Sport Economics

Background

The economics of sport is both the application of economics to sport, and the use of sport to inform economics. The former is often thought about in terms of “moneyball”, “sabremetrics” or “sport analytics”, but need not only relate to issues of recruitment and on-field tactics – important strategic decisions that they are. Other aspects of sports club and league management and organisation are very much part of the purview of applying economics to sport. In our cluster we have economists looking at both of these dimensions – an example of the latter being the modelling of disaggregated attendance demand numbers at sporting events, and considering the impact of sport on measured crime and other economic indicators.

Our Members

Publications

Events

  • Current projects:
    • Scorecasting: Forecasting scorelines in football matches; James
    • The efficiency of prediction (betting) markets and forecast evaluation; James, Philip and Shixuan
    • Cricket: Extracting information from cricket scorecards to understand various issues and economic behaviour; Sarah and James
    • Lessons from the market for football talent, incuding superstar wages; Adesola
    • Institutions and sport: Investigating the extent to which institutional organisation affects sporting outcomes; Meshael and James.
  • Forthcoming events:
    • March-December 2020, Reading Online Sport Economics Seminars (ROSES). Programme
    • July 2020 6th HSE-NES-Reading Football and Finance Conference in St Petersburg
    • July 2021 7th HSE-NES-Reading Football and Finance Conference in Reading
  • Past events
    • 2018 World Cup Workshop. Programme
    • 2018 Economic History of Sport Workshop. Programme
    • 2016 European Championships Workshop. Programme
    • 2014 World Cup Workshop. Programme
    • Sept 19-21 2019 1st Reading Football Economics Workshop. Website.

Research Led Teaching