Football history off the field: utilising archived accounting reports to challenge "myths" about the history of an Australian football club
- Authors: Halabi, Abdel , Frost, Lionel , Lightbody, Margaret
- Date: 2012
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Accounting History Vol. 17, no. 1 (2012), p. 63-81
- Full Text: false
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Kicking short to a contest : Distance and the costs of running Australian football clubs
- Authors: Frost, Lionel , Halabi, Abdel
- Date: 2008
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Monash Business Review Vol. 4, no. 2 (2008), p. 1-8
- Full Text: false
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Integrating the historiography of the nineteenth-century gold rushes
- Authors: Reeves, Keir , Frost, Lionel , Fahey, Charles
- Date: 2010
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Australian Economic History Review Vol. 50, no. 2 (2010), p. 111-128
- Full Text: false
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- Description: In the century preceding World War I, the world experienced a series of gold rushes. The wealth derived from these was distributed widely because of reduced migration costs and low barriers to entry. While gold mining itself was generally unprofitable for diggers and mine owners, the increase in the world's gold supply stimulated global trade and investment. In this introductory article we integrate the histories of migration, trade, colonisation, and environmental history to identify endogenous factors that increased the world's gold supply and generated sustained economic growth in the regions that were affected by gold rushes.
The Country Football Club : Measuring its success as a community institution
- Authors: Frost, Lionel , Halabi, Abdel
- Date: 2008
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Behind the Play: Football in Australia p. 73-88
- Full Text: false
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Expanding social inclusion in community sports organizations: Evidence from rural Australian football clubs
- Authors: Frost, Lionel , Lightbody, Margaret , Halabi, Abdel
- Date: 2013
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Journal Of Sport Management Vol. 27, no. 6 (2013), p. 453-466
- Full Text: false
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- Description: Australian Football clubs have traditionally been seen as contributing social benefits to the rural communities in which they are embedded. Declining numbers of participants, both players and volunteers, suggest that this role may not be as strong today. Critical explorations of the extent to which football has driven social inclusion and exclusion in such environments emphasizes a historic masculine culture of drinking and violence that segregates and marginalizes women and children. Less is known about the contemporary strategic efforts of clubs to use social capital to support their activities, and whether the resources they generate have positive impacts on social inclusion in the wider community. We use evidence from the Parliament of Victoria's Inquiry into Country Football (2004) to explore the current focus of rural Australian Football clubs regarding social inclusion, in light of changes occurring in society and rural towns in the 21st century.
Ground sharing between cricket and football in Australia
- Authors: Frost, Lionel , Lightbody, Margaret , Halabi, Abdel , Carter, Amanda , Borrowman, Luc
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Sports Through the Lens of Economic History Chapter 6 p. 89-105
- Full Text: false
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- Description: Shared use of grounds allowed Australian cricket and football to subsidize each other, but cartel arrangements that determined the use of stadiums and the distribution of benefits and costs between sports may have been less than optimal. Estimation of deadweight losses from the use of stadiums is not possible in the absence of a counterfactual specifying the level of demand if the behaviour of cartel members had been coordinated more effectively. Archival, financial and attendance report data can be used to estimate increases in actual demand under alternative scenarios. In Melbourne and Adelaide, the controlling bodies of cricket and football uncured significant losses in welfare from joint use of their cities’ major stadium, due to the importance they attached to non-monetary aspects of utility.
Stadiums and scheduling : Measuring deadweight losses in the Victorian Football League, 1920–70
- Authors: Frost, Lionel , Borrowman, Luc , Halabi, Abdel
- Date: 2017
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Australian Economic History Review Vol. , no. (2017), p.
- Full Text: false
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- Description: Over a 50 year period, Australian Rules football's major league, the Victorian Football League, did not always use its largest and best-equipped stadium for regular season games between its most popular teams or schedule those teams to play twice in a regular season. We calculate deadweight losses from the use of capital goods (stadiums) and effects of match scheduling in this professional sports league. Such analysis has not been attempted previously because of the absence of a counterfactual. The welfare losses were significant but not sufficient to threaten the survival of a distance-protected cartel.
