ECO-6004A Business and Economics of Sport 2025/2026
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ECO-6004A Business and Economics of Sport
2025/2026
Assessment Brief: Empirical-Based Report Assignment
Assignment Details
This summative assignment is worth 60% of the final mark for the module.
Word limit: 2,500 words. The work is to be submitted online via Blackboard. Both the document and the dataset must be submitted.
Deadline: See EVISION.
This assignment involves one of the topics considered in weeks 7-11 of the module. Details of the task is provided below.
The nature of this task is to develop your transferable skills in gathering and assessing academic literature, formulating hypotheses, finding, and analysing data, and in the writing of a structured research-based report.
You must use statistical analysis, including regression analysis for this assignment. The regression analysis can be done in a package of your choice (Excel, STATA, etc.). Further guidance on this will be provided during the sessions in weeks 11 and 12.
Details of the Task
Prepare an Empirical-Based Report addressing one of the following questions:
1. Does the uncertainty of outcome hypothesis hold, or is loss aversion a more valid explanation as to why people watch sport?
2. To what extent (if any) does wage/value dispersion and team composition (e.g., nationality/cultural diversity) affect team performance?
3. To what extent do incentives matter in individual sports?
Whatever you decide to consider you must collect data and undertake some comparative analysis. For example, in question 1 this could include comparing the same league across two different seasons, comparing two different leagues across the same season. This could also involve a comparison of a men’s competition with a women’s competition (again for question 1 or question 3). You could even compare across two different sports if you wish. The comparative analysis for question 2 will be based on looking at different combinations of variables in the model. Further guidance on these aspects will be provided in weeks 11 and 12.
The report must contain an executive summary (abstract) and distinct sections that provide details relating to the question and hypotheses being proposed. The report should draw upon relevant literature and data and include empirical (regression-based) analysis. You must also upload the data you used for your empirical analysis. Failure to provide the data will result in a zero mark for this assignment.
Some past examples have been published in the Norwich Economic Papers series. We will also review a sample of previous reports in the lecture in week 12. A masterclass on using Excel for regression analysis (using the topic of demand) will be considered in the workshop in week 12.
Marking Criteria (what we are looking for):
Learning [15%]
Use this criterion to assess how well the work integrates theory into analysis.
Understanding [15%]
Is the work appropriately structured? Does it demonstrate a clear understanding of the topic? Does it make it clear what is being investigated / tested? Does the conclusion provide an overview as to what has been found, provide limitations and offer some suggestions for future work?
Analysis [30%]
Regression analysis is required here. Assess the extent to which the work provides the results of more than one regression (and comparative analysis), choice of explanatory variables etc. Does the work demonstrating a good understanding of what was done, including interpretation of the results? Does it adequately address the question / hypotheses posed?
Research [25%]
Does the work engage with academic literature? Is this done throughout? Has sufficient effort been made to generate a “decent” sample size – does it go beyond what was provided in the lectures / workshops?
Presentation [15%]
Is the work well presented? Are the sections clearly labelled? Is there an overall title? Executive Summary (Abstract)? Are the figures presented correctly with titles? Have the citations been included correctly and does the bibliography conform to Harvard Classification?
You can exceed the word count by up to 10% without penalty. Executive Summary (abstract), Bibliography and Appendix do not contribute to the word count.
2025-12-27
Empirical-Based Report Assignment