Soccer jersey sponsors and the world cup

Abstract

This paper analyses whether jersey sponsorship has an effect on team performance at FIFA World Cupmatches, taking team qualities into account. Team qualities are measured by the Elo-ratings of nationalsoccer teams. We measure the performance of sponsors by comparing the Elo-ratings at the start and the endof World Cup tournaments. The Elo-ratings are used to calculate the expected probabilities of a win duringknockout matches and to compare them with the actual outcomes. The results show that in the knockoutstages of the World Cup tournaments, national teams sponsored by Adidas perform significantly better thanexpected, while teams sponsored by other companies, such as Puma or Nike, perform worse. The averageadvantage per knockout match for the Adidas teams is to raise the probability of winning by 10 percentagepoints.