Talent and/or Popularity: What Does it Take to Be a Superstar?

We show that both talent and popularity significantly contribute to stars’ market values in German soccer. The talent-versus-popularity controversy on the sources of stardom goes back to Rosen (1981) and Adler (1985). All attempts to resolve the controversy empirically face the difficulty of accurately identifying talent. In professional sports, rank-order tournaments help in ascertaining talent. Analyzing a team production setting, we make use of a large number of performance indicators to estimate a player’s talent according to his contribution to the team’s winning chances.

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