This paper explores the factors associated with official bias and its association with match outcomes. Data are drawn from 2,032 matches of the international rugby club competition, the 'United Rugby Championship' (URC) spanning the 2003-2004 to 2020-2021 seasons. Analysis including and excluding games whose attendance was affected by the COVID-19 reveals no evidence that disciplinary sanction is associated with match outcomes. Estimates also show that there is no association between the nationality of the on-field official being shared by any of the teams and sanction or match outcome. However, it is identified that having a home nationality Television Match Official (TMO) is associated with an increase in the incidence of away team sanction. The results support the case for neutral TMOs.

Women's professional sport has generally been underrated due to stereotypical perceptions that women are less skilled than men. If, as some experimental studies suggest, women perform less well under pressure than men, this may result in women adopting more cautious or defensive styles of play which fans find less attractive. We analyse winning strategies in the Australian Men's and Women's Big Bash Cricket Leagues (MBBL and WBBL) in order to assess whether the WBBL is characterised by more cautious/defensive playing strategies than the MBBL. The two leagues are (almost) identical in all aspects other than gender and thus provide an ideal environment to test for differences in playing strategies. Our results do not suggest that teams’ playing strategies are more defensive in the WBBL than the MBBL. If anything, they indicate that attacking play is more likely to win in the WBBL.

Purpose The introduction of professionalism in 1995 posed serious challenges for Rugby Union in Ireland, Scotland and Wales given their limited fan bases and broadcast markets. It led to the creation of a new league, the Pro14, with teams from all three countries. The paper asks whether the Pro14 has been a success and whether it might offer lessons for other sports. It thus seeks to extend the knowledge base on professional team sports and derive lessons for management of professional sports leagues in small countries. Design/methodology/approach The authors analyse Pro14 performance using a range of metrics, including attendances, competitive balance and team performances, in European competitions. The authors also analyse the limited financial data available for Pro14 teams. Findings Pro14 teams have competed successfully in European competition, offering support for claims that mergers of smaller country leagues could improve competitive balance in European soccer. The Pro14 has increased attendances through specific measures and increased broadcast income through geographic expansion. Many Pro14 teams have struggled financially. Several English and French rugby clubs have also experienced financial problems, suggesting that European rugby may need to introduce financial fair play rules (FFPs) similar to soccer. Practical implications The paper has implications for the Pro14 and its member clubs, particularly with reference to competition design. It may also have lessons for European football where some have suggested that mergers of smaller country leagues could improve competitive balance in European competitions. Originality/value The paper contributes to the academic discussion on professional team sports, particularly Rugby Union. The paper has implications for Pro14 clubs and league organisers, particularly with reference to competition design. It may also have lessons for European soccer where some have suggested that mergers of smaller country leagues could reduce the dominance of larger country leagues.

Home advantage has been documented in many sports. It is hypothesized that higher attendance, likely dominated by home-team supporters, can be a source of this advantage, either through influence on match officials or by spurring the home team to greater efforts relative to the away team. We examine this latter hypothesis using a dataset of 1,030 matches over eight seasons, 2012/2013 to 2019/2020, of the Pro14, one of the three major European rugby union leagues. Our results initially display strong evidence of home advantage. However, once we control for team quality, home advantage is significantly reduced. Further, our results also indicate that home advantage is not explained by the impact of attendances on team performance (effort).

Paris Saint-Germain (PSG), one of France’s top soccer clubs, was bought by Qatar Sports Investments (QSI) in 2011. Since then, the club’s expenditure has risen precipitously, as have its victories. In this paper, we ask whether this represents value for money. We find that the efficiency of PSG did not deteriorate following the takeover. However, while PSG operated close to the production frontier in terms of converting resources to points, it scored vastly more points than was necessary to win the league. We estimate that PSG spent €140m more than was necessary to win the French league in 2016/2017. Since 2011, PSG is estimated to have overspent by up to €600m. This expenditure could be thought of as being merely the price of creditable performance at a European level, but we show that it has brought less success than would be expected.

The design of sports leagues has significant financial implications for the organisers and member teams and for the relative success or failure of the individual clubs. Using the Pro 14 rugby league as an example we show how the structure of the league has influenced the success of the league overall and that of individual teams. We use variation in rules across time and space to identify their effects. We show how match attendance has been boosted by measures such as reducing the number of Sunday matches and the introduction of play-offs. We also show that the Pro14 have increased broadcast revenue largely through geographic expansion into larger broadcast markets. Furthermore, this has occurred without an adverse effect on match attendance.

We present evidence on the impact of revenue sharing and salary caps on both short-and long-run competitive balance based on a form of unique natural experiment-the abolition of Rugby Union's ban on professionalism and the different responses of the English (EPR) and French (T14) leagues to its removal. The EPR has operated revenue sharing and a binding salary cap for most of the professional era, but the T14 only introduced a non-binding salary cap much more recently. We use a dataset of net winning margins from 9,438 matches in both leagues over 27 seasons from 1987/88 to 2015/16 to measure short-run competitive balance. Our results indicate that short run competitive balance in both leagues declined following the move to professionalism, but subsequently improved in the EPR following the introduction of revenue-sharing and a binding salary cap. Play offs also improved short-run balance, as did reductions in the number of teams. We also find some evidence that long-run balance improved in the EPR at least initially following the move to professionalism and absent a binding salary cap professionalism reduced long-run balance in the T14.

