From the Olympics to the World Cup, mega sporting events are a source of enjoyment for tens of thousands of people, but can also be a source of intense debate and controversy. This insightful Handbook addresses a number of central questions, including: How are host cities selected and under what...

The link between team payroll and competitive balance plays a central role in the theory of team sports but is seldom investigated empirically. This paper uses data on team payrolls in Major League Baseball between 1980 and 2000 to examine the link and implements Granger causality tests to...

Among the central arguments of the bestselling book and movie Moneyball was the allegation that the labor market for baseball players was inefficient in 2002. At that time, Billy Beane and the Oakland Athletics used observations made by statistical analysts to exploit this market inefficiency,...