We analyze 45 years of data from English professional football focusing on the determinants of home advantage. We conclude that seasonal home advantage is substantial and positively related to within-team variation in attendance. Furthermore, despite big cross-league differences in attendance,...

We study whether there is a racial bias in ratings of professional football players in Italian newspapers. We find that there is such a bias. Conditional on objective performance indicators black players receive a lower rating than non-black players. This is not a difference across the board but...

In the Netherlands, in the top tier of professional football some teams play their home matches on an artificial pitch while other teams play their home matches on natural grass. This paper investigates whether or not home teams who play on an artificial pitch have an additional home advantage...

In his last season as professional football player, Johan Cruyff played at Feyenoord. This paper shows that Cruyff improved the performance of his team and provides evidence of his presence attracting more stadium attendants to the home ground. From this it is concluded that Cruyff made a...

We use data from the 24-hours Belluno run which has the unique characteristic that participants are affiliated with teams and run for an hour. This allows us not only to study the individual relationship between age and performance but also to study group dynamics in terms of accessions to and...

We examine the effect of the sending-off of a player on the goal-scoring rates in FIFA World Cup matches in tournaments from 1998 to 2014. We use a hazard rate framework in which the effect of a red card is modeled as a shift in the goal-scoring rate. A red card may harm the team that receives a...

We analyze attendance of professional football matches in England finding that it is related to unemployment over a very long period of time. More unemployment leads to lower attendances. Distinguishing between leagues, we find that the relationship is larger for lower leagues, i.e. attendance...