The essence of any sports contest is competition. The very unpredictability of a sporting outcome distinguishes it from, say, an opera performance. This volume presents a state of the art overview of the economics of competitive sport along two main themes. In the first part, the discussion centers on the organization of sports and competition. The second part deals with the competitive balance, rewards and outcomes of the actual contests.
Contents: PART I ORGANIZATION OF SPORTS AND COMPETITION 1. Rival Sports League Formation and Competition X.G. Che and B.R. Humphreys 2. The Pyramid Market of the European Sports Model: The Economics of Federations F. Tenreiro 3. The English Disease: Has Football Hooliganism been Eliminated or just Displaced? C. Green and R. Simmons 4. Where to Play First (Away or Home) in a Best-of-2 Tournament? An Analysis from UEFA Competitions C. Varela-Quintana, J. del Corral and J. Prieto-Rodriguez 5. Long Term and Short Term Causes of Insolvency and English football S. Szymanski PART II COMPETITION: COMPETITIVE BALANCE, REWARDS, AND OUTCOME 6. The Optimal Competitive Balance in a Sports League? S. Kesenne 7. Live Football Demand R. Koning and J. Achterhof 8. Sport Talent, Media Value and Equal Prize Policies in Tennis P. Garcia-del-Barrio and F. Pujol 9. Career Duration in Capital Intensive Individualistic Sports: Evidence from Ski Jumping, Golf and Auto Racing B. Frick, B.R. Humphreys and F. Scheel 10. Determinants of National Medals Totals at the Summer Olympic Games: An Analysis Disaggregated by Sport D. Forrest, I.G. McHale, I. Sanz and J.D. Tena 11. Economic Prediction of Sport Performances from Beijing Olympics to 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa: The Notion of Surprising Sporting Outcome W. Andreff and M. Andreff Index