Role of Football in International Business and Economy

Football events are one of the most significant sports events globally while football is one of the most popular sports. Thus, the football industry and football-related businesses plays an important role in trade and economy. In the current study key events and top associations and organizations of the football industry are identified, and their role beyond playing grounds is observed. Also, the role the football industry plays in the economic and financial developments of nations, brands and organizations and individuals is highlighted. A comprehensive chart has been drawn that presents a comprehensive structure of the global football industry and also identifies key sources of revenue and expenditures. The study is important for scholars interested in sports economics and sustainable economic development through sports.

Oldies but Goldies! Twenty Years After, the Journal of Sports Economics at a Crossroads?

The present article first delineates core sport economics and compares the content of the Journal of Sports Economics (JSE) in different periods of time, then with other core publications in sport economics. Finally, a comparison is undertaken with articles in sport economics which have been published in generalist economics journals over the past two decades. A major conclusion is that the JSE appears to be the mainstream journal in quantitative sport microeconomics. Other strengths and weaknesses are exhibited and tentatively explained, including a marginal attention paid to non-microeconomic issues in sport and some other unheeded topics. A final conclusion is geared toward options for the editorial policy in the decades to come.

The Journal of Sports Economics: 20 Years and Counting

This invited piece provides some thoughts and insights regarding the development and growth of the Journal of Sports Economics from its founding editor.

Remembering Stefan Kesenne (1950-2021)

Stefan Kesenne has died on June 21, 2021. Dr Kesenne was an emeritus professor at the University of Antwerp and the University of Leuven. He will be remembered as an inspiring, honest, and courageous man with strong ethical convictions. His groundbreaking research and unwavering support for the academic community will leave a permanent mark on the sports economics research landscape.

The vision of sustainable sport in a backcasting research

It is now becoming widely accepted that our economy has reached the limits both in terms of the carrying capacity of our planet and in terms of bringing real social justice to the table. Degrowth is a research area that aims to transcend mainstream approaches. While moving beyond the growth paradigm would entail serious changes in all areas of social life and Degrowth research extends into most of them, the transformation of sports is not among them. Neither is Degrowth a recognised concept among those who deal with sports. The participatory backcasting research introduced in this paper attempts to fill this void. In the backcasting project, master students of sports economics envisioned the sustainable future of sports and identified potential intervention steps that lead towards such normative states. This paper describes the results and assesses those elements that aim for strong sustainability. The results show that relocalisation and the sharing economy are the most accepted Degrowth concepts in a normative scenario on sustainable sports in this group. At the same time, the paper offers frameworks of thoughts for those who want to move beyond the slogans of sustainability either as responsible citizens or in positions related to the world of sports.

Serious Game Top Eleven as an Educational Tool in Sports Economics

The aim of the present study is to explore the use of the serious game Top Eleven as an auxiliary educational tool in a sports economics undergraduate course. This attempt is warranted by the fact that serious games can provide real life/work experiences and set the ground for managerial – economics skills development. The selection of the specific serious game is based on the ample and varied sports economics data provided and its free of charge online accessibility. Following the case study methodology, a virtual football club was created and managed within Top Eleven. The stated research questions were based on the analysis and application of the generated data to a number of economic concepts identified in a specific sports economics textbook. Based on the analysis results, twelve out of 17 in total identified economic concepts were successfully analyzed using eleven economic data sources of items embedded in the game. The implementation phase showed that Top Eleven could be used as an educational supporting tool in the form of virtual internship for gaining of practical experience by applying sports economic concepts for the financial management of a professional football club. It is argued that the game offers a sensible working environment in sports economics and the associated sport management field.

Identifying the Maximum Concentration of Results in Bilateral Sports Competitions

There are situations in which a monopoly solution cannot be reached. In these cases, which situation represents the maximum concentration (minimum competitive balance)? It is a relevant question, given that in sports economics, measuring the competitive balance of a league is done through normalized indices. These indices require that the maximum level of concentration be known. Until now, the distribution of results that generates the maximum level of concentration has been identified in the literature as Complete cascade distribution. However, if the scoring system used does not fulfil the stability condition, which implies that the total number of points of a championship is constant, it can be demonstrated that the Complete cascade distribution does not generate the maximum level of concentration. This is the case, for example, with major European football leagues. In this article, we constructed a perfectly unbalanced distribution, which we called a Truncated cascade distribution. This distribution generates the maximum concentration level. Therefore, if we do not use Truncated cascade distribution, there is an overestimation of the concentration measured with normalized indices. Then, the calculated competitive balance will be wrong, that is, underestimated. We provided a spreadsheet for identifying this distribution.