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This study examines the impact of outcome uncertainty on the National Football League (NFL) secondary ticket market prices. As a demand-driven market, it is essential to comprehend how resellers respond to outcome uncertainty, one of the consumer demand factors in sports.

Using real-time ticket prices and money lines as a proxy of the probabilities of winning, this study employs a regression analysis and examines 33,554 price observations from the NFL’s secondary ticket market partner, StubHub.

The result shows a positive relationship between outcome uncertainty and secondary market ticket prices, indicating that resellers adjust the prices in response to the level of outcome uncertainty and put more value on games with greater uncertainty. This finding confirms the demand-driven nature of the secondary ticket market, as outcome uncertainty is one of the demand factors in sports.

This study links the uncertainty of outcome hypothesis with secondary ticket market pricing and fills a gap in the literature by providing an important perspective on games with uncertainty in the secondary ticket market. Outcome uncertainty has limited understanding in relation to secondary ticket market pricing despite its relationship with consumer demand. The positive relationship between outcome uncertainty and the ticket prices, grounded in real-time price data and win probability from sport betting markets, enhances our understanding of price determinations in the secondary ticket market.

In a dynamic, continuously evolving sports landscape, social media have become an indispensable tool for sports organizations to cultivate meaningful connections with fans. The rapid pace of technological advancements has elevated these digital platforms from a supplementary role to a pivotal position within strategic management frameworks. The existing literature explores how football clubs can utilize social media, but analyzing social media strategies within the context of football leagues is lacking. The absence of comparative studies benchmarking clubs across different geographical regions while simultaneously analyzing multiple social media platforms is especially noteworthy. In this study, a comprehensive analysis of social media engagement is undertaken within esteemed football leagues spanning Europe, South America and North America.

Drawing on relationship marketing and employing content analysis as a methodological tool, the study examined 10,772 posts from the official accounts of eight football leagues on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Across the leagues, the findings reveal that content quality drives engagement more than frequency. In addition, several format combinations were identified that facilitate engagement and Instagram emerged as the top social media platform for generating fan engagement.

This is one of the first empirical studies focusing on optimizing the use of social media to amplify fan engagement across various geographies and social media accounts and formats simultaneously.

This paper explores organization-level racialized work strategies for maintaining racialized organizations (Ray, 2019). It focuses on intentional actions to maintain dominant racial norms, demonstrating how work strategies are informed by dominant racial structures that maintain racial inequities.

We compiled a chronological case study (Yin, 2012) based on 168 news media articles and various organizational documents to examine responses to athlete protests at the University of Texas at Austin following the death of George Floyd. Gioia et al.’s (2013) method uncovered how dominant racial norms inform organizational behaviors.

The paper challenges institutional theory neutrality and identifies several racialized work strategies that organizations employ to maintain racialized norms and practices. The findings provide a framework for organizations to interrogate their strategies and their role in reproducing dominant racial norms and inequities.

In 2020, the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement was reinvigorated within sporting and corporate domains. However, many organizations engaged in performativity, sparking criticism about meaningful change in organizational contexts. Our case study examines how one organization responded to athlete activists’ BLM-fueled demands, revealing specific racialized work strategies that maintain structures of racism. As organizations worldwide disrupt and discuss oppressive structures such as racism, we demonstrate how organizational leadership, while aware of policies and practices of racism, may choose not to act and actively maintain such structures.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate how Qatar Airways’ sponsorship of FC Barcelona affects Qatar’s sports diplomacy and brand awareness. It focuses on the sponsorship’s demand strategy and takes into account the opinions and attitudes of Spanish nationals toward Qatar and Qatar Airways.

To assess this, a survey of 434 Spanish nationals from 17 different regions from four zones (North, South, Center, and East) in Spain between November 3, 2022 and November 21, 2022 was conducted using a strata sampling method.

