Returns to Stardom: Evidence From U.S. Major League Soccer

Kuethe, Todd; Motamed, Mesbah

doi:10.1177/1527002509354268

Cited by 33 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…with an R 2 between 0.47 and 0.62, which is in line with other studies of MLS (e.g., Kuethe and Motamed, 2010), suggesting that much of the variation in players' wages is not captured by some observable measures of their performance. Generally, there are statistically significant differences between the player positions in how the factors considered relate to wages.…”

Section: First-step Regressionssupporting

confidence: 90%

Extreme Wages, Performance, and Superstars in a Market for Footballers

Scarfe¹,

Singleton²,

Telemo³

2021

Industrial Relations

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We study the determinants of superstar wage effects, asking whether productivity or popularity‐based explanations are more appropriate. We use longitudinal wage and performance data for workers (players) and firms (teams) from a particular market for sports talent: Major League Soccer (MLS) in the United States. We find evidence that the top earners, whose annual salaries are mostly not accounted for by their past MLS performances, when compared to other footballers, are paid more because they attract significantly higher stadium attendances and thus revenues. There is no evidence that higher residual salary spending by the teams affects their relative performance in football terms, or that the amounts the teams spend on actual talent affect attendances. Taken together, these results suggest that a popularity‐based explanation of superstar wage effects is appropriate among the top earners in this labor market.

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Section: First-step Regressionssupporting

confidence: 90%

Extreme Wages, Performance, and Superstars in a Market for Footballers

Scarfe¹,

Singleton²,

Telemo³

2021

Industrial Relations

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show abstract

“…The result is the average of the scores attributed by journalists to each player for each game played during the same season, where zero is the lowest, ten is the highest and six indicates a sufficiently satisfactory performance. Some scholars in previous studies have opted for measures based only on objective facts, such as number of goals and assists (e.g., Lucifora and Simmons 2003;Torgler and Schmidt, 2007;Kuethe and Motamed, 2010). We chose to follow instead the choices of Frick (2007) and Della Torre et al (2014) who adopted a measure capable of capturing, not only the quantitative dimensions of a performance (such as goals and assists), but also its qualitative elements (such as tactical effectiveness and resilience).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In their attempts to isolate and measure a player's individual performances over a season, most academics have used game statistics (e.g., Lucifora and Simmons, ; Kuethe and Motamed, ; Francksen and Latacz‐Lohmann, 2011). In the case of football, these have included goals, shots, passes, tackles, dribbles, saves, etc., which translate into different kinds of contributions within the team; each partially depend on the players' respective roles.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do Italians Really Do It Better? Evidence of Migrant Pay Disparities in the Top Italian Football League

Torre

Giangreco

Legeais

et al. 2017

European Management Review

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This study contributes to research on migrant pay disparities by analysing the impact of players' domestic/foreign status on performance‐based pay offered to professional footballers, to understand if foreign players benefit from a preferential labour market. We used information from publicly available data of 275 footballers who played for two consecutive seasons in the Italian league Serie A. We found that the relationship between previous and current performance was partially mediated by the current salary. This result reinforced earlier findings on the pay‐performance relationship, where seasonal performance is particularly relevant. Moreover, our results show that pay discrimination does not indicate a straightforward (dis)advantage for one group, but presents a more complex picture. We have examined possible underlying reasons for these disparities and offered suggestions for further research. We conclude by discussing how clubs and managers could consider incentives to strengthen pay‐performance relationships by being sensitive to the complex influence of players' origins.

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“…Therefore, with regard to his analysis, the increment of players’ salaries results from the anticipation of achievement of the plays as well as players’ performance. Kuethe and Motamed 21 focus on the superstar effect on player earnings using 2007 MLS salary data consisting of 193 players. Their results show that experience, ethnicity, and the international cap are significant and positive factors.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Salary differences under the salary cap in Major League Soccer

Çelik

Ince-Yenilmez

2017

International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching

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Professional soccer is the world's most popular sport; a number of National Leagues are under the control of National Associations. The economic theory behind soccer is the continuing competition to earn much more than other sports do in the sports market. Since the supply of talent is limited, teams' demand for certain professionals is so strong that it leads to salary differences between players. Therefore, in this study, attention is given to the determinants of the differences in workers' salaries in the Major League Soccer labor market using Generalized Least Squares (GLS) estimation on panel data from 2007 to 2016. Birth place is the most influential determinant of a player's salary, along with a player's position, a player's age, whether the player has a national team duty, and the number of games in which the player started in the first eleven. Conversely, moving from one Major League Soccer team to another and the number of games played as a substitute have a negative effect on players' salaries.

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Returns to Stardom: Evidence From U.S. Major League Soccer

Cited by 33 publications

References 3 publications

Extreme Wages, Performance, and Superstars in a Market for Footballers

Extreme Wages, Performance, and Superstars in a Market for Footballers

Do Italians Really Do It Better? Evidence of Migrant Pay Disparities in the Top Italian Football League

Salary differences under the salary cap in Major League Soccer

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