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Center
for
Economic Research
No. 2000-19
SHARE PRICE REACTIONS TO SPORTY
PERFORMANCES OF SOCCER CLUBS LISTED
ON THE LONDON STOCK EXCHANGE AND
THE AIM
By Luc Renneboog and Peter Vanbrabant
February 2000
ISSN 0924-7815
Share price reactions to sporty performances of soccer clubs
listed on the London Stock Exchange and the AIM.
Luc Renneboog
*
and Peter Vanbrabant
**
* Department of Finance and CentER, Tilburg University
and ** Daikin Europe.
Abstract : This paper investigates whether or not the share prices of soccer clubs listed on the London Stock
Exchange and the Alternative Investment Market are influenced by the soccer teams’ weekly sporty performances.
Event studies corrected for thin trading and with Baysian updating reveal that at the first day of trading after a game,
positive abnormal returns almost 1% were realised expected following a soccer victory. In contrast, defeats or draws
are penalised, respectively, by negative abnormal returns of 1.4% and 0.6%. Cumulatively over the week, defeats
and draws trigger abnormal losses of 2.5% and 1.7%. These findings are consistent across the English and Scottish,
national Cup and European competitions. Much larger abnormal returns are generated subsequent to promotion and
relegation games as the Premier League and European games guarantee substantially higher (future) income in
terms of television broadcasting rights and sponsoring income. Whereas victories seem to be more rewarded by
share price increases for those clubs listed on the LSE in comparison to those listed on the AIM, defeats lead to
larger price reductions for AIM listed clubs. In spite of the sporty performance sensitivity of listed soccer clubs and
the excellent share price performance of certain clubs like Manchester United, Sunderland and Celtic, Jensen’s alpha
and the Sharpe ratio of an equally weighted investment in listed soccer clubs since 1996 points out that such an
investment has substantially underperformed the market index.
JEL classification : G1, G14
Keywords : Soccer club valuation, Event studies, Share price reactions.
Corresponding author : Luc Renneboog, Tilburg University, Department of Finance, Warandelaan 2, 5000 LE
Tilburg, Netherlands. Tel: 00 31 13 466 8210; fax : 00 31 13 466 2810. Email: Luc.Renneboog@kub.nl
Share price reactions to sporty performances of soccer clubs listed on the London Stock Exchange and the AIM.
1
1. Introduction.
1.1. Initial public offerings and intensified commercialization of soccer.
Soccer has become an important industry in the UK: large corporations – like the sport giants
Reebok, Adidas or Umbro - pump enormous sums of sponsoring funds into soccer, television
rights are sold for billions of pounds sterling and soccer players’ salaries and transfer sums are
exorbitant. In order to compete better in English, Scottish and European leagues, soccer clubs
have introduced professional marketing- and advertising-strategies, have done substantial
investments in large arenas and have aspired to be listed on the stock exchange. The pioneer was
Tottenham Hotspur that went public in 1983. During the season 1996-97, a wave of initial public
offerings (IPOs) by soccer clubs took place with the successful introduction of 8 clubs on the
Official List of the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and 4 on the Alternative Investment Market
(AIM). As a result, currently, 20 English and Scottish soccer clubs are listed: 12 on the LSE and
8 on the AIM (see Table 1). In addition, the shares of two clubs (Arsenal and Liverpool) are
regularly traded via OFEX.
1
In contrast, so far only two non-British soccer clubs in the European
Union were floated: Lazio Roma (on 6/5/98) and Ajax Amsterdam (on 14/5/98).
2
The main
reason for an initial public offering is the need for additional funding to attract top players, to
establish youth soccer schools and to expand soccer stadiums. Division 1 clubs in the UK hope
that additional IPO resources will give them sufficient leverage to make the promotion to the
Premier League. Subsequently, this will give them direct access to even larger amounts of
money resulting from the sale of television rights to the different broadcasting networks.
Table 2 reveals that not all IPOs have been immediate successes: only half of the soccer clubs
introduced on the LSE and the AIM were underpriced. One month after the offering, stock prices
had declined below the offer price for 8 of the 12 LSE clubs and for all but 2 AIM soccer teams.
Over longer periods of time, from the introduction to the end of 1998, share price increases were
1
Since its launch in June 1995, more than 400 companies were admitted to the AIM. Most of these companies were
USM, OFEX or rule 4.2 transfers. About 250 pure IPOs have taken place mainly through placings but through
introductions as well. The LSE sets no minimum trading record or minimum levels for assets, profit, market
capitalization, years since creation or free float for admission to the AIM. AIM companies are also exempt from
seeking shareholder approval prior to substantial share transactions. However, important to the AIM admissions
procedure is the nomination of nominated brokers who organize the actual floatation and the advisor who supervises
the floatation and advises the company thereafter. The OFEX is an unregulated trading facility in which JP Jenkins
ltd. is the main market maker. Transactions take place ex-exchange between JP Jenkins and other member firms of
the stock exchange and are supervised by the Securities and Futures Authority ltd. OFEX does not guarantee
liquidity. For shares to be traded via OFEX, the listing-committee of the stock exchange verifies whether the firm’s
accounting system fulfills certain requirements.
2
In the whole of Europe, only one additional club is listed: the Zurich Grasshoppers.
Share price reactions to sporty performances of soccer clubs listed on the London Stock Exchange and the AIM.
2
recorded for only Manchester United, Tottenham, Southampton and Nottingham. This poor
performance of the soccer initial public offerings is reflected in the return of the largest soccer
investment fund ‘The Football Fund’. This investment fund was created in February 1998 by the
investment bank Singer and Friedlander to investment in soccer clubs and companies closely
linked to the soccer industry. Its return in its first year was minus 13%. The Nomura UK Football
Clubs index went down by 40% over the same period. One only soccer club performed
extremely well on the stock exchange: Manchester has a current market capitalization 8 times
larger that the one at the first day of trading in 1991.
[Insert about here Tables 1 and 2]
Table 3 shows the turnover of the listed soccer teams. Manchester United vastly outperforms the
other clubs with a turnover (excluding income from players’ transfers) of almost £ 88 million.
Newcastle and Chelsea come next with respectively £ 41.1 million and £ 23.7 million. In terms
of turnover, there have been substantial increases for all clubs over the seasons 1996-97 and
1995-96 (apart from Nottingham which degraded from Premier League to Division 1). The main
reason for this turnover increase is the advance of £ 50 million from a £ 620 million deal
between Premier League clubs and BskyB for the broadcasting rights covering four years
(autumn 1997- summer 2001). Furthermore, the number of regular attendants of soccer games
has gone up: Table 3 reveals that the occupancy rate in most top clubs’ stadiums amounts to
more than 80%. This, in turn, attracts more sponsoring companies: the main Premier League
sponsor is Carling (Bass plc.) which has signed a four year deal worth £ 36 million (as of 1997-
98). Individual clubs also secure sponsoring on team shirts (e.g. Chelsea’s £ 4.5 million contract
with Autoglass), of the team’s equipment (e.g. Aston Villa’s contract of £ 2.15 million yearly
with Reebok), for stadium expansion (e.g. the Bolton Wanderers stadium has been rebaptised the
Reebok Stadium), of publicity panels in the stadium, of the replica of the team’s outfits, of
specific games (e.g. the Sony sponsoring of all Newcastle games). More and more, a larger part
of top club turnover depends on merchandising of club products (like outfits, books, videos),
from catering, restaurant and hotel activities, from the rental of business seats and from cinema
and fitness clubs managed by the club.
