Who benefits from support? The heterogeneous effects of supporters on athletes' performance by skin color

Fabrizio Colella

Cahiers de Recherches Economiques du Département d'économie from Université de Lausanne, Faculté des HEC, Département d’économie

Abstract: This paper investigates the effect of supporters on the performance of soccer players by skin color using objective player performance data and an automated skin color recognition algorithm. Due to the COVID-19 restrictions, one third of the games of the highest Italian soccer league 2019/2020 season were played in closed stadiums. I identify a significant increase in the performance of non-white players, relative to white players, when supporters are banned from the stadium. The effect does not differ between home and away games, and players playing in top versus minor teams, while weaker players are impacted more than others.

Keywords: Performance; Racial Discrimination; Support (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J15 J71 Z22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 22 pp.
Date: 2021-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-isf and nep-spo
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:lau:crdeep:21.12

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