Our Research

Here at the Birkbeck Sport Business Centre, we have been researching various aspects of the sport industry since 1999. Our research really kicked off with two major edited collections, A Game of Two Halves? and Football in the Digital Age, which came from international conferences hosted at Birkbeck, examining the governance and regulation of football.

We have since continued to conduct highly influential research in this area, while also branching out to examine a number of other areas, including non-profit sport governance, UK sport policy, the economics and design of sport competitions, sport labour markets, agents, supporters’ trusts, sport consumer behaviour and the wider social aspects of sport.

Our members regularly publish in leading international journals, as well as in books, industry reports, newspapers, magazines and blogs.

Research Themes

Sport Governance and Policy

• Our research in this area began with a focus on football. In 1998 and 1999, Birkbeck hosted two major international conferences on governance and regulation in the football industry, which led to two significant edited collections, A Game of Two Halves? and Football in the Digital Age. We subsequently produced a highly influential annual report on governance and regulation in football, entitled State of the Game, which ran from 2001 to 2006. We have continued to publish widely on football right up to the present day, looking at, among other things, governance at FC Barcelona, the governance and regulation of Italian football, a history of regulation in English football and failures of financial regulation in the English Football League.
• Since the early 2000s, we have also broadened our focus in this area to look at governance in the wider non-profit sport sector, producing influential industry reports in 2010, 2011 and 2018. We have also conducted in-depth case study research with boards of sport organisations, publishing articles on board roles, accountability and codification, as well as other aspects of sport policy, such as the structure of sport in the UK and stadium-led regeneration. We continue to research actively in this area and our research has been recognised for its impact.

Sport Economics and the Design of Competitions

• We have a long history of conducting high-level research on sport economics and competition design. Over the years, we have published a number of edited book collections, as well as a series of academic journal articles and working papers on, among other things, financial performance in English football, the technical efficiency of Italian football clubs, and financial doping.
• We have focused particularly on issues of competitive balance and the importance of ‘fan equity’. More recently, members of the Centre have also examined the interests of television viewers and match-going fans around the men’s UEFA Champions League and the implications of this for potential reforms to the competition.

Sport Labour Markets

• In May 2008, the Birkbeck Sport Business Centre organised and hosted the Feet-Drain Conference to discuss the key issues and challenges of labour migration in European football. Members of the Centre have since published a series of articles on this topic, looking at, among other things, remuneration of football players, the impact of their performance and the cultural diversity of teams.
• Birkbeck was also the first institution to run a specific academic module on sport markets, which has run from 2015 onwards. We also published a major book on football agents, Sports Agents and Labour Markets: Evidence from World Football, examining the main features of the profession. We continue to conduct high-level, industry-relevant research on this topic.

Sport and Wider Society

• The Birkbeck Sport Business Centre has a history of examining sport in its wider social context and our research here is multi-stranded. We have looked in detail at the relationship between sport and social capital, with articles on voluntary sports clubs and sport volunteers, and a major book, Social Capital and Sport Organisations , which examines the latest international evidence on sport and social capital and offers in-depth case study insight. We have also looked in detail at corporate social responsibility in sport, with members of the Centre both editing and contributing to the influential Routledge Handbook of Sport and Corporate Social Responsibility and publishing a series of journal articles, including ones looking at social partnerships in professional football, stakeholder management in the UK football industry and the accessibility of sport stadia for people with disability.
• Beyond social capital and corporate social responsibility, members of the Centre have addressed a number of other topics in the broad area of sport and wider society. These include: how best to evaluate sport-based social programmes, gambling in professional sport, stadium regeneration and fantasy sport.

All Research Publications

Discover a full list of the Birkbeck Sport Business Centre's publications.