[Insert about here Table 3]
1.2 Profitability of top soccer clubs and the Bosman Verdict.
In spite of substantial increases in turnover, only 7 out of the 20 listed soccer clubs manage to
generate profits (see Table 3). This is largely due to the high salaries paid to star players since
Share price reactions to sporty performances of soccer clubs listed on the London Stock Exchange and the AIM.
3
the Bosman Verdict (hence called BV) was passed by the European Court of Justice in
December 1995. The verdict stated that the UEFA-FIFA transfer rules for soccer players were
not in accordance with Article 48 of the Treaty of Rome as these rules prohibited a player who
reached the end of his contract with a soccer team to move to another team without a transfer
payment by the former employer to the new one. Since the BV, any player reaching the end of a
contract can move without restriction to another team. As such, the BV has had an important
impact on the (book) value of the football teams: in clubs adhering to the ‘asset view’, the
players’ value was booked as Immaterial Fixed Assets which meant that transfer moneys were
capitalized. If the player was ‘sold’ for more than the residual value, the profit and loss accounts
are credited.
3
The alternative view is called the ‘zero value’- accounting method which does not
assign any value to a player. At the end of the contract, players have no value and the difference
between all transfer income and expenses was put on the profit and loss-statement. As a result of
the BV, the clubs with an ‘asset view’ were forced to make an additional depreciation to reduce
the players’ residual book value to zero. For Tottenham and Celtic, this depreciation amounted to
respectively £ 7.3 million and £ 3.8 million. The soccer clubs reacted to the BV by offering
longer contracts with the intention to ‘sell’ players prior to the contract end, allowing clubs to
reap transfer funds. However, in order to make top players sign up for longer periods of time,
cash on the barrelhead is required. Therefore, the BV did not generate profits for the clubs: the
savings in transfer payments for players at the end of their contract were counterbalanced by
higher remuneration for the soccer players and by the fact that players are now transferred prior
to the end of their contracts.
In contrast to industrial and commercial companies which release quarterly (operational) results
that may have an immediate impact on the share price performance, the market value of soccer
clubs teams may depend to a large extent on weekly information, namely the sporty performance
of the team. Indeed, continued poor performance will lead to lower attendance of the games,
lower sales of merchandising products, lower income from catering and, in the long run, less
sponsoring income. Still, on average, the shareholder structure of soccer clubs usually consists of
one or a few stable controlling shareholders, some institutional investors (like the Football Fund)
and many individual investors. Often, these individual investors are soccer fans who consider
holding some shares as a way of supporting their teams and who just consider the potential profit
as a bonus. Owning shares of a football club also gives them some fringe benefits, like priority
3
Clubs using this method were Chelsea, Celtic, Tottenham, Sunderland, Bromwich and Preston.
Share price reactions to sporty performances of soccer clubs listed on the London Stock Exchange and the AIM.
4
rights to purchase a season ticket, discounts on tickets (e.g. 10% at Celtic), discounts to purchase
merchandising products in the club shop, discounts in the club restaurants, free subscription to
the club magazine, etc.
In sum, we expect that the weekly sporty performance triggers share price reactions, which we
investigate in the remainder of this paper. Still a stable shareholding structure and lack of short
term speculators may tone down share price fluctuations. Section 2 describes the data sources
and the methodology. Section 3 gives the event study results while in section 4 a return
generating model for soccer teams is estimated. Section 5 concludes.
2. Data and Methodology.
2.1 Data sources and variable description.
Share prices, risk measures and market capitalization are collected from the London Share Price
Database (LSPD) and Risk Measurement Service as of the first day of trading following the
floatation until the end of 1998. The share prices, given as indices with the first day of trading
equal to 100, were corrected for dividends and stock splits, also collected from the LSPD. The
Financial Times All Share index (FTAS) was used as the market index and T-bill return as the
risk free rate. All accounting data were gathered from annual reports, the Deloitte & Touche
Annual Reviews of Football Finance (Boon, 1992-98), and Feld and Easthope (1997).
Information about the IPO (like the offer price) were found in the prospectuses. Information
(date of the game and final score) about all the matches since floatation were provided by the
soccer clubs or collected from their websites. A distinction was made among games in the
English and Scottish, Cup, and European competitions as well as among victories, defeats and
draws. In addition, promotion and relegation games were separated out.
2.2 Methodology.
a. Measuring abnormal returns.
In order to measure the abnormal return of share i at day t, the market and risk adjusted return is
calculated which assumes that a version of the CAPM generates expected returns. For example,
the Black asset pricing model with two uncorrelated assets or the Treynor-Sharpe-Lintner model,
Share price reactions to sporty performances of soccer clubs listed on the London Stock Exchange and the AIM.
5
E(R
i,t
)= E(R
F,t
)+β
i
[E(R
m,t
)-E(R
F,t
)], generates a return for every share i with R
F,t
the return of a
risk free asset and R
m,t
the return of the market portfolio. The abnormal return AR
i,t
equals the
difference between the (logarithmic) realised and expected return R
i,t
-E(R
i,t
). Betas were
estimated with daily data over a 6 month period prior to the event window.
In order to test whether or not the equally weighted arithmetic average of the abnormal returns
(
t
A ) is statistically different from zero, the following test-statistics are used. N stands for the
number of events, S stands for the standard deviation of the cross-sectional average abnormal
returns, (T-τ) is the number of (trading) days over which the standard deviation of the cross-
sectional mean abnormal returns are calculated. If the abnormal returns have an independent and
identical distribution, the test-statistic has a Student T-distribution (Ritter 1991).
)(*
tt
ARSARstatt =− with :
∑
=
=
t
N
i
ti
t
t
AR
N
AR
1
,
1
∑
=
=
−−=
Tt
t
tt
NNARARARS
τ
)1(/)(()(
2
∑
=
=
−
=
Tt
t
t
AR
T
AR
τ
τ)(
1
Daily returns deviate more from the normal distribution than monthly returns. Still, if the
abnormal returns in the cross section of shares are from independent and identically distributed
samples from a distribution with finite variance, the central limit theorem shows that the
distribution of abnormal returns converges towards a normal distribution when the number of
shares increases. For small samples of 5 or 10 shares, the distribution of abnormal returns
deviates from the normal distribution, but the non-normality of daily returns does not have a
significant impact on the event study methodology (Brown and Warner 1980, 1985).
Share price reactions to sporty performances of soccer clubs listed on the London Stock Exchange and the AIM.
6
Subsequently, the cumulative abnormal return (CAR) can be calculated which cumulates
systematic deviations from the expected return over time. For example, the CAR over a (T-τ)
day time window following an event can be computed as follows:
∑
=
=
=
Tt
t
tT
ARCAR
τ
τ,
b. Beta estimation with thin trading and Baysian updating.
Non-synchronous trading can lead to biased and inconsistent systematic risk and hence
distortions of the abnormal returns (Scholes and Williams 1977, Dimson 1979): less frequently
traded share will have a downward biased beta and abnormal returns can be serially dependent.
