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on Sports and Economics |
| By: | Henrekson, Magnus (Research Institute of Industrial Economics); Persson, Lars (IFN - Research Institute of Industrial Economics) |
| Abstract: | The European football (soccer) market increasingly funnels rents to superstar players and intermediaries while weakening competitive balance. We trace this dynamic to two forces: (a) technological innovation that globalized broadcasting and magnified superstar returns, and (b) legal rulings boosting player mobility and causing bidding wars. The 2024 Diarra ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union further loosens transfer constraints and will likely intensify talent concentration at “superclubs”. The result is soaring salaries and transfer fees, persistent financial fragility among non-elite clubs, and growing predictability of match outcomes. We evaluate reform options that preserve Europe’s open-league tradition yet borrow from North American competitive-balance tools: greater revenue sharing, hard/soft salary caps, and draft-like mechanisms. These should be complemented by a “cartel tax” to fund youth sport, and club-governance codes plus credible financial-sustainability rules. |
| Keywords: | sports industry, market integration, Diarra ruling, competitive balance, Bosman ruling, talent development |
| JEL: | D33 D43 D63 J44 L50 L83 Z28 |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18354 |
| By: | Masaya Nishihata; Suguru Otani |
| Abstract: | We examine whether team affinity differs across skill dimensions in team production. Using a novel nonparametric framework that accommodates task-level structure, role asymmetry, and latent affinity, we decompose team performance into skill-specific productivity and unobserved match affinity. As an illustrative application, we analyze elite women's bobsleigh data, where performance can be separated into start and riding phases with distinct individual skill inputs. The estimates reveal heterogeneous, task-specific affinities: coordination and complementarity are stronger in the start phase but weaker and more dispersed during riding, underscoring skill-specific heterogeneity in unobserved team affinity. |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2512.21460 |
| By: | Christopher W. Gardiner (Universität Hamburg); Eva Markowsky (Universität Potsdam, CEPA) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses a crucial aspect of the gender gap in competitive behaviour: performance under competitive pressure. We rely on existing experimental evidence to test the prevalent hypothesis that women ’choke’ under pressure while men increase their performance in high-pressure environments. To this aim, we combine the evidence of 70 experimental studies reporting 237 effect sizes that contrast gender differences in performance in various real-effort tasks in non-competitive and competitive settings. Contrary to prevalent belief, the gender gap in performance does not systematically increase under competitive pressure. |
| Keywords: | competitiveness, performance, experiments, gender, meta-analysis |
| JEL: | J16 D91 C9 |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pot:cepadp:94 |
| By: | Giampaolo Bonomi |
| Abstract: | We study how open disagreement influences team performance in a dynamic production game. Team members can hold different priors about the productivity of the available production technologies. Initial beliefs are common knowledge and updated based on observed production outcomes. We show that when only one technology is available, a player works harder early on when her coworkers are initially more pessimistic about the technology's productivity. Holding average team optimism constant, this force implies that a team's expected output increases in the degree of disagreement of its members. A manager with the task of forming two-member teams from a large workforce maximizes total expected output by matching coworkers' beliefs in a negative assortative way. When alternative, equally good, production technologies are available, a disagreeing team outperforms any like-minded team in terms of average output and team members' welfare. |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2512.22736 |