Cover -- Half-title -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Figures -- Tables -- Preface -- Acknowledgements -- 1 Introduction -- 1.1 The economics of team sports: three seminal contributions and the subsequent development of the subject -- Rottenberg: 'The baseball players' labor market', Journal of Political Economy, 1956 -- Neale: 'The peculiar economics of professional sports', Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1964 -- Sloane: 'The economics of professional football: the football club as a utility maximiser', Scottish Journal of Political… -- The economics of team sports since the 1970s -- 1.2 Outline of this volume -- 1.3 The use of econometrics in this volume -- 2 Professional football: historical development and economic structure -- 2.1 The commercial structure of Europe's 'big five' football leagues -- 2.2 The English football league: competitive structure and team performance -- Origins and competitive structure -- Team performance -- 2.3 Match attendances -- Trends in attendances -- Explanations for changes in attendances -- 2.4 Admission prices and gate revenues -- 2.5 English football and the broadcasting media -- The history of televised football -- The BSkyB takeover bid for Manchester United, and the collective sale of broadcasting rights -- 2.6 Other sources of revenue and cross-subsidy -- 2.7 Football's labour market: players' wages and the transfer system -- 2.8 The historical development of professional football: international comparisons -- France -- Japan -- 2.9 Convergence and divergence in the league gate revenues of English football clubs -- Measuring convergence, divergence and inequality -- Convergence tests: empirical results -- 2.10 Conclusion -- 3 Competitive balance and uncertainty of outcome -- 3.1 Economic theory of competitive balance in sports leagues -- The North American professional team sports model.

Theoretical models of sports leagues: some preliminaries -- The closed model -- The open model -- Empirical investigations and extensions -- 3.2 Patterns in football league match results -- Average home and away performance -- Good and poor sequences, and match result probabilities -- 3.3 Modelling and forecasting match results -- Previous literature on modelling football results -- Specification of the model -- Estimation of the model -- An illustration: Middlesbrough v.Arsenal, Premier League, 24 April 1999 -- 3.4 Conclusion -- 4 The labour and transfer markets -- 4.1 Player mobility, migration and career structure in the English league -- Ages and dates of birth -- Birthplaces and first clubs -- Professional career histories -- 4.2 Patterns of international migration for professional footballers -- 4.3 The earnings of professional footballers -- The economics of superstars -- Rank-order tournaments and intra-team earnings distributions -- 4.4 Determinants of players' compensation: empirical evidence -- 4.5 The football transfer market -- The determination of transfer fees: a theoretical model -- The determination of transfer fees: data and empirical results -- 4.6 Conclusion -- 5 The contribution of the football manager -- 5.1 The role of the football manager -- 5.2 Measuring the managerial contribution: the production frontier approach -- Production' in professional team sports -- Estimation of team production functions -- 5.3 Measuring managerial efficiency in English football -- 5.4 Conclusion -- 6 Managerial change and team performance -- 6.1 Patterns of managerial change in English football -- 6.2 Determinants of managerial change: evidence from North American team sports -- 6.3 Specification of job-departure hazard functions -- 6.4 Hazard functions for English managers: duration measured in seasons.

Estimation of managerial efficiency scores -- Estimation of hazard functions -- 6.5 Hazard functions for English managers: duration measured in matches -- 6.6 The effect of managerial change on team performance: evidence from North American team sports -- 6.7 Managerial succession effects in English football: performance measured by season -- 6.8 Managerial succession effects in English football: performance measured by match -- 6.9 Conclusion -- 7 The demand for football attendance -- 7.1 Econometric analysis of football attendances -- Measuring the demand for football attendance -- Demographic and geographic determinants of attendance -- Price, income and unemployment -- Team quality and uncertainty of outcome -- Other influences on attendance -- 7.2 Case studies in the sociology of football attendance: FC Barcelona, and Celtic and Rangers -- FC Barcelona -- Celtic and Rangers -- 7.3 Modelling the demand for attendance at English league football, 1947-1997 -- Estimation of club-level annual average attendance equations -- Explaining base attendances, and the loyalty, league position, price and goals scored coefficients -- 7.4 Conclusion -- 8 Information transmission and efficiency: share prices and fixed-odds betting -- 8.1 Ownership, finance and English football's stock market boom -- 8.2 Football team performance and share price movements: an event study -- League match results -- Promotion and relegation -- FA Cup and European elimination -- The BSkyB bid for Manchester United -- 8.3 Efficiency of prices in the fixed-odds betting market -- Testing for weak-form efficiency without using the forecasting model -- Testing for weak-form efficiency using the forecasting model -- An illustration: bets on the results of Premier League matches played on 24 April 1999 -- 8.4 Conclusion -- 9 Professional football: current issues and future prospects.

9.1 Sources of competitive imbalance in English football -- 9.2 The future of professional football -- European leagues -- Wage inflation and football's 'arms race' -- Ownership, control and media interests in football -- 9.3 Conclusion -- References -- Index.