In order to correct for this beta-bias, the Dimson and Marsh (1983)-method of the Aggregated
Coefficients is applied to calculate the abnormal returns described above.
tM
D
iititi
RRAR
,,,,
*βα −−=
and
∑
+
−=
=
3
3
,
k
ki
D
i
ββ
∑∑
=
=
=
=
−
−
−
=
yt
xt
tM
D
i
yt
xt
tii
R
xy
R
xy
,,
)(
1
)(
1
βα
The estimated beta (hence called Dimson-beta) consists of the aggregation of 7 estimated beta
coefficients which include three lead and lag variables.
The larger the random error with which betas are estimated, the lower the predictive power of the
estimated betas for the next period. Empirically, it has shown that the actual beta in the forecast
period tends to be closer to the average beta than is the estimate obtained from historical data. To
solve this problem, Vasicek (1979) proposed a Baysian updating technique. This weighing
procedure adjusts observations with large standard errors further toward the mean more than it
adjusts observations with small standard errors. The ‘Vasicek-beta’ is calculated as follows:
i
ii
i
V
i
β
σσ
σ
β
σσ
σ
β
β
β
β
β
β
β
**
22
2
22
2
+
+
+
=
and
i
β is the beta measured via an OLS regression using historical observations, β is the average
of the historical beta estimates,
2
iβ
σ is the variance of the security i measured using historical
data,
2
β
σ
is the variance of the distribution of historical estimates of average beta.
Share price reactions to sporty performances of soccer clubs listed on the London Stock Exchange and the AIM.
7
c. Determination of events.
Most of the games in the competition are played on Saturday or Sunday, such that Friday was
taken as day 0 and the subsequent Friday as day 5. Thus, the time window is necessarily short
because longer time windows suffer from interference by the following event, namely the game
played in the subsequent weekend. Occasionally, games are played on Wednesday (e.g. in the
European competitions). If such games are followed by others in the weekend, the time window
is only three days.
All games by soccer clubs listed on the Official List and the AIM are covered apart from
Millwall and Preston because these clubs participate in the competition of Division 2 which has
an irregular calendar and apart from Birmingham due to data availability. Hence, the results of
17 soccer clubs – Aston Villa, Bolton Wanderers, Leeds United, Hearth of Midlothian, Leicester
City, Manchester United, Newcastle United, Sheffield United, Southampton, Sunderland,
Tottenham Hotspur, Celtic Glasgow, Charlton Athletic, Chelsea Village, Queens Park Rangers,
Nottingham Forrest, West Bromwich Albion - are included in the analysis. As most clubs have
only been listed for a few years (see Table 2), only three seasons (1995-96, 1996-97 and 1997-
98) are taken into account, representing 840 matches.
The event study analysis will be performed for the following subsamples:
1. Games ending in a victory, a defeat or a draw.
2. Games in the English and Scottish, Cup, and European competitions.
3. Promotion and relegation games.
4. Games of soccer teams listed on the LSE versus the AIM.
3. Results of event study analyses.
3.1 National and European competitions.
We expect that victories and losses trigger, respectively, positive and negative price reactions.
Draws should also lead to negative abnormal returns as a draw reduces the clubs chances to play
at the European level or to escape relegation.
4
This price decrease is expected to be lower in
comparison to the price reaction following a defeat. Still, the alternative hypothesis states that
4
In an interesting paper, Palomino et al. (1998) formulate a game-theoretical model which combines the team’s
skills and psychological factors to explaining the probability of scoring. In an empirical verification of the model,
Share price reactions to sporty performances of soccer clubs listed on the London Stock Exchange and the AIM.
8
sporty and share price performances are not related. This may result from stable large
shareholders and the lack of speculative shareholders. For most soccer clubs, shares are indeed
held by some large controlling shareholders, institutions (like the Football Fund) and supporters.
The loyalty to the team as well as the non-financial benefits of owning shares (see supra) may
prevent this last category of selling its shares as a result of poor team performance.
Figure 1 and panel A of Table 4 show the abnormal returns
5
for the 5 days subsequent to all the
games (840) played by all the soccer clubs listed on the LSE or the AIM in the seasons 1995-96,
1996-97 and 1997-98 provided they play in Premier League and the First Division. The strongest
price reaction takes place immediately after the game: the share prices of soccer clubs which
obtained a victory increase by almost 1% and experience a statistically significant increase of
1.3% in the subsequent week. Defeats are penalised by an immediate share price decrease of
1.4% (statistically significant within the 1% level) and by a negative cumulative abnormal return
of 2.5% over the week. The market only seems to reward victories because draws create
significant price declines of 1.7% in the subsequent week.
Panel B of Table 4 and Figure 2 show how the market reacts after victories and defeats in the
English and Scottish competition in the same three seasons. Each club of the Premier League and
of the First Division play two matches (one home game and one away match) against each team
of their division. The price reactions are similar as in panel A: victories lead to significant
abnormal returns of almost 1% and in the subsequent week the cumulative abnormal returns
finish on average with 1.6%. The shares of defeated teams decrease 2.2% in value (during the
week) while games ending in a draw generate a (statistically significant) loss of 1.6%.
The market price reactions to games in the Cup competitions are presented in panel C of Table 4
and Figure 3. There are two Cup competitions: the FA Cup and the Coca-Cola Cup to which all
clubs of the Premier League and Divisions 1, 2 and 3 participate with immediate elimination
upon defeat.
6
As Cup games are generally played on Tuesdays or Wednesdays, the maximum
event horizon to compute abnormal returns is three days. Whereas a victory in a Cup game,
yields an increase of 0.83%, this increase is eroded in the two following days to 0.42%. Defeats
they find that apart from the quality of the team and the home field advantage, the current score is an important
explanatory variable of the strategy a team develops (attack versus defense) and probability of scoring.
5
The abnormal returns are computed with Vasicek-betas, but the Dimson-betas give similar results.
Share price reactions to sporty performances of soccer clubs listed on the London Stock Exchange and the AIM.
9
trigger stronger (downward) price reactions as a team beaten in the initial rounds is immediately
excluded from the Cup competition. As the winner of the Cup competition qualifies for the
European competition in the subsequent year, defeated teams forgo potentially lucrative
European soccer. The share prices of losing clubs decline by 2% in the first trading day after the
game. During the two subsequent days, the share price crumbles off by another 1.4%.
At the European level, there are three competitions: the Champions League, the European Cup of
Cup Winners and the UEFA Cup. In this first European competition, the champions of the
strongest division are admitted, as well as – for the strongest soccer nations - the runners-up in
this division. The winners of the national Cup competitions are admitted to the second European
competition. The UEFA is the competition for the soccer teams which came 2
nd
, 3
rd
or 4
th
in the
strongest league of the national competitions. In this section, no distinction is made among the
three European competitions. Games are usually on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday such that
the event window is limited to three days. Six teams played at the European level since 1995 (the
first season of this study) and since their floatation, whichever comes first: Aston Villa (97-98) ,
Manchester (95-96, 96-97, 97-98) , Celtic (96-97, 97-98), Chelsea (97-98), Leicester (97-98) and
Newcastle (97-98). Victory in the European competition leads to a 1% share price increase (with
a p-value of 1.1%). Defeat is disciplined by a negative abnormal return of 2.3% in three days
after the game but most of the decline (1.8% within the 1% level of statistical significance) takes
place in the first day of trading (see Figure 4 and panel D of Table 4). Draws increase the
probability of elimination but only triggers a small negative abnormal return which is not
statistically significant. Throughout panels A-D, most of the price reactions happen immediately,
at the first day of trading, which provides some support for market efficiency.
