This study extends prior research on referee bias and close bias in professional soccer by examining whether Major League Soccer (MLS) referees’ discretion over stoppage time (i.e., extra play beyond regulation) is influenced by end-of-regulation match scores and/or home field advantage. To do...

This paper surveys the empirical literature on the behavior of referees in professional football and other sports. Referees are typically appointed by a principal to be impartial, especially when unbiased referee judgment is vital for the accomplishment of the principal's objective. Answering...

The Covid-19 pandemic has induced worldwide natural experiments on the effects of crowds. We exploit one of these experiments currently taking place over several countries in almost identical settings: professional football matches played behind closed doors. We find large and statistically...

We are the first to investigate whether the introduction of additional assistant referees in the UEFA Europa League (in season 2009-2010) and the UEFA Champions League (in season 2010-2011) was associated with lower referee bias. To this end, we analyse a unique database with pre- and...

We analyse evaluation biases caused by physical attributes. Using data from German elite soccer, we find that referees are more inclined to sanction players when the difference in body size is sufficiently large. Moreover, we document an 'inverse Napoleon effect' in situations when the referee...

Tickets to sporting events are highly differentiated - seat location, when the game is played, and home team and opponent qualities make each ticket unique. Preferences also differ nontrivially across fans, all of which make the supplier's pricing problem complex. We examine strategies employed...