Unlike most major U.S. sport teams, it is common for professional soccer clubs around the world to trade players for cash. This article develops a model of the player-transfer market in soccer in which observed transfer fees are determined by player characteristics, selling-club characteristics, buying-club characteristics, and time effects. The model is based on data on 1,350 transfer fees in English professional soccer from June 1990 to August 1996. The estimated model is used to investigate the rate of inflation in transfer fees. In addition, the determination of transfer fees is considered within different segments of the transfer market. It is found that the determination of transfer fees differs markedly among segments.
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The Determination of Player Transfer Fees in English Professional Soccer
Stephen Dobson and Bill Gerrard
Private and Moral Authority, Self-Determination, and the Domestic Transfer Objective: Foundations for Understanding Sport for Development and Peace in Aboriginal Communities in Canada
Lyndsay M.C. Hayhurst and Audrey Giles
Sport for development and peace (SDP) is a contemporary term for practices that have a long history, particularly in Canada’s provincial and territorial north, and especially with Aboriginal peoples for whom the region is home. Using a postcolonial international relations feminist approach, theories of global governance and private authority, and by exploring recent literature on self-determination in the context of Aboriginal peoples, we investigate 1) the assumptions at work in attempts to “transfer” SDP programming models in the Two-Thirds World to Aboriginal communities across Canada; 2) how the retreat of the welfare state and neo-liberal policies have produced the “need” for SDP in Aboriginal communities; and 3) how efforts toward Aboriginal self-determination can be made through SDP. We argue that, taken together, these concepts build a useful foundation better understanding for the historical and sociopolitical processes involved in deploying SDP interventions in Aboriginal communities.
Women’s Exercise Experiences in Women-Only Gyms in Turkey: An Examination Within the Framework of Self-Determination Theory
Pinar Öztürk and Canan Koca
Although a growing body of evidence emphasizes the benefits of physical activity and exercise participation, diverse cultural, social and religious factors prevent girls and women from participating in physical activity and exercise. Recently, women-only gyms have become an important factor in promoting women’s participation in exercise in nonwestern countries, such as Turkey. This study examines the factors that affect the experiences of women who participate in exercise in a women-only gym, in Turkey, by applying self-determination theory (SDT) with a gender perspective. Data were collected through in-depth semistructured interviews with seventeen women and three women instructors and analyzed with thematic analysis. Identified themes are a) regulation of daily life: time of one’s own, b) structured exercise, and c) comfort of being in women-only environments. Findings show that women-only gym satisfies the three basic needs identified by SDT, and reproduce the relationship between exercise and femininity for women. This means that satisfaction of three needs, autonomy, competence, and relatedness, involves gendered meanings for women who exercise in women-only gyms.
Reclaiming Tom Longboat: Indigenous Self-Determination in Canadian Sport
Taylor McKee
lens, Janice Forsyth’s Reclaiming Tom Longboat: Self-Determination in Canadian Sport is a triumph: not only of historical scholarship, which it certainly is, but also of historical, collective memory. What makes Reclaiming Tom Longboat an unqualified success is its ability to give voice to those
Salaries, Race/Ethnicity, and Pitchers in Major League Baseball: A Correction and Comment
Marc Lavoie and Wilbert M. Leonard II
The distinction between starting and relief pitchers is crucial for a correct assessment of pay determination. Nevertheless, making this distinction does not alter the trend of empirical findings, namely that there is no salary discrimination against blacks in baseball.
Team Mums: Team Sport Experiences of Athletic Mothers
Jo Batey and Helen Owton
Maintaining involvement in sport and exercise activities is a challenge for mothers with young children. This study therefore qualitatively explores the experiences of 7 mothers who have managed to remain physically active in team sports exploring how the team environment might meet their psychological needs. We analyze the results through Self-Determination Theory (SDT). Semistructured interviews were thematically analyzed to reveal the following themes: perceived benefits of sport, perceived benefits of being part of a team, needing time out from being a mother, social support and empowerment and self-determination. Feelings of competence, autonomy and relatedness were interwoven to these themes thus demonstrating the applicability of SDT to this domain.
A Reexamination of Salary Discrimination in Major League Baseball by Race/Ethnicity
Dean A. Purdy, Wilbert M. Leonard II, and D. Stanley Eitzen
This paper extends previous research examining salary differentials by race/ethnicity in major league baseball. Our analysis adds to previous research by using career statistics for both hitters and pitchers, and, for the pitcher category, both starters and relievers. We also examined race/ethnicity two ways: (a) according to the standard three categories of white, black, and Hispanic and (b) according to five categories—white, black U.S. born, black foreign born, Hispanic U.S. born, and Hispanic foreign born. Using analysis of variance and regression analysis we found that race/ethnicity did not play a statistically significant role in salary determination, no matter how race/ethnicity was coded.
How Do We Find Our Own Voices in the “New World Order”? A Commentary on Americanization
Bruce Kidd
“Americanization” is a much more useful term than “globalization” in the Canadian context. The specific practices of commercial sport that have eroded local autonomy began as explicitly American practices, and state-subsidized American-based cartels flood the Canadian market with American-focused spectacles, images, and souvenirs. But the term does oversimplify the complexity of social determinations and masks the increasing role the Canadian bourgeoisie plays in continentalist sports. “American capitalist hegemony” is therefore preferable. The long debate over Americanization in Canada has also focused on the appropriate public policy response. Traditionally, Canadians have turned to the state to protect cultural expression from the inroads of American production, but that becomes increasingly difficult under neoconservative renovation and the regional trading bloc created by the 1989 U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement. The popular movements will need new means to protect and strengthen the presentation and distribution of their own sporting culture.
Physical Activity among Adolescent Females: Racial Differences
Timothy J. Bungum and Murray Vincent
Purposes of this study included the identification of physical activity (PA) levels, and the types of activity, as well as the determination of racial differences in these factors between African-American (AA) (n=626) and White (WH) (n=226) adolescent females.
PA was measured using a one week recall. Approximately 1/2 of WH and 1/3 of AA female adolescents were sufficiently physically active (Blair, 1992) to produce health benefits. Less than twenty-five percent of study participants met a newly established guideline addressing moderate to vigorous PA (Sallis & Patrick, 1994). Younger adolescents were more active than older adolescents.
Accounting for differences in age and socioeconomic status WH females were more active than AA females. African-American and WH females participated in similar types of activity. Walking was the most frequently cited mode of activity.
Changes in Intrinsic Motivation and Physical Activity among Overweight Women in a 12-Week Dragon Boat Exercise Intervention Study
Meghan H. McDonough, Catherine M. Sabiston, Whitney A. Sedgwick, and Peter R.E. Crocker
Physical and psychosocial health risks are associated with both excess body weight and a sedentary lifestyle (National Institutes of Health [NIH], 1998). However, few researchers have focused on behavioral and motivational processes associated with exercise adoption and maintenance among overweight women. This study examined the efficacy of a team-based physical activity intervention on motivation and activity from a self-determination theory perspective. Overweight, inactive women (N=66) were randomly assigned to either a 12-week dragon boat program or a control condition. Participation in the dragon boat exercise was associated with increased intrinsic motivation and physical activity. Based on these data, the researchers suggest that this novel, team-based exercise intervention may improve motivation and activity levels in this at-risk population.