[Insert here Figures 1-4 and Table 4]
3.2 Promotion and relegation matches.
Larger share price swings are expected after promotion and relegation games. Promotion from
Division 1 to Premier League entails substantial income increases in the subsequent season due
to e.g. television rights and sponsoring. Likewise, relegation reduces the main sources of income
considerably. Each season, three clubs rise to the Premier League and three teams drop back to
Division 1. As it is not easy to determine when clubs are engaged in the promotion or relegation
6
The eighth, quarterfinal and semi-final are played with home and away matches. Clubs which qualified for
European tournaments are exempted from the initial rounds and only participate as of round 3. Other clubs of the
Premier League start in round 2.
Share price reactions to sporty performances of soccer clubs listed on the London Stock Exchange and the AIM.
10
struggles, it was (arbitrarily) decided that this period starts on 15 February, three months before
the end of the competition (around 15 May). Consequently, clubs at the bottom of the Premier
League or at the top of Division 1 are considered respectively relegation and promotion clubs as
of 15 February. The results of this event study should be interpreted with caution because the
number of observations is low. Only three listed soccer clubs – Charlton, Nottingham and
Sunderland – qualified as teams participating in the promotion duels. Sunderland was the only
team which did not make the upgrade to Premier League due to a loss in the last day of the
season in the play-offs. Bolton Wanderers was the only listed team taking part in the relegation
tournament in the last three seasons. Table 5 (panel A) and Figure 5 reveal that winning a
promotion game triggers extreme share price reactions on the first day of trading subsequent to
the match. A victory is followed by a statistically significant increase of 3.2% which goes up
towards almost 4% in the subsequent week. In contrast, a defeat leads to a decline in terms of
abnormal returns of 3.1%, afterwards tempered to a loss of 2.1%. Even sharper price reactions
follow relegation duels: a victory leads to a cumulative return of 10.4% in the subsequent week,
with most of in the price rise (5.8%) in the first day (Figure 6 and panel B of Table 5). A similar
price reaction, but then downwards, is perceived after a defeat: the share price falls 6.5% in the
first subsequent day and the cumulative abnormal return of the subsequent week amounts to
13.8%. Draws also lead to downward price corrections three days after the match.
[Insert Here Figures 5 and 6, and Table 5]
3.3 Price impact of the stock exchange on which the club is listed.
Eleven of the 17 listed soccer clubs included in this study are listed on the London Stock
Exchange and 6 on the Alternative Investment Market (see Table 1). Figure 7 reveals whether
the stock exchange on which a soccer club is listed influences the size of the price reactions to
the team’s sporty performances. Differences in size of price swings may be expected because the
AIM is characterised by smaller companies and higher illiquidity. Cumulative abnormal returns
are measured over the 5 days subsequent the match. Victorious soccer teams listed on the LSE
are subject to higher CARs than winning AIM-clubs: CARs of 1.5% versus 0.9%. However, this
does not imply that LSE clubs have a higher volatility of abnormal returns since defeats and
draws provoke larger negative abnormal returns for clubs listed on the AIM. The realised return
of defeated AIM-clubs is 3.2% lower than the CAPM (with Vasicek betas) predicts, whereas
defeated LSE-clubs perform only 2.2% worse. Draws also cause larger negative returns for AIM-
clubs than for LSE-teams. Table 6 shows that prices incorporate most of the new information in
the first day.
Share price reactions to sporty performances of soccer clubs listed on the London Stock Exchange and the AIM.
11
[Insert about here Table 6 and Figure 7]
3.4 Seasonal effects and the Manchester-effect.
In this section, we investigate whether the findings are robust with regard to time effects, to the
Manchester United-effect and the method of computing betas.
In the above event analyses, the games of three seasons (1995-96, 1996-97, 1997-98) were
pooled. However, the number of observations varies across these seasons because the wave of
soccer IPOs only started at the end of 1996. In the first season only three teams, Manchester,
Tottenham and Celtic, were listed. In the third season, 17 listed soccer teams participate in the
Premier League and Division 1 competition. In order to verify whether above results are driven
by the results of a single season, the event study by outcome of the games is repeated for each
season separately. Figure 8 shows that the cumulative abnormal return in the week following a
victory increases on average by 4% (for the three strong teams Manchester, Tottenham and
Celtic). Defeats and draws do not trigger price pressure as the weekly CARs are not significantly
different from zero. A more detailed analysis of the daily abnormal returns in Figure A1
(appendix) reveals significant results in the three days subsequent to a victory. The first day of
trading after a defeat shows a negative abnormal return of 2.1% but the share price recovers later
in the week. The season 1996-97 (Figure 8) is characterised by positive weekly CAR of 2.6%
after success, a negative one of -3% after a loss and a CAR which is not significantly different
from zero after a tie. The detailed analysis of Figure A2 (appendix) reveals positive abnormal
returns throughout the week with the largest in the first day of trading. The largest (and
statistically significant) negative abnormal returns take place on the first and third day. In the last
season, a small but statistically significant abnormal return results from a winning match, but the
market penalises losses and ties by 2.6% (Figures 8 and A3).
[Insert here Figure 8]
The richest and one of the most successful soccer clubs of Europe is Manchester United. Its 1997
turnover amounted to more than three times as much as its nearest competitor (Tottenham).
Furthermore, Manchester is one of the few listed clubs with positive net earnings (of over £ 27
million). This is reflected in its market capitalisation which increased by 780% in less than 8
years (from its floatation in June 1991 until the end of 1998). The conclusion from previous
event studies may be heavily influenced by Manchester United. Firstly, price reactions following
the sporty performance of this successful team may be different from the price reactions of other
Share price reactions to sporty performances of soccer clubs listed on the London Stock Exchange and the AIM.
12
soccer clubs. Secondly, a high number of matches (events) in this study are played by
Manchester United due to the fact that the team was listed since 1991 (and hence included for
three seasons), that it played in the European competitions for three seasons and that it survived
for long periods of time in the yearly Cup knock-out competition. In this study, 102 Manchester
victories are included, as well as 37 defeats and 36 draws. The cumulative abnormal returns
subsequent to the Manchester games versus all other teams’ games are presented in Figure B1
(appendix). The weekly CARs of Manchester subsequent to victories are higher than for all other
soccer teams: 2% versus 1.3%. Moreover, the market does not react as negatively (–1.5% CAR5)
to a Manchester defeat or a draw as to that of other teams (-2.5% CAR5).
7
Finally, it should be noted that the method of beta computation influences the abnormal return.
Three different types of betas were calculated: (i) historical betas resulting from the market
model (ii) Dimson betas and (iii) Vasicek betas (see section 2). The thin trading correction and
Baysian updating are improvements to the simple OLS-beta especially for illiquid shares. In
terms of the presented results, the Dimson and Vasicek-betas lead to similar conclusions
regarding size and statistical significance of the abnormal returns.
