Stefan Szymanski

A couple of years ago I had lunch with Roger Noll in London on one of his visits to the LSE and we talked about …

So what do professional sports teams sell? Rivalry of course, and to have rivalry you have to have a rival. Real Madrid have broken the …

The South African Tourism and Migration Report for June 2010 was published today, and facinating reading it makes. Table 3 shows that 721,311 tourists entered …

The South African statistical service fooled me into thinking the July figures would appear in another month, when in fact they published them today, having …

Association football, that is. FIFA, the world governing body, has announced that it has reached agreement with FIFPro, the international players’ union, over a range …

Despite being much over-hyped, globalization is a genuine phenomenon in sports. Absent barriers (legal, economic or cultural) to mobility, talent will migrate to where it …

Sorry, but this is all just too exciting to resist. Trying to explain to non-cricket fans why this England-Australia series is so exciting is pretty …

The Australian spin bowler Shane Warne announced his retirement from international cricket yesterday. His 699 wickets (batsmen retired) in test matches (5 day games) is …

Tuesday’s crushing defeat of England by Australia demonstrated exactly why cricket fans love the game and the rest of the world is bemused. The game …