We argue that Qatar Airways’ sponsorship of FC Barcelona serves to improve Qatar’s recognition and national reputation in Spain. We also found that there is a need for consistent sponsorship and marketing efforts in sports diplomacy to better fulfill public diplomacy aims. Overall, this paper concludes that Qatar Airways’ sponsorship of FC Barcelona positively contributes to the country’s sports diplomacy despite significant challenges.

The major contribution of this study to the literature is the discussion of the role of sports sponsorships in the recognition of the sponsor, which was assessed through conducting a quantitative analysis of public opinion in the sponsored team’s host country.

This paper investigates the stock market reaction to three different events related to the UEFA Champions League – the announcements of draws, odds and match results. The aim of the paper is to test whether these events are informative for stock market operators, i.e. whether they produce abnormal returns.

Applying the event study methodology, the authors investigate the stock market reaction before (at two events: the draw date and on the release of betting odds) and after the matches of 11 listed soccer teams in the period 2003–2019. The authors also conduct OLS regression analyses in order to disentangle the impact of firm specific variables and match characteristics on cumulative abnormal returns.

This paper finds that match outcomes affect the stock market performance of listed teams, while the announcements of draws and odds do not. More specifically, the market does not consider match outcomes involving wins and ties as informative events, while it penalizes losing teams. Moreover, investor reactions to events related to the UCL competition depend more on match characteristics than on company specific variables.

The study enriches the ongoing debate about the impact of soccer team results on stock market performance in several ways: using the widest time span ever adopted in this area; focusing on UCL, which is the most important soccer competition played by private clubs; disentangling for the first time the effects of draws, odds release and sporting outcome on stock returns of listed soccer clubs.

The Asian Handicap is a way to bet on soccer matches where payouts depend on an adjustment to the score that favors the weaker team. These bets can feature the possibility of all or half the bet being refunded and this makes the calculation of their expected return more complex than for traditional betting on a home win, away win or draw. We examine the behavior of odds in this market.

In addition to a using well-known publicly available source of information on Asian Handicap betting odds – which provides the average odds across a range of bookmakers – we have also sourced a large dataset of Asian Handicap odds offered by an individual bookmaker.

We show that bettors systematically lose more money on Asian Handicap bets where refunds are not possible than when it is possible to obtain a half refund. We also show that bets with the possibility of a full refund have the lowest loss rates. We demonstrate that this pattern of differences in loss rates across bets is predictable based on the odds quoted. This pattern could represent preferences, with gamblers disliking bets featuring potential refunds, but we argue the evidence points more towards gamblers incorrectly calculating expected loss rates.

Despite being one of the world's largest betting markets, there has been almost no previous research on the properties of the Asian Handicap soccer betting. Our finding of clear differences in returns on simultaneously available bets on the same team is also a new anomaly previously undocumented in any research on sports betting.

Struck-by accidents (i.e. being hit by a falling object) are a leading cause of traumatic brain injuries in the construction industry. Despite the critical role of hard hats in minimizing such injuries, their overall design has not appreciably changed in decades. Therefore, this study aims to explore the potential benefits of modifying commercially available hard hat designs by incorporating a compliant cantilever and a sacrificial, energy-absorbing structure to enhance their protective capabilities against impacts.

This study involved conducting experimental impact tests to obtain the head acceleration attenuation using hard hats with a variety of compliant cantilever lattice insert designs. These lattice inserts were additively manufactured using three polymeric materials, including polylactide (PLA), acrylonitrile butadiene styrene, high-impact polystyrene and three porosity levels. A Hybrid III head/neck assembly was fitted with each hard hat design, and experimental drop tests were conducted using a 1.8-kg steel impactor dropped from 1.83 m. The maximum acceleration and head injury criterion (HIC) values were obtained for each test.

Analysis of variance revealed that HIC was significantly reduced for all lattices with 56% porosity (p < 0.023) compared to the control (unmodified) hard hat. The most effective insert was found to be a PLA insert with 56% porosity, which reduced the HIC value by 38% compared to the control (unmodified) hard hat, with a statistically significant p-value of 0.018.

The data present in this study reveals that simple and inexpensive modifications can be made to existing hard hat designs to reduce injury risk from overhead impacts.