4. Impact of sporty performance of soccer clubs on their share price performance.
In order to analyse the impact of the sporty performance on soccer clubs’ share prices, the
following model is formulated in which daily stock prices depend upon the evolution of the
market index and the final scores of the soccer matches:
lnP
i,t
= α
i
+ β
1
*lnMarket
t
+ β
2
*D
victory
+ β
3
*D
defeat
+ β
4
*D
draw
+ ε
i,t (1)
P
i,t
stands for the price of share i at day t. Market
t
is a market index and ln is the natural logarithm. D
k
represents a
dummy variable whereby k stands for a victory, defeat or draw.
To take fixed effects into account, first differences are taken of equation (1):
R
i,t
= β
1
*R
M,t
+ β
2
*D
victory
+ β
3
*D
defeat
+ β
4
*D
draw
+ µ
t
With R
i,t
and R
M,t
standing for the return of share i (∆lnP
t
) and the market return (FTSA).
This results in a return generating model that includes dummy variables representing the weekly
sporty results of the listed soccer teams. If a match was played in the weekend, one of the
7
The abnormal returns of Manchester United are given in Figure B2 (appendix).
Share price reactions to sporty performances of soccer clubs listed on the London Stock Exchange and the AIM.
13
dummy variables (depending on whether the game resulted in a victory, defeat or draw) was set
equal to 1 for the subsequent Monday. Likewise, a game played during the week leads to setting
the dummy of the following day equal to one. If the day subsequent to a match was a trading
holiday, a dummy equal to one was included for the next day with an open stock exchange. For
any day without a game played during the previous day (or two days in case of a Monday), the
dummy variables all equal zero.
Table 7 (panel A) shows that the market return explains most of the variation of the daily returns.
Furthermore, the sporty results of the matches are highly statistically significant: a victory leads
to a return increase of 1.3%, a loss to a return decline of 1.8% and a draw to a return decrease of
0.34%. For a smaller sample of listed soccer clubs and for a shorter time window, Lehman and
Weigand (1998) estimated a similar model with the market return and the (weekly) change in
rang in the league tables as explanatory variables. They find a parameter estimate for the market
return of 0.219, which is close the 0.228 found in panel A of Table 7, which confirms the low
sensitivity of soccer clubs’ returns to market movements. The explanatory power of the model is
5.8%, which is close to the findings of Lehman and Weigand (1998).
The event study analysis has shown that the share price reactions to sporty results may depend
upon the season and upon which stock exchange the soccer clubs are listed. Therefore the
regression model was expanded with these variables and the results are presented in panel B of
Table 7. The explicative power increases to 6.4% as the last two seasons have a significant
negative impact on the returns but only for, respectively, 0.59% and 0.34%. This finding
confirms the event study results of Figure 8. The fact whether a soccer team is listed on the LSE
or the AIM does not seem to provide any additional explicative power. Independent variables
capturing whether the matches were being played in the national league, Cup or European
competitions are not correlated to the soccer teams’ returns.
The share price performance of most soccer clubs was poor over the past few years. In the last
year of this study (1998), only 4 clubs have experienced share price increases: Sunderland
(+87%), Manchester (+46%), Celtic (+22%) and Charlton (+0.1%). The Sharpe ratio
8
of an
equally weighted portfolio of these 4 best performing teams over the year 1998 yields 18.3%
8
Sharpe ratio is defined as (R
portfolio
– R
F
)/σ
portfolio
with R
F
as the risk free rate and σ
portfolio
as the total risk of the
portfolio.
Share price reactions to sporty performances of soccer clubs listed on the London Stock Exchange and the AIM.
14
which compares to a Sharpe ratio of the FTSA index of 10.1%. The Jensen’s alphas
9
for all listed
soccer clubs over the year 1998 reveal that only three clubs perform better than expected:
Sunderland with 69%, Manchester with 30% and Celtic with 5%. Investing in an equally
weighted portfolio consisting of all listed soccer clubs in the years 1997 or 1998 would have
yielded a strongly negative Sharpe ratio and Jensen’s alpha suggesting that a diversified soccer
portfolios was not a successful investment over this (relatively short) time period. Only superior
insights in and predictability of soccer games, or more likely, luck to pick the above mentioned
winners would have yielded an acceptable return.
5. Conclusion.
This paper has investigated whether the share prices of soccer clubs listed on the London Stock
Exchange or the Alternative Investment Market are influenced by the soccer teams’ weekly
sporty performances. Event studies corrected for thin trading and with Baysian updating reveal
that at the first day of trading after a game, positive abnormal returns almost 1% can be expected
following a soccer victory. In contrast, defeats or draws are penalised, respectively, by negative
abnormal returns of 1.4% and 0.6%. Cumulatively over the week, defeats and draws trigger
abnormal losses of 2.5% and 1.7%. These findings are consistent across the English and Scottish,
national Cup and European competitions. Much larger abnormal returns are generated
subsequent to promotion and relegation games as the Premier League and European games
guarantee substantially higher (future) income in terms of television broadcasting rights and
sponsoring income. First day reactions in terms of abnormal returns amount to 3.2% after a
victory in a promotion duel and -3.1% after a defeat. Price changes in relegation tournaments are
even larger: a victory gives rise to a cumulative abnormal return (over the subsequent week) of
10.4% whereas defeats lead to losses of –13.8%. Whereas victories seem to be more rewarded by
share price increases for those clubs listed on the LSE in comparison to those listed on the AIM,
defeats lead to larger price reductions for AIM listed clubs. In spite of the sporty performance
sensitivity of listed soccer clubs and the excellent share price performance of certain clubs like
Manchester United, Sunderland and Celtic, Jensen’s alpha and the Sharpe ratio of an equally
weighted investment in listed soccer clubs since 1996 points out that this investment has
substantially underperformed the market index.
9
Jensen’s alpha = R
i,t
- R
F
- β
I
* [R
M,t
-R
F
].
Share price reactions to sporty performances of soccer clubs listed on the London Stock Exchange and the AIM.
15
References :
Blanpain, R., 1997, The Bosman case, Peeters publishers, Leuven, 1-203
Boon, G., 1992, Survey of significant accounting policies in football clubs, Touche Ross & Co, 1-32.
Boon, G., 1993, Survey of football club accounts, Touche Ross & Co, 1-32.
Boon, G., D. Thorpe and A. Shah, 1994, Survey of football club accounts, Touche Ross & Co, 1-47.
Boon, G., D. Thorpe and S. Giles, 1995, Survey of football club accounts, Touche Ross & Co, 1-57.
Boon, G., 1996, Deloitte & Touche annual review of football finance, Deloitte & Touche, 1-63.
Boon, G., 1997, Deloitte & Touche annual review of football finance, Deloitte & Touche, 1-67.
Boon, G., 1998, Deloitte & Touche annual review of football finance, Deloitte & Touche, 1-70.
Brown, S and J. Warner, 1980, Measuring security price performance, Journal of Financial Economics 8,
205-258.
Brown, S and J. Warner, 1985, Using daily stock returns: the case of event studies, Journal of Financial
Economics 14, 3-31.
