The superstar effect on perceived performance in professional football: An online experiment

Yu Pan, Marco Henriques Pereira, Carlos Gomez-Gonzalez and Helmut Dietl

Journal of Economic Psychology, 2025, vol. 106, issue C

Abstract: We conduct a novel experiment to investigate whether football superstars consistently receive more favorable evaluations than non-superstars. Engaging 500 participants from Prolific, we randomly assign them to evaluate the same football videos with either visible or obscured players. In the control group, where players are visible, superstars receive lower performance ratings than non-superstars, challenging common perceptions. This trend is more intensified in the treatment group, where obscured identities result in even lower ratings for superstars, relative to non-superstars, suggesting a diminished superstar premium. These findings provide causal experimental evidence contributing to the literature on evaluation bias and the superstar effect.

Keywords: Superstar effect; Perceived performance; Evaluation bias; Experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D91 L83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:joepsy:v:106:y:2025:i:c:s0167487024000849

DOI: 10.1016/j.joep.2024.102776

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