Analysis of Brain Diagnoses and the Incidence of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE)
by Arjun Lakhanpal Abstract Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) has become a significant area of scientific inquiry in relation to various sports with contact exposure, specifically boxing and professional football, resulting from many individuals who participated in these sports being diagnosed with CTE neuropathology after death. This paper contributes to the CTE literature by analyzing the […]
For Love of the Game: A Study of Tournament Theory and Intrinsic Motivation in Dota 2
By YAO Shengjie This paper studies the effect of intrinsic motivation on the extrinsic incentives specified by tournament structure in tournament theory in the context of e-sports. It incorporates tournament theory and motivation crowding theory in the same framework, something that past literature have hinted towards but never formally done so. It also uses an […]
The Impact of Collegiate Athletic Success and Scandals on Admissions Applications
By William J. Battle-McDonald This paper examines how the quantity and quality of admissions applications to Division 1 colleges and universities were affected by two non-academic factors: (1) performance of a school’s men’s basketball and football teams; and (2) scandals associated with these athletic programs. Admissions data from 2001 – 2017 were compared to team […]
Team Payroll Versus Performance in Professional Sports: Is Increased Spending Associated with Greater Success?
by Grant Shorin Abstract Professional sports are a billion-dollar industry, with player salaries accounting for the largest expenditure. Comparing results between the four major North American leagues (MLB, NBA, NHL, and NFL) and examining data from 1995 through 2015, this paper seeks to answer the following question: do teams that have higher payrolls achieve greater […]
Determinants of Franchise Value in the National Basketball Association
By Matthew Van Liedekerke Franchise values in the National Basketball Association (NBA) have more than tripled over the last five years, with the average franchise worth $1.36 billion. Using panel data on NBA franchises between 2009 and 2016, this paper finds that market, performance, star players, and brand are significant determinants of franchise value at […]
What Gets Paid? Analyzing the Major League Baseball Contract Market
By Brian Pollack This paper aims to assess the efficiency of the Major League Baseball contract market in the past decade, given that teams are employing more analytical approaches to player evaluation. First, analysis of team-level data reveals the most important determinants of run scoring and run prevention, respectively. Models of player contract value, controlling […]
Long-Term Contracts and Predicting Performance in MLB
By Drew Goldstein In this paper, I examine whether MLB teams are capable of using players’ past performance data to sufficiently estimate future production. The study is motivated by the recent trend by which teams have increasingly signed long-term contracts that lock in players for up to ten seasons into the future. To test this […]
Predicting Transfer Values in the English Premier League
By Dylan Newman This paper examines factors that affect the transfer value of players transferred into the English Premier League from 2009–2015. The analysis begins by examining what factors are significant in determining a player’s projected transfer fee based on the website Transfermarkt.com as well as the actual fee that the player was sold for. The paper […]
Determining NBA Free Agent Salary from Player Performance
By Joshua Rosen NBA teams have the opportunity each offseason to sign free agents to alter their rosters. Using only regular season per game statistics, I examine the best method of calculating a player’s appropriate salary value based upon his contribution to a team’s regular season win percentage. I first determine which statistics most accurately predict team regular season win percentage, […]