Dimson, E., 1979, Risk measures when share are subject to infrequent trading, Journal of Financial
Economics 7, 197-226.
Dimson, E. and P. Marsh, 1983, The stability of UK risk measuring and the problem of thin trading,
Journal of Finance 38, 753-783.
Dimson, E. and P. Marsh, 1985, Event study methodologies and the size effect: the case of UK press
recommendations 17, 113-142.
Feld, G. an J. Easthope, 1997, The winner takes it all: UK football plc, UBS Global Research, 1-112.
Lehman, E. and J. Weigand, 1998, Wieviel Phantasie braucht die Fussballaktie?, Working paper
University of Nuernberg.
Palomino, F., L. Rigotti and A. Rustichini, 1998, Skill, strategy and passion: an empirical analysis of
soccer, Discussion paper CentER, Tilburg University.
Ritter, J., 1991, The long-run performance of initial public offerings, Journal of Finance 46, 3-27.
Scholes, M and J. Williams, 1977, Estimating betas from non-synchronous data, Journal of Financial
Economics 5, 309-328.
Vasicek, O., 1973, A note on using cross-sectional information in Baysian estimation of security betas,
Journal of Finance 28, 1233-39.
Share price reactions to sporty performances of soccer clubs listed on the London Stock Exchange and the AIM.
16
Table 1 : Listed British soccer clubs by stock exchange.
This Table lists the names of soccer clubs traded via the LSE, AIM and OFEX and gives the date of introduction to
the stock exchange and the percentage of shares offered to the public.
a. listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE).
Aston Villa (17/4/97; 25%), Bolton Wanderers (29/4/97;0%)
a
, Leeds United (Caspian Group, 5/8/96;60%), Hearth of
Midlothian (5/97; 39%), Leicester City Soccer Investments (10/97; 0%), Manchester United (6/91; 38%), Millwall
(10/89; 38%), Newcastle United (2/4/97; 28%), Sheffield United (18/12/96;0%)
b
, Southampton Leisure Holding
(14/1/97;0%)
c
, Sunderland (24/12/96; 26%), Tottenham Hotspur (10/83; 41%), Celtic Glasgow (9/95)
d
.
b. listed on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM).
Birmingham City (10/3/97; 30%), Celtic Glasgow (9/95)
c
, Charlton Athletic (24/3/97; 30%), Chelsea Village (31/3/96;
0%), Queens Park Rangers (Loftus Road) (28/10/96; 44%)
e
, Nottingham Forrest (10/10/97; 11%), Preston North End
(10/95; 86%), West Bromwich Albion (3/1/97; 0%).
c. traded via OFEX.
Arsenal, Liverpool.
Notes: a. The introduction of Bolton Wanderers took place via a reverse take-over of a corporate shell. Mosaic
Investment plc, listed on the LSE, acquired the share of Bolton Wanderers Football & Athletic Company ltd. As a
result of the acquisition, the shareholders of Bolton acquired the effective control of the listed firm.
b. The bid by Conrad on Sheffield United was accepted conditional upon a name change of Conrad to Sheffield United
plc. For every ordinary Sheffield share, 55,540 Conrad shares were offered.
c. Introduced via a reverse take-over. The name was changed to Southampton Leisure which acquired 100% of the
shares.
d. Initially introduced on the AIM, transferred to the Official List of the LSE in September 1998.
e. Introduced along with the rugby club Wasps as one company.
Source: IPO Prospectuses.
Table 2 : Share price returns following the Initial Public Offering.
This Table shows the month and year of the Initial Public Offering and changes in share price 1 week and 1 month
subsequent to the floatation. Source: Own calculations with share price data from the London Share Price Database
and the offer price from the prospectuses.
LSE IPO Change in Share Price (% ) AIM IPO Change in Share Price (% )
month After 1 week After 1 month month After 1 week After 1 month
Aston Villa
4/97 -17 -28
Birmingham
3/97 -5 -28
Bolton
4/97 16 -25
Celtic
9/95 16 -25
Leeds U.
8/96 46 53
Charlton
3/97 46 53
Midlothian
5/97 -20 -19
Chelsea
3/96 -20 -19
Leicester City
10/97 0 -25
QPR
10/96 0 -25
Manchester U.
6/91 -25 -25
Nottingham
10/97 -25 -25
Millwall
10/98 10 10
Preston
10/95 10 10
Newcastle U.
4/97 2 -10
Bromwich
1/97 2 -10
Sheffield U.
12/96
72 34
Southampton
1/97 -2 -36
Sunderland
12/96 28 26
Tottenham
10/83 -7 -4
Share price reactions to sporty performances of soccer clubs listed on the London Stock Exchange and the AIM.
17
Table 3 : Turnover and profit of listed soccer clubs.
This Table shows the evolution of turnover from 1992-97 and the change in turnover over the season 1996-97 versus 1995-96. Turnover data exclude income
from transfer of players. Profit before tax is given in £000 for the seasons 1996-97 and 1995-96. Stadium capacity and occupancy rates are also given.
Source: annual reports, Boon (’92, ’93,’94, ’95, ’96, ’97 and ’98) and Feld and Easthope (1997).
Turnover (£000) Profit before tax (£000) Capacity
∆∆ (%)
last season
1996-97 1995-96 1994-95 1993-94 1992-93
∆∆(%)
1997-95
1996-97 1995-96 Capacity Occupancy
rate (%)
Aston Villa
17 22079 18865 13001 13014 10175 -7852 -3926 50 39339 92
Bolton Wand.
14 7653 6742 5488 4108 2396 -1583 -3293 208 20500 77
Leeds U.
16 21785 18751 14753 13867 13324 137 -9689 -7073 40000 80
Leicester City
83 17320 9465 9697 6223 4775 221 -3594 -1628 22517 90
Manchester U.
65 87939 53316 60622 43815 25177 179 27577 15399 56387 98
Millwall
0 4054 4054 4334 5609 2672 100 -2879 -2879 / /
Newcastle U.
42 41134 28970 24723 17004 8743 -35 8302 -23957 36610 100
Sheffield U.
19 5133 4311 4325 5431 6060 356 -3054 -859 30370 55
Southampton
24 9238 7477 7397 4732 4307 267 -3624 -1356 15100 100
Sunderland
87 13415 7166 5507 4905 3806 260 7573 2912 42000 50
Tottenham H.
9 27874 25589 21296 17767 16594 -842 -5495 653 33208 94
Birmingham
4 7622 7337 6942 3763 3121 -60 1125 -1866 25812 69
Celtic Rangers
28 22189 16005 10376 8736 9473 -509 5152 -1013 50032 97
Charlton
17 4330 3691 2916 2916 1918 -22 254 -1163 16000 69
Chelsea Village
49 23729 15948 12706 / 7891 13 -376 -2954 31791 85
QPRangers
5 7497 7173 7652 6194 6435 -340 -7052 2077 19148 66
Nottingham F.
-10 14435 16085 10290 8511 7651 -458 -10965 2392 30602 80
Preston
34 3847 2876 1860 1497 1385 182 113 62 / /
Bromwich A.
12 6073 5428 4592 3751 3162 -108 -185 171 25296 60
Mean
27 18281 13645 12025 9547 7319 -531 -212 -1096 31454 80
Standard dev.
