Dr. Pedro García del Barrio, the Assistant Dean of the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences, presented the results of the research study “Economic Evaluation of Football Players Through Media Value” on Friday, 28 August 2015, in Zurich at the 7th ESEA Conference on Sports Economics organized by the European Sport Economics Association.
In his paper, Dr. García del Barrio described the MERIT method he applies to estimate the media value of professional footballers.
The first step in the method is to calculate a player’s media value score and compare it to the average of the 2,500 best players in a dataset with more than 5,000 individuals. Next, to calculate a player's “reasonable value”, regression models are applied to the transfer fees paid for signing footballers.
The different estimates and analysis indicate that it is necessary to consider only a few variables to determine a player's market value and that media value appears to be the most relevant variable of all. Other factors affecting transfer fees include the duration of the contract, the hiring team’s financial situation, the player’s years of experience and age at contract end, and what share of the team’s media value is contributed by the player’s media value.
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