This study uncovers the challenges and coping mechanisms related to stigma and discrimination experienced by gay professional team sport athletes.

Utilizing interpretive phenomenological analysis, this study recruited six gay athletes in professional team sports. Data were collected through virtual one-on-one semi-structured interviews, along with field notes and reflexive journaling, and were thematically analyzed.

The first theme highlights the discrimination and marginalization experienced by gay athletes in professional team sports, as well as the perceived differences between these athletes and their heterosexual counterparts. The second theme includes anecdotes illustrating their experiences of exclusion, along with counter-stories that resist marginalization. The last theme comprises stories that underscore the lack of acceptance and advocacy, emphasizing the awareness education aimed at making the sporting realm more inclusive.

Despite the extensive recruiting efforts for this study, numerous sports and countries remain unexplored. Follow-up studies are required to fill this gap. As this study was initiated, additional research is needed to provide information on athletes who are still in the closet. Cross-comparisons between gay athletes and their heterosexual teammates can help bridge the gap in perspectives.

Participants emphasized collective efforts in creating inclusive and welcoming environments for gay athletes, including anti-discrimination policies related to language use, showers and relocation adjustments.

Participants have put forth concrete recommendations for enhancing inclusivity within team sport environments and society at large, including proposals for early educational initiatives within the school systems.

This is the first empirical study that focuses on the experiences of gay professional team sport athletes.

Social media has revolutionized marketing communication (MC). Rugby is South Africa’s most professionalized sport, leading the industry in its business management structure as well as its high-performance achievements. However, below the professional level, local rugby clubs face a large disparity compared to their professional counterparts, often relying on volunteers or part-time employees to manage the organizations. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate how non-professional rugby clubs use social media as a MC tool.

The study was exploratory, and a cross-sectional sample of twelve organizations was selected and employed a multiple case study approach. Club managers responsible for MC or social media participated in semi-structured interviews. The qualitative data analysis software, ATLAS.ti, facilitated the researchers’ use of an inductive approach to develop codes and themes for further analysis.

The findings revealed a high level of adoption of social media by the multiple cases (i.e. rugby sports club respondents), with only slight variations in the usage of specific social media applications (viz., Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and WhatsApp). The sports clubs perceived that employing social media added substantial value to their MC. There were six emergent themes related to the organization’s perceived benefits from adopting social media MC, namely: brand awareness, relationship-building, player recruitment, attracting sponsors, storytelling, and information sharing.

The study makes a novel contribution in terms of how rugby clubs use social media as an MC tool. The paper advances scant knowledge and awareness of the relationship between South Africa’s sports marketing and social media. The conclusions will aid non-professional sports organizations in enhancing the effectiveness of their social media marketing by ensuring that their objectives and target audiences are well-defined.

Professional sports teams employ highly paid managers and coaches to train players and make tactical and strategic team decisions. A large literature analyzes the impact of manager decisions on team outcomes. Empirical analysis of manager decisions requires a quantifiable proxy variable for manager decisions. Previous research focused on manager dismissals, tenure on teams, the number of substitutions made in games or the number of healthy players on rosters held out of games for rest, generally finding small positive impacts of manager decisions on team success.

The authors quantify manager decisions by developing a novel measure of game-specific coaching decisions: the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index (HHI) of playing-time across players on a team roster over the course of a season.

Evidence from two-way fixed effects regression models explaining observed variation in National Basketball Association team winning percentage over the 1999–2000 to 2018–2019 seasons show a significant association between managers’ allocation of playing time and team success. A one standard deviation change in playing-time HHI that reflects a flattened distribution of player talent is associated with between one and two additional wins per season, holding the talent of players on the team roster constant. Heterogeneity exists in the impact across teams with different player talent.

This is one of the first papers to examine playing-time concentration in the NBA. The results are important for understanding how managerial decisions about resource allocation lead to sustained competitive advantage. Linking coaching decisions to wins can help teams to better promote this core product.