27 19621 12270 13209 9806 5924 1834 8426 7013 11652 16
Minimum
-10 3847 2876 1860 1497 1385 -7852 -10965 -23957 15100 50
Median
17 13415 7477 7652 5902 6060 -22 -2879 -859 30602 80
Maximum
87 87939 53316 60622 43815 25177 356 27577 15399 56387 100
Share price reactions to sporty performances of soccer clubs listed on the London Stock Exchange and the AIM.
18
Table 4: Abnormal returns of games
in the English, Scottish, Cup and European Competitions.
This Table presents the abnormal returns of the 5 days subsequent to all games played by 18 soccer clubs listed on the
London Stock Exchange and Alternative Investment Market (panel A). Panels B, C and D present daily abnormal
returns of victories, defeats and draws in the English and Scottish, Cup and European competitions. The English and
Scottish competition of panel B excludes promotion and relegation games. The abnormal returns are computed using
Vasicek betas (see section 2.2). Cumulative abnormal returns (CAR) over 3 and 5 days are also presented. ***, **, *
stand for statistical significance at respectively the 1%, 5% and 10% level. Source: own calculations.
Victories Defeats Draws
Panel A : All soccer games played by soccer clubs listed on the LSE and AIM.
t AR(t) t-stat AR(t) t-stat AR(t) t-stat
Day 1
0.00921 *** 5.910 -0.01429 *** -7.228 -0.00607 *** -3.132
Day 2
-0.00002 -0.018 -0.00435 *** -2.927 -0.00166 -1.102
Day 3
0.00191 * 1.581 -0.00181 -1.147 -0.00312 * -1.625
Day 4
0.00116 1.014 -0.00344 * -1.706 -0.00392 ** -2.367
Day 5
0.00076
0.628
-0.00072
-0.323
-0.00175
-0.923
Observations
407 248 185
CAR3
0.01109 -0.02045 -0.01085
CAR5
0.01301 -0.02461 -0.01652
Panel B : English and Scottish competition.
t AR(t) t-stat AR(t) t-stat AR(t) t-stat
Day 1
0.00948 *** 4.651 -0.01220 *** -4.82556 -0.00530 *** -2.65753
Day 2
0.00120 0.830 -0.00520 *** -2.76241 -0.00141 -0.76626
Day 3
0.00296 ** 2.106 -0.00017 -0.11573 -0.00285 * -1.6172
Day 4
0.00116 1.013 -0.00344 * -1.70634 -0.00392 ** -2.36659
Day 5
0.00076 0.628 -0.00072 -0.32329 -0.00175 -0.92361
Observations
269 172 141
CAR3
0.01364
-0.01756
-0.00955
CAR5
0.01555 -0.02172 -0.01522
Panel C : Cup competition.
t AR(t) t-stat AR(t) t-stat AR(t) t-stat
Day 1
0.00835 *** 3.064 -0.01967 *** -6.017 -0.01065 -1.595
Day 2
-0.00188 -1.117 -0.00343 -1.461 -0.00468 -1.524
Day 3
-0.00228 -1.090 -0.01094 * -1.776 -0.00473 -0.600
Observations
109 53 30
CAR2
0.00647 -0.02311 -0.01533
CAR3
0.00419 -0.03405 -0.02007
Panel D : European competition.
t AR(t) t-stat AR(t) t-stat AR(t) t-stat
Day 1
0.00995 ** 2.481 -0.01777 *** -3.142 -0.00439 -0.709
Day 2
-0.00605 -1.060 0.00037 0.073 0.00185 0.720
Day 3
0.00597 1.209 -0.00602 -1.191 -0.00044 -0.284
Observations
29 23 14
CAR2
0.00390 -0.01740 -0.00254
CAR3
0.00987 -0.02342 -0.00298
Share price reactions to sporty performances of soccer clubs listed on the London Stock Exchange and the AIM.
19
Table 5: Abnormal returns of promotion and relegation matches.
This Table presents the abnormal returns of the 5 days subsequent to promotion and relegation games of soccer clubs
listed on the London Stock Exchange and Alternative Investment Market. The abnormal returns are computed using
Vasicek betas (see section 2.2). Cumulative abnormal returns (CAR) over 3 and 5 days are also presented. ***, **, *
stand for statistical significance at respectively the 1%, 5% and 10% level. Source: own calculations.
Victories Defeats Draws
Panel A : Promotion Duels.
t AR(t) t-stat AR(t) t-stat AR(t) t-stat
Day 1
0.03193 ** 2.223 -0.03114 *** -7.636 -0.00504 -1.090
Day 2
-0.00129 -0.730 0.01444 1.211 -0.01182 * -1.785
Day 3
0.01356 * 1.697 0.03381 1.354 -0.00016 -0.053
Day 4
0.00074 0.099 0.00331 / -0.00930 -0.463
Day 5
-0.00580 -1.042 0.00038 / 0.00849 *** 3.458
Observations
20 2 6
CAR3
0.044202
0.01712
-0.01702
CAR5
0.039139 0.02081 -0.01783
Panel B : Relegation games.
t AR(t) t-stat AR(t) t-stat AR(t) t-stat
Day 1
0.05768 * 1.811 -0.06470 *** -2.847 -0.03794 * -1.615
Day 2
0.03623 1.540 0.01469 0.954 -0.02070 * -1.673
Day 3
0.00400 0.554 -0.01208 -1.173 -0.03648 -1.382
Day 4
-0.00600 * -1.688 -0.03705 ** -2.477 -0.00427 *** -4.483
Day 5
0.01248 * 1.777 -0.03891 * -1.889 0.12651 /
Observations
5 11 3
CAR3
0.09790 -0.06210 -0.09512
CAR5
0.10439
-0.13806
-0.09939
Car4
Share price reactions to sporty performances of soccer clubs listed on the London Stock Exchange and the AIM.
20
Table 6: Abnormal returns of listed on the LSE versus on the AIM.
This Table presents the abnormal returns of the 5 days subsequent to all games (national, Cup and European
competitions) of soccer clubs listed on the London Stock Exchange and Alternative Investment Market. The abnormal
returns are computed using Vasicek betas (see section 2.2). Cumulative abnormal returns (CAR) over 3 and 5 days are
also presented. ***, **, * stand for statistical significance at respectively the 1%, 5% and 10% level. Source: own
calculations.
Victories Defeats Draws
Panel A : Clubs listed on the London Stock Exchange.
t AR(t) t-stat AR(t) t-stat AR(t) t-stat
Day 1
0.01067 *** 5.700 -0.01360 *** -5.550 -0.00660 *** -3.208
Day 2
-0.00033 -0.273 -0.00392 ** -2.238 0.00014 0.074
Day 3
0.00184 1.536 -0.00097 -0.614 -0.00169 -1.024
Day 4
0.00095 0.770 -0.00254 -0.995 -0.00290 -1.446
Day 5
0.00199 1.447 -0.00065 -0.216 -0.00138 -0.601
Observations
270 176 134
CAR3
0.01218 -0.01848 -0.00815
CAR5
0.01512 -0.02167 -0.01243
Panel B : Clubs listed on the Alternative Investment Market.
t AR(t) t-stat AR(t) t-stat AR(t) t-stat
Day 1
0.00632 ** 2.276 -0.01592 *** -5.104 -0.00468 -1.033
Day 2
0.00062 0.266 -0.00542 * -1.936 -0.00635 *** -2.738
Day 3
0.00202 0.759 -0.00378 -1.007 -0.00659 -1.259
Day 4
0.00154 0.667 -0.00559 * -1.842 -0.00639 ** -2.157
Day 5
-0.00137 -0.637 -0.00089 -0.353 -0.00262 -0.766
Observations
137 72 52
CAR3
0.00897 -0.02512 -0.01763
CAR5
0.00914 -0.03160 -0.02664
Share price reactions to sporty performances of soccer clubs listed on the London Stock Exchange and the AIM.
