Workshop on Sports Analytics

Abstracts

1. Christoph Breuer, German Sport University Cologne, Institute of Sport Economics and Sport Management, Germany. Breuer@dshs-koeln.de

Is it worthwhile to invest in sport sponsorship? And what role do colors play in this?

Abstract: Marketing managers invest more money than ever in sport sponsorship. At the same time they ask for evidence that their investment is capable of generating a positive return. Sports managers, on the other hand, want to know how to use their platform to make it even more attractive to sponsors, without negatively impacting the benefit to viewers. They want to prevent negative network effects in their multi-sided market. In the lecture two lab studies are presented, which give analytical hints to solve the problem.

(1) In an effort to provide more solid evidence for the impact of sponsorship-linked communication on brand choice behavior, a controlled lab study was carried out. A fictitious brand was created and virtually embedded into real sport broadcasts serving as stimulus clips. To measure the cognitive, affective, and behavioral outcomes, multiple methods such as eye tracking, a brand feeling scale, and a spontaneous choice test were applied. Compared with the control group, participants in the stimulus group were significantly more likely to choose the fictitious target brand. Moreover, the study finds that brand choice behavior is sensitive to changes in brand feelings. The results can be regarded as a next step in predicting the behavioral outcomes from sponsorship as the basis to calculate its financial return.

(2) In a second laboratory study, the role of colors and animations on cognitive outcomes and also on negative network effects has been investigated. It was found that both color and animation significantly impact sports viewers’ attention. However, animation can lead to visual confusion for television sport viewers, and may jeopardize intended sponsorship effects. These findings provide scientific evidence for the opportunities and risks of visual features in sponsorship-linked marketing.

2. Thomas Peeters, Erasmus School of Economics, ERIM and Tinbergen Institute, Netherlands. peeters@ese.eur.nl

Who profits from transfer?

Abstract: We investigate whether the player transfer system redistributes revenues and sporting success from large market to small market clubs in European football. Under the current regulation, players are held to their current temporary employment contracts unless a rival employer pays a release clause, which is typically much higher than the economic value of the remaining employment contract term. We first present an overview of the economic impact of the transfer system using a unique dataset, which encompasses the financial accounts of clubs playing in the top division(s) in England, Spain, Germany, Italy, France, Portugal, the Netherlands, Belgium and Scotland. We then compare club revenues and sporting success under the current regulation to a “regular” labor market regime in a stylized theoretical model. We finally examine the empirical relevance of the predicted redistribution effects in the financial accounts dataset.

3. Ruud H. Koning, Department of Economics, Econometrics & Finance, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Groningen, Netherlands. r.h.koning@rug.nl

Live attendance or television demand: substitutes or complements?

Abstract: Soccer used to be a sport that was consumed by attending the match in the stadium. During the last twenty years, this has changed: soccer is now consumed predominantly by watching the match on television. This raises the question whether tv demand is crowding out live attendance, or tv demand benefits from live attendance. In this presentation, I discuss a simultaneous model of live attendance and television demand, and try to answer the question whether these two modes of consumption are complements or substitutes.

4. Alex Krumer, Molde University College, Faculty of Business Administration and Social Sciences, Norway. alex.krumer@himolde.no

Nationalistic bias and truncation of extreme votes: Evidence from professional ski jumping

Abstract: Ski jumping competitions involve subjective evaluation of judges from different countries. This may lead to nationalistic bias, according to which judges may assign higher scores to their compatriot jumpers. It can also create strategic voting according to which judges would expect a reciprocation from the other members of the judging panel for assigning high scores to their compatriots. Using data from all the World Cups, Nordic World Ski Championships, and Olympic Games for the seasons between 2010/11 to 2016/17, this paper finds that judges assign the highest score (that will be truncated) significantly more to their compatriots. We also find that jumpers, whose compatriots are represented in the judging panel, receive significantly higher scores. However, this effect is likely to be driven by home advantage and better objective performance as measured by the length of the jump rather than by strategic voting.

6. Lars Magnus Hvattum, Molde University College, Faculty of Logistics, Norway. Lars.M.Hvattum@himolde.no

Plus-minus ratings for association football: Feasible? Reasonable? Useful?

Abstract: Evaluating individual players in team sports is challenging, and perhaps in particular for fluid invasion sports such as association football. Recent advances in data collection, providing both event data and tracking data, may improve our ability to model and evaluate the performance of players, but such data is not yet publicly available. There is therefore a question about how one can evaluate individual players given the data currently available. In basketball and partly in ice hockey, variants of plus-minus ratings have been used with some success. This talk first describes how such ratings can be calculated for players in association football, given the particular features of that game. Then, the resulting ratings are evaluated from several perspectives, including their predictive ability and their connections to event based key performance indicators for players. Finally, some ideas are presented regarding how plus-minus ratings for association football can be used to derive additional insights.

7. Arne Feddersen, University of Southern Denmark, Department of Sociology, Environmental and Business Economics, Denmark. af@sam.sdu.dk

Is Being Slightly Behind at Halftime Good? Loss Aversion and Diminishing Sensitivity in Professional Handball

Abstract: TBD