Legitimizing amateur status using financial reports: Victorian Football League clubs, 1909-1912
- Authors: Halabi, Abdel , Lightbody, Margaret , Frost, Lionel , Carter, Amanda
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Accounting History Vol. 21, no. 1 (2016), p. 25-47
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- Description: It is generally accepted by historians that in the early twentieth century clubs in Australian Football's Victorian Football League (VFL) made payments to "amateur" players prior to the legalization of professionalism and that such payments were not disclosed in club financial reports. Previously, financial reports have not been used to support or refute such claims. This article presents findings from a detailed examination of the financial reports and other records of six of the 10 VFL clubs for the years surrounding the legalization of professional football in 1911 (1909-1912). Prior to 1911, most clubs engaged in fraudulent financial reporting practices by misrepresenting player payments as other forms of permitted expenditures, thus concealing prohibited remunerative payments to players within their financial reports. Using isomorphic influences to explain the reasons for this misrepresentation, we conclude that the financial reports were used to legitimate the majority of clubs as amateur organizations. Competing isomorphic pressures, particularly conflicting coercive factors related to the VFL's prohibition on player payments and normative pressures associated with increasing professionalism amongst players, contributed to clubs engaging in fraudulent financial reporting. © The Author(s) 2015.
A cricket ground or a football stadium? The business of ground sharing at the Adelaide Oval before 1973
- Authors: Frost, Lionel , Lightbody, Margaret , Carter, Amanda , Halabi, Abdel
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Business History Vol. 58, no. 8 (2016), p. 1164-1182
- Full Text: false
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- Description: Before 1973, cricket and Australian Football used the Adelaide Oval for major games during their respective seasons. Football's popularity as a spectator sport prompted its organising body to seek to build an improved stadium, but cricket authorities controlled the asset and acted to maintain its specialised character as a cricket ground. A case study of how the gains from a shared capital good are negotiated when asset controllers and users have different objectives is provided. A series of counterfactual scenarios based on football remaining at the Oval is constructed from archival sources and their outcomes projected based on data in financial reports.
Evading labour market regulations to preserve team performance : Evidence from the Victorian Football League, 1930-70
- Authors: Borrowman, Luc , Frost, Lionel , Halabi, Abdel , Schuwalow, Peter
- Date: 2020
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Business History Vol. 62, no. 8 (2020), p. 1303-1323
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- Description: Sports teams that seek to maximise the number of wins, rather than profits, may not comply with league labour market regulations that compress payroll structures to promote even competition. This strategic behaviour depends on others, as teams choose a strategy to create team incentives, to which rivals will respond. A case study of four teams in a semi-professional Australian Rules football league tests the effectiveness of strategies to evade these regulations on winning percentages. Both compliance and non-compliance within this labour market regulation regime, based on different wage structures and talent distribution, were effective strategies to improve team performance.
The financial impact of world series cricket on Australia’s State Cricket Associations, 1974–1982
- Authors: Halabi, Abdel , Dickson, Geoff , Frost, Lionel
- Date: 2023
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: International Journal of the History of Sport Vol. 40, no. 1 (2023), p. 1-17
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- Description: World Series Cricket (WSC), a breakaway competition established by the Australian media proprietor Kerry Packer that operated between 1977 and 1979, was arguably the biggest shock to occur in world cricket. While there is some commentary about the financial cost of WSC, there has been little empirical analysis on the monetary effects of WSC on State Cricket Associations affiliated to the Australian Cricket Board (ACB). Analysis of state cricket association financial reports between 1974 and 1982 shows the substantial negative financial impact of WSC, and a relatively quick recovery through increased post-WSC distributions from the ACB. Non-financial information highlights the initial negative, then positive, feelings between the ACB and WSC. © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
Stadium financing, usage and the impact of institutional change on consumer demand : the case of VFL Park, 1970–1986
- Authors: Mishra, Vinod , Borrowman, Luc , Frost, Lionel , Halabi, Abdel
- Date: 2023
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Asia-Pacific Economic History Review Vol. 63, no. 1 (2023), p. 94-116
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- Description: Ownership, financing, and usage of stadiums are key issues that affect the commercial operations of sports leagues. Stadiums that are owned by leagues may generate deadweight losses if they are not used to full capacity. We (1) model demand to measure the impact of the Victorian Football League building a privately-funded stadium (VFL Park); (2) then use counterfactual scenarios to estimate social saving from different venues and playing days, and determine whether further welfare gains would have been possible. VFL Park provided greater control over revenue, but further institutional change was needed to fully exploit potential commercial gains from the stadium. © 2023 The Authors. Asia-Pacific Economic History Review published by Economic History Society of Australia and New Zealand and John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.