21
Table 7: Impact of sporty results on the daily returns of listed soccer teams.
Panel A Table shows the results of the following regression:
R
i,t
= β
1
*R
M,t
+ β
2
*D
victory
+ β
3
*D
defeat
+ β
4
*D
draw
+µ
t
with R
i,t
and R
M,t
standing for the daily return of share i and the daily market return (FTSA). D
k
represents a dummy
variable whereby k stands for a victory, defeat or draw. If a match was played in the weekend, one of the dummy
variables (depending on whether the game resulted in a victory, defeat or draw) was set equal to 1 for the subsequent
Monday. Likewise, a game played during the week leads to setting the dummy of the following day equal to one. If
the day subsequent to a match was a trading holiday, a dummy equal to one was included for the next day with an
open stock exchange. For any day without a game played during the previous day (or two days in case of a Monday),
the dummy variables all equal zero. Panel B shows the results of an expanded regression with dummy variables
indicating whether the match was played in one specific season and whether a soccer club is listed on the LSE or AIM
(dummy=1 if listed on the LSE). For every listed soccer club, daily returns are included since the beginning of the
soccer season (June 1995) of since floatation. Source: own calculations.
Dependent variable : Daily returns
Parameter
Estimates
T- stats. P-value
Panel A
Market return 0.228343 *** 5.734 0.0001
Victory 0.012701 *** 11.767 0.0001
Defeat -0.017902 *** -13.355 0.0001
Draw -0.003451 ** -2.321 0.0200
R sq. adjusted 0.058
Observations 6255
Panel B
Market return 0.233681*** 5.884 0.0001
Victory 0.012652*** 11.756 0.0001
Defeat -0.017692*** -13.231 0.0001
Draw -0.003499** -2.361 0.0182
LSE vs AIM -0.003453 -0.210 0.833
Season 1997-98 -0.005930*** -5.904 0.0001
Season 1996-97 -0.003478*** -3.052 0.0023
R sq. adjusted 0.064
Observations 6255
Share price reactions to sporty performances of soccer clubs listed on the London Stock Exchange and the AIM.
22
-0.015
-0.0125
-0.01
-0.0075
-0.005
-0.0025
0
0.0025
0.005
0.0075
0.01
0.0125
0.015
Return
AR1 AR2 AR3 AR4 AR5
Figure 2 : Abnormal returns of games
in the English and Scottish competitions.
Victories Defeats Draws
-0.015
-0.0125
-0.01
-0.0075
-0.005
-0.0025
0
0.0025
0.005
0.0075
0.01
Return
AR1 AR2 AR3 AR4 AR5
Figure 1 : Abnormal returns of all games by listed soccer clubs.
Victories Defeats Draws
Share price reactions to sporty performances of soccer clubs listed on the London Stock Exchange and the AIM.
23
-0.02
-0.016
-0.012
-0.008
-0.004
0
0.004
0.008
0.012
Return
AR1 AR2 AR3
Figure 3 : Abnormal returns of games in the Cup competition.
Victories Defeats Draws
-0.02
-0.016
-0.012
-0.008
-0.004
0
0.004
0.008
0.012
Return
AR1 AR2 AR3
Figure 4 : Abnormal Return of games in European competition.
Victory Defeat Draw
Share price reactions to sporty performances of soccer clubs listed on the London Stock Exchange and the AIM.
24
-0.035
-0.03
-0.025
-0.02
-0.015
-0.01
-0.005
0
0.005
0.01
0.015
0.02
0.025
0.03
0.035
Return
AR1 AR2 AR3 AR4 AR5
Figure 5 : Abnormal returns of promotion games.
Victories Defeats Draws
-0.075
-0.0625
-0.05
-0.0375
-0.025
-0.0125
0
0.0125
0.025
0.0375
0.05
0.0625
0.075
0.0875
0.1
0.1125
0.125
0.1375
Return
AR1 AR2 AR3 AR4 AR5
Figure 6: Abnormal returns of relegation games.
Victories Defeats Draws
Share price reactions to sporty performances of soccer clubs listed on the London Stock Exchange and the AIM.
25
-0.035
-0.03
-0.025
-0.02
-0.015
-0.01
-0.005
0
0.005
0.01
0.015
0.02
Return
CAR5-Victory CAR5-Defeat CAR5-Draw
Figure 7: The weekly Cumulative Abnormal Return of clubs listed on
the LSE and the AIM
LSE AIM
-0.035
-0.03
-0.025
-0.02
-0.015
-0.01
-0.005
0
0.005
0.01
0.015
0.02
0.025
0.03
0.035
0.04
0.045
CAR5
1995-96 1996-97 1997-98
Figure 8: The weekly Cumulative Abnormal Return by season.
Victories Defeats Draws
Share price reactions to sporty performances of soccer clubs listed on the London Stock Exchange and the AIM.
26
-0.025
-0.02
-0.015
-0.01
-0.005
0
0.005
0.01
0.015
0.02
0.025
Return
AR1 AR2 AR3 AR4 AR5
Figure A1: Abnormal returns for the season 1995-96.
Victories Defeats Draws
-0.0175
-0.015
-0.0125
-0.01
-0.0075
-0.005
-0.0025
0
0.0025
0.005
0.0075
0.01
Return
AR1 AR2 AR3 AR4 AR5
Figure A2 : Abnormal returns for the season 1996-97.
Victories Defeat Draws
Share price reactions to sporty performances of soccer clubs listed on the London Stock Exchange and the AIM.
27
-0.015
-0.0125
-0.01
-0.0075
-0.005
-0.0025
0
0.0025
0.005
0.0075
0.01
Return
AR1 AR2 AR3 AR4 AR5
Figure A3 : Abnormal returns for the season 1997-98
Victories Defeats Draws
Share price reactions to sporty performances of soccer clubs listed on the London Stock Exchange and the AIM.
28
-0.0125
-0.01
-0.0075
-0.005
-0.0025
0
0.0025
0.005
0.0075
0.01
0.0125
Return
AR1 AR2 AR3 AR4 AR5
Figure B2 : Abnormal returns of Manchester United.
Victories Defeats Draws
0.020
0.013
-0.015
-0.025
-0.009
-0.017
-0.028
-0.024
-0.02
-0.016
-0.012
-0.008
-0.004
0
0.004
0.008
0.012
0.016
0.02
Return
CAR5-Victories CAR5-Defeats CAR5-Draws
Figure B1 : Weekly Cumulative Abnormal Returns of Manchester
United versus all other listed soccer teams.
Manchester United Other teams
