Quote ="Hedgehog King"@FrogRL.
It is indeed an interesting article, however, I would nitpick it.
If 17 out of 22 studies have strong or weak support for the theory and only five contradict then I think they are being somewhat dismissive. That would suggest that a meta-study that collated all the results might indeed find support for the theory.
Secondly I wonder whether the studies that contradicted were run over a sufficiently long period of time. I can well believe that a David and Goliath effect might exist in the short-run but I am suspicious of this in the long-run. It's not like we see big sell out crowds in international rugby league these days.
Thirdly while they argue that there is no real benefit to the fan, I would say that the benefit to the fan is not principally in the price of the ticket. Fans derive enjoyment from the game and can even derive vacarious enjoyment even if they didn't go to the game (and it cost them nothing). The value to the fan is in the product.
I don't accept the player's wage argument either. Players today are paid far more than in the past and this is because the higher income allows for bigger salaries. Restricting player income in the short-run may lead to big gains in the long-run because the more even competition increases team revenue (and thus the demand for player's labour).
They seem to imply that this means that players are "misallocated" among teams. I'm guessing that this means that talent is spread among teams rather than have super-teams (as Wigan were). I fundamentally disagree with this, super teams often have very talented players setting in stands unable to get a game and this is to nobody's benefit.'"
I am quite convinced by the David/Goliath argument. For instance if I am a Sunderland fan, I may find it more attractive to see Sunderland-Manchester United than Sunderland-Portsmouth.
Regarding the studies, there is a problem in science which is [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publication_biaspublication bias[/url. This term designate the fact that scientific journals prefer to publish results rather than non results. Imagine 50 studies on the effect of even competition on crowd attendance. Twenty find a positive effect, while thirty find no positive effect. In the publication phase those with a positive effect are more likely to be selected (for instance 17 out of 20) than the others (for instance 5 out of 30). For this reason, when you do a meta analysis any significant number of studies with no effect should raise your doubts about the strength/validity of the relationship. In the paper it is said: [i"The data testing the validity of the uncertainty of outcome hypothesis does not suggest the theory is false but rather that the importance of outcome uncertainty may be overstated."[/i
When you see the imbalance in the Premiership, you see that if it has a negative effect on public interest it it is can't be that detrimental. In a another football championship, the French Ligue 1, Lyon has won the title 7 times in a row. Does it decrease the value of the championship? Don't think so, it makes any win against Lyon even more exciting.
