The Determinants of Sporting Success in the Brazilian Football
International Journal of Sport Finance, 2018. Vol. 13. No. 2
Posted: 2 Jul 2018
Date Written: May 1, 2018
Abstract
Previous papers have deeply analysed the determinants of sporting success in both Olympic Games and international football. Nevertheless, few studies are found on football club-level, remaining it as a gap in the literature. Therefore, the aim of the present paper is to identify the determinants of sporting success on professional club-level using the Brazilian League as research object. The dataset comprises all 30 football clubs that competed in the First Division of the Brazilian League from the season 2010 to 2014. The econometric approach consists in an ordered logit regression. The dependent variable is the final position of each club in the final league table and the explanatory variables are related to four aspects: financial, market size, socio-economic and sports features. The findings reveal that team’ payroll, be placed in a city with higher standard of living, the number of previous participations in the First Division as well as a current title in the State Championships might maximize the likelihood of success in the Brazilian League. On the other hand, the results show evidence that the number of players used in the tournament may negatively affect the sporting performance. The peculiarities of the Brazilian domestic football are used to discuss the findings. Further papers on European football would be an interesting line of research once some determinants could vary according to the context.
Keywords: Brazilian Football, Ordered Logit Regression, Payroll, Football Players
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