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...

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...

This study investigated the readiness of non-football sports clubs in the Balkans to adopt sustainability reporting under the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), addressing a gap in a sector with limited regulatory alignment. Unlike previous corporate-focused CSR research, it...

Decisions informed by past events can be distorted when outcomes partially determined by chance are misinterpreted as purely skill-based. This can lead to outcome bias, where decisions are evaluated based on results rather than the quality of the performance that produced them. Outcome bias is...

Expectations about future events can be influenced by prior outcomes of similar events, even when those outcomes were partly determined by chance. When such randomness is overlooked in decision-making, outcome bias may arise. This paper investigates the presence of outcome bias in consumer...

Purpose This study analyzes the impact of sports social media on a country regarding three international events connected to the brand Spain. It examines (1) the use and importance of various social media platforms in sports events and (2) identifies the countries generating the most social...

This study examines the determinants of away fan attendance in Germany’s top three football divisions over six seasons and assesses its impact on match outcomes. The analysis reveals that, after conditioning on home and away teams, distance and kick-off time are the most important predictors...

Predicting the outcome of a sports game is a favourite pastime for sports fans and researchers. The interest has intensified in recent years due to data availability, the development and successful implementation of machine learning algorithms, and the proliferation of internet gaming. This...

Sleep deprivation imposes significant public health and economic burdens. While researchers studying events like daylight saving time have quantified the impacts of population-wide sleep shifts, less is known about the consequences of acute, voluntary, and recreation-driven sleep loss. This...

One of the beautiful things about football is that it brings people from all over the world together to share their love of the game. The aim of this paper is to examine the effect of football on happiness using the number of points a country has in FIFA. To achieve this, we specify and estimate...

We propose a fundamental valuation model for sports clubs and stadia using discounted (adjusted) revenues. We argue that a sports club is a "quasi firm" that aims to balance budgets, achieve an efficient allocation of financial resources, and maximize revenues. Under this objective the sports...

This study investigates the presence and variation of home bias across different hierarchical levels in German men’s football. Based on an extensive dataset comprising 357,530 matches from the 2023/2024 season—collected via a Python script—the analysis includes match outcomes, attendance...

This paper examines the impact of temperature on soccer team productivity using match-level data from ten countries across three continents. The results show that temperature affects multiple performance metrics, often in non-linear ways. Specifically, attacking efficiency is enhanced in warmer...

The impact of hierarchical differentiation on team effectiveness is heavily discussed in scientific research with strong argumentslined up on both the pro and the contra sides. To contribute to this debate, I investigated the relationship between a specificfacet of hierarchical differentiation,...

The financial valuation of professional football players is influenced by multiple factors that evolve throughout a player's career. This study examines these determinants using Gradient Boosting Machine Learning models, segmented by three age categories and three playing positions to capture...

While sports betting markets share similarities with traditional financial markets, they are more accessible for empirical research thanks to availability of high-quality data, straightforward betting procedures, and the finite duration of events. As a result, they are often analyzed for market...

Team performance depends not only on the individual abilities of its members and cooperation between them but also on psychological factors such as confidence, rivalry, and perceived pressure. In a regular work environment, it is challenging to isolate the contribution of psychological factors....

Acquiring skilled workers can be a key comparative advantage for firms. However, this process involves much uncertainty that firms need to navigate. Leveraging managers' social networks can help reduce search frictions, improve match quality, and boost firm performance. In this paper, we...

The increasing integration of technological aids, such as the video assistant referee (VAR), is fundamentally transforming decision-making processes in professional football, especially influencing critical match moments. Penalty kicks, characterised by technical simplicity but intense...