Robert Simmons

Outcome uncertainty and attendance demand in sport: the case of English soccer

Summary. We test whether attendances in team sports respond positively to the amount of uncertainty of the outcome between the competing teams in a match. Our results show that admissions at English soccer matches relate positively to the quality of teams involved and negatively to a measure of the relative win probabilities of the competing teams. The uncertainty measure is derived from a model of the betting market which corrects for specific biases tested for and identified in the odds in our data set. Although supporters appear to favour an uncertainty of outcome, a greater quality of strength across clubs may still yield a fall in aggregate attendance because of the extent to which home field advantage generates an uneven contest between similarly strong teams.

Superstar Effects in Sport: Evidence From Italian Soccer

This article investigates wage determination among professional soccer players appearing in the Italian league. Given the popularity of “top” soccer players, the relationship between individual productivity and pay can lead to “superstar” effects. In that context, the marginal revenue product of a soccer player is related to the extra price that a spectator is willing to pay to see him play (live or on television) times the number of spectators who are attracted. The authors use rare data on individual earnings and other personal characteristics of a set of soccer players in the 1995-1996 Italian league season to estimate human capital earnings equations and test for superstar effects in wage determination via convexity of earnings in performance. Earnings are found to be highly convex in two performance measures after controlling for a set of personal characteristics and team fixed effects.

New issues in attendance demand: the case of the English Football League.

This articles uses an attendance demand model with panel data on more than 4,000 games to examine economic problems of fixture congestion in English Football League schedules. We find that televised, midweek Champions League matches involving English Premier League clubs have substantial adverse impacts on lower division Football League gate attendance. This suggests that affected clubs may have a case for compensation from the Premier League for loss of gate revenue from this source. Scheduling of home games close to one another also has an adverse impact on attendance. Reorganisation of fixture schedules and/or redistribution of income would help offset adverse impacts on team revenues from midweek scheduling.

The demand for English league football: a club-level analysis.

A demand equation is estimated for 19 large urban-based English Football League clubs over the period 1962/3 to 1991/2, in order to analyse the economic determinants of club attendances while controlling for football-specific factors. Attendances are measured with and without correction for admission of season-ticket holders. Using an error-correction specification to model attendances, it is shown that both adjusted and unadjusted attendances respond to real ticket prices in the long-run, in 17 and 18 clubs, respectively. The price-elasticity is typically larger for adjusted attendances, suggesting that ‘casual’ spectators are more price-sensitive than season-ticket holders. Among football-specific factors, league position, goals scored and promotion and relegation between the divisions are all important determinants of attendance patterns.

Broadcasting, Attendance and the Inefficiency of Cartels

The English Premier League is a cartel of soccer teams that collectively sells the rights to broadcast its matches. Despite considerable demand for their product from broadcasters, the clubs agreed to sell only a small fraction of the broadcast rights (60 out of 380 matches played each season between 1992 and 2001). The clubs have explained this reluctance by claiming that increased broadcasting would reduce attendance at matches and therefore reduce cartel income. However, this paper produces detailed econometric evidence to show that broadcasting has a negligible effect on attendance and that additional broadcast fees would be likely to exceed any plausible opportunity cost. The paper concludes that a more likely explanation for the reluctance to market their rights is the failure of the cartel to reach agreement on compensation for individual teams.

The financial crisis in European football - an introduction.

Is there currently a crisis in European professional football? Surely there exists a common set of problems afflicting clubs, with negative financial implications for all. Moreover, a crisis in one large club or group of clubs threatens to damage the financial stability of other clubs. This introduction reviews the financial crises in football in several European countries, searches for common explanations of these crises, and proposes a few solutions, ranging from tighter financial regulation to the restructuring of competition, with the aim of easing the financial burden for smaller clubs in particular.

Forecasting sport: the behaviour and performance of football tipsters

Abstract Professional advice is available in several forecasting contexts, such as share prices, sales and the weather. English newspaper tipsters offer professional advice on the outcomes of English and Scottish football (soccer) matches. Such advice could potentially inform selections of bettors in fixed odds or pools betting. This paper investigates the effectiveness of the guidance given by newspaper tipsters. Employing a sample of three tipsters and 1694 English league games, we find that tipster success rates are higher than would follow from random forecasting methods. We identify some differences between the processes by which actual results and tipster forecasts are determined. Likelihood-ratio tests imply that the tipsters fail adequately to utilise easily obtainable public information on teams’ strength. Further tests show that only one of three tipsters appears to make successful use of other unspecified information relevant to game outcomes. A consensus forecast across the three tipsters appears to outperform any single tipster.

Sentiment in the betting market on Spanish football

We employ a sample of over 3000 bets available on matches from the top tier of Spanish football in an examination of the efficiency of betting odds offered in the on-line betting market. Odds appear to be influenced by the relative number of fans of each club in a match, with supporters of the more popular team offered more favourable terms on their wagers. We report similar findings for a sample of games from Scotland. The results contrast with studies of American sports betting markets but are consistent with competitive behaviour by profit maximizing bookmakers in a market where bettors can choose between several operators.

Implications of the Bosman ruling for football transfer markets

This paper seeks to assess the implications of the 1995 Judgement of the European Court of Justice on the case of Jean-Marc Bosman for the operation of football transfer markets. Although it is inevitable that many more out-of-contract footballers will be able to move between dubs without payment of transfer fees to the selling club, it is argued that there remains a role for transfer markets in professional football, with compensation to selling clubs for training, development and replacement of players.

Race and the Evaluation of Signal Callers in the National Football League

Until recently, the position of quarterback in the National Football League (NFL) was not an option for Black athletes. Today, many teams use Black quarterbacks, a development that might suggest race is no longer relevant when it comes to the evaluation of signal callers in the NFL. By modeling quarterback performance and salary over 1995-2006, we find that Black quarterbacks are more likely to run with the football, yet this skill is not compensated in the market. Furthermore, we find evidence of performance-related salary discrimination against Black quarterbacks in the top half of the salary distribution.