Research question: The paper analyses the determinants of attendances in rugby union's European Rugby Cup (ERC) and, in particular, whether uncertainty of outcome had a significant effect on spectator demand.Research methods: We use data on attendance from 1226 ERC group stage matches played between 1995/1996 and 2013/2014 to estimate a model of spectator demand for ERC matches.Results and findings: We find that short-run (match) uncertainty had little effect on attendances, whereas the strength of the home team had a significant effect on attendances. Medium-term uncertainty, that is, the possibility of the home team reaching the knock-out stages, had a significant impact on attendances.Implications: The findings are significant because the ERC was replaced with a new European Rugby Champions Cup (ERCC) from the beginning of the 2014/2015 season. Changes in the distribution of revenue between participating teams combined with increases in English and French teams' domestic league broadcast revenues suggest that the ERCC may be more unbalanced than the ERC. This has implications for the business models of clubs from smaller countries and their ability to compete and may lead to the emergence of an Anglo-French duopoly in the new competition.

The paper analyses teams’ responses to rule changes designed to encourage more entertaining play in Rugby Union’s Six Nations Championship. We use a data set of all scores in the competition since 1883 to analyse the impact of rule changes on teams’ strategic decisions. We find that increasing the points for a try leads to more tries per match. We also find evidence that teams may be prepared to concede penalties, which are worth fewer points in order to prevent more costly tries. The switch to a winner takes all format in 1994 also led to more tries being scored. Unlike most other major rugby competitions, the Six Nations does not award bonus league points for scoring a certain number of tries and we consider whether this would increase try scoring. Our results may have practical applications given ongoing concerns about a decline in try scoring in the Six Nations.

The paper analyses factors influencing match attendance in the three main European rugby union leagues using data for over 4,000 fixtures over 15 seasons. The effect of competitive balance on attendance at sports events has received considerable attention in the literature. We find that (short- and medium-term) competitive balance have a large and statistically significant effect. However, this effect is smaller in magnitude than the effect brought about by the other aspects of the fixture with the strength of the home team being the single most important influence on attendances.

The paper analyses the impact of the relatively belated move to professionalism in Rugby Union. We use data on match attendance for 3,667 fixtures in European club Rugby over 15 seasons to estimate the effect of competitive balance on attendance. We find that (short- and medium-term) competitive balance has a large and statistically significant effect. However, this effect is smaller in magnitude than the effect brought about by the other aspects of the fixture with the strength of the home team being the single most important influence on attendances.

Rugby union only went professional in 1995, much later than other major team sports. League structures and arrangements regarding revenue sharing and salary caps differ between the three main European leagues. We consider the impact of these differences on competitive balance. In addition, unlike soccer, rugby does not require leagues to be organised along national lines, which has enabled the smaller rugby playing countries to establish a joint league. This has prevented a migration of all the best players to larger country leagues as has happened in soccer and resulted in a greater degree of competitive balance in European rugby competitions.

This paper calculates the NAIRU for the US in a framework that allows inflation and unemployment to be jointly endogenous. We define the NAIRU as being the component of actual unemployment that is uncorrelated with inflation in the long run. We use a structural VAR to estimate the NAIRU and core inflation simultaneously and with greater precision than most of the previous literature. Our results show that the NAIRU fell dramatically at the end of the 1990s from 6.7% before 1997 to 5.2% afterwards.

We analyse how progressive taxation and education subsidies affect schooling decisions when the returns to education are stochastic. We use the theory of real options to solve the problem of education choice in a dynamic stochastic model. We show that education attainment will be an increasing function of the risk associated with education. Furthermore, this result holds regardless of the degree of risk aversion. We also show that progressive taxes will tend to increase education attainment.

Ball and Moffitt (2001) present a theory implying that the gap between productivity and wage aspirations can shift the traditional Phillips Curve. We examine their theory within the OECD. The results show that there is no clear cross country evidence for the theory. Although Ball and Moffitt’s model works well in the U.S., it cannot, in general, be applied to other OECD countries. The time- varying NAIRU can better explain the economic performance for the OECD overall, and the UK in particular, during the late 1990s. In Germany, traditional Phillips Curve still kept its explanatory power during this period.

We examine the link between private consumption and housing wealth in Ireland. We find that the marginal propensity to consume out of housing wealth is essentially zero. This is in marked contrast to the recent evidence for other OECD countries. The evidence is robust to changes in statistical methodology. Thus we can conclude that the recent consumption growth has not been financed by borrowing against housing wealth perhaps because that the private sector does not find recent increases in house prices fully credible.