In recent decades, the growth of the professional sports indushtry has led to increasing interest in conomic analysis of sports data. Although research has been carried out on specific issues related to the structure of sports leagues, there is also growing awareness that professional sport can provide wider insights to academic discussion on economics and management, particularly as a setting to observe decision making. This thesis adds to the academic literature by investigating decision making under social pressure and by identifying the impacts of uncertainty of outcome and team strengths on attendance demand for sport. In order to do so, the thesis draws together data from a range of sources to produce a unique dataset of over 1,700 international cricket matches. Using a conditional logit model, Chapter 2 assesses the impact of the toss on match outcome in the Twenty20 International (T20I) format of cricket. This is the first known study to examine the impact of the toss on T20I matches. Previous work on the other two formats of international cricket has found mixed evidence on the impact of the toss on match outcome. The chapter further analyses the decision making of captains, akin to managers, by looking at the choice to bat or bowl first. Despite no significant evidence suggesting this decision has any impact on match outcome, there is tentative evidence that captains lean towards batting first significantly more often. This type of decision making behaviour is consistent with a particular social pressure from the cricket media to bat first. Chapter 3 extends this research by examining the impact of social pressure on match officials (umpires) in Test cricket matches. This chapter tests the impact of the ICe's neutral umpire policy by applying a negative binomial regression model to LBW decision data from 1,000 Test matches and finds that home bias is virtually eliminated as a result of this policy decision. The research further tests the impact of crowd pressure on umpiring decisions and finds some evidence of preference for the home team from home umpires. Given the pay and performance incentives for international cricket players and officials, the significant impact of social pressure on cricket officials suggests the possibility that social pressure can affect wider economic behaviour. Chapter 4 considers attendance demand for international cricket by identifying the determinants of attendance demand for Test and One Day International (ODI) cricket matches in Australia, England and New Zealand. The research conh'asts the impacts of uncertainty of outcome and absolute team strengths on attendance demand for sport, thus conh'ibuting to the literature. Previous literature on demand for international cricket has only looked at short run uncertainty of outcome. Using fixed effects and Tobit random effects models on over 850 international cricket matches, the empirical findings suggest that the impacts of uncertainty of outcome and team strengths differ between Test and ODI cricket. Also, short run uncertainty of outcome is a stronger explanation of attendance demand for international cricket than long run uncertainty of outcome. The findings provide some policy insights on scheduling to cricket administra tors. Chapter 5 summarizes the main findings from this thesis and identifies some limitations of the research methods, including data constraints. The thesis demonstrates a potentially consh'aining effect of social pressure on decision making using the setting of professional sport. It further provides an insight into the contrasting impacts of uncertainty of outcome and team strengths on demand for professional sport. The research provides guidance to policy makers in international cricket on both sh'uchual and scheduling issues in all three formats of cricket. The chapter also provides some specific suggestions for future research. ,t
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:602478 |
| Date | January 2013 |
| Creators | Sacheti, Abhinav |
| Publisher | University of Nottingham |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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