMBS became the flagship journal of emma, which further developed the relationship between the two. Since then, every emma member receives an online JOMBS subscription with his or her emma membership. Additionally, Ulrike Rohn became an additional Associate Editor to JOMBS, jointly elected by the JOMBS board and the executive board of emma. She serves as a communication channel between JOMBS and emma. For those readers who are not familiar with emma, the European Media Management Association is a network of researchers and anyone interested in the field of media management. As a not-for-profit, academic organisation, it supports research, scholarship, and the practice of media management. emma has around 150 members from across Europe and around the world. With its annual conference and biannual doctoral summer school, it is likely the most vivid and productive academic association in the field of media management and economics. The annual emma conference, in particular, facilitates communication between emma members and attracts academics from all over Europe and overseas to exchange research on current topics relevant to the management of media organisations and industries. It seems obvious that such a marketplace for empirical and theoretical research can also serve as a resource pool for potential papers that are of interest to readers of the Journal of Media Business Studies. Hence, we are happy and excited to present the first JOMBS special issue to arise from an emma conference. This special issue contains three papers that, in their earlier versions, were presented at the 2015 annual emma conference in Hamburg. All full papers that were submitted to the conference hosts by a given date were considered for publication. Based on a double-blind review process involving at least two referees, we, Ulrike Rohn and Christian Wellbrock, as guest editors of this special issue, identified the best papers and invited their authors to submit their manuscripts to JOMBS, where the papers underwent at least one more round of double-blind reviews. The result of this process is this special issue. All three articles revolve around the topic of development and sustainability in the media business, which is not a coincidence. As is traditional for annual emma conferences, the hosts of the conference did not only invite participants to submit full papers on general issues in the field of media management and economics, but they particularly encouraged participants to submit full papers on a specific predefined thematic focus. For the 2015 conference, conference hosts Christian Wellbrock and Michel Clement especially invited JOURNAL OF MEDIA BUSINESS STUDIES, 2016 VOL. 13, NO. 1, 1–2 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/16522354.2016.1139317

A weighted plus/minus metric for individual soccer player performance

Despite soccer being the number one sport in the world in many respects, the “beautiful game” still lags behind other sports in terms of analytics. We propose a weighted plus/minus metric to be used as an instrument to evaluate player performance. An unweighted plus/minus metric subtracts goals conceded from goals scored for each player while on the field of play and are regularly used in hockey or basketball. Key improvements to this established, unweighted +/– metric include control for opponents’ strength, the importance of a particular goal, and considerations for the fact that scoring is less frequent in soccer. The results from three teams (Bayern Munich, VfL Wolfsburg, Werder Bremen) in the German Bundesliga from the 2012-13 season were used as a demonstration and comparison of the two metrics. In addition to the creation of a weighted +/– system, a spatial mapping system of team shots was developed to give a potential visual explanation of why certain players were a net positive/negative influence for their team.

'B-FASST': A Statistical and Spatial Analysis System to Evaluate Player Performance in Soccer

Despite soccer being the number one sport in the world in many respects, the “beautiful game” still lags behind other sports in terms of analytics. We propose the FASST system (Football Analytics: Spatial and Statistical) as an instrument to evaluate player performance. In the basic FASST (BFASST) system, a plus/minus-metric subtracts goals conceded from goals scored for each player while on the pitch. Key improvements to the established hockey plus/minus-metric include control for opponents’ strength and for the importance of a goal helping to identify key players. While the plus/minus-metric identifies key players, the spatial portion provides reasons for the players’ performances adding to established spatial mapping techniques. This allows for valid comparisons of a team’s performance when a player was on/off the pitch. The dependent variables evaluating a player’s performance in B-FASST’s spatial analytics are team shots for/against. Maps were created representing the difference between when a player was on/off the pitch which identifies differences in the distribution of shots for/against under different scenarios. When the components of B-FASST work in concert, one can test specific hypotheses. As an example, we show Franck Ribery’s (Bayern Munich) performance depends strongly on who is playing left back behind him.

London 2012 - Medal Projection - Medaillenvorausberechnung

We project the medal number and medal ranking for the Olympic Games in London in 2012. The largest relative increase is predicted for Brazil (80% more medals) and the UK (+28%).UK will conti-nue to rank 4th. The largest decreases in medal numbers are predicted for Australia (-13%, but remains in 5th place) and the USA (-13%, remains No. 1). Germany should retain a rank of 6th and will win 38 medals (compared to 41 in 2008).

Regional Competition and Knowledge Spillovers - Spatial Dependence in International Football Success

The extent to which members of a national team play for a club in a foreign country has been increasing over the last 15 years tremendously. The aim of this paper is to examine empirically the existence of two potential spill-over effects: First, since the members of a confederation compete directly for spots in continental championships as well as in the World Cup and since national rivalry is generally greatest among geographically close countries, it is tested whether a countrys national football teams performance is affected by changes in the performance of other nations which are geographically close. Second, knowledge spill-over, which will presumably occur if a national team member plays in a high performing foreign league, are estimated. We find consistent evidence for positive spillovers between national teams of geographically close countries. Around half of the effect can